If anybody sees my head...

...could you please pick it up and pop it in the post. Tanksferdat. You see, I think it’s finally popped off and I just really hate the thought of kids using it as a soccer ball or some dog chewing on it. It hasn’t been doing me much good lately but I'm thinking it could really come in handy at some point in the future. ? Maybe.

You know how they say there are like three really big life changes that can affect your family: 1) Having a child, 2) Moving, 3) Changing jobs, and let’s just add another for fun 4) House burning down. Any one of these things is known to be a major stressor, but what would a therapist say if they knew I was dealing with all four at the same time? They would probably advise me to just leave the head because I don’t really need it right now and it’s just going to pop off again tomorrow.

So here’s a little update, saving the best for last of course...

House Burning Down (or “essentially destroyed by fire”, as we prefer to say): The house is coming along great. Our contractors and their marketer turned the restoration into a real project that showcases green building practices and “what to do if your house burns down” education. We’ve got hard hat tours, open houses, way cool vendor participation AND our home has been chosen to be on the City’s Build it Green! Tour this year. All this AND the restoration is coming along great. The plumbing, wiring and radiant heat are all in and now they’re putting up sheetrock, which means there’s actual walls. The windows and doors are in and they’re absolutely stunning (at least from what I can tell in the pictures) and the siding is going up on the back of the house (where the fire was). All of this while we’re on the other side of the planet. It’s all quite amazing actually. Our contractors are wonderful and kind and we trust them. If it were not for them our heads would’ve popped off a long time ago. We have no doubt the house will be absolutely gorgeous AND we’re thinking that, after a couple of dinner parties and some Thor-time in the Tupperware cupboard, she’ll be ours again.

Moving and Changing Jobs: I need to combine these because they kind of go together. Things are a little complicated on this front. We were originally planning on going home at the beginning of August because that’s the end of our two years here, but the house won’t be done by then so we were granted an extension from The Death Star, requiring certain commitments from Floyd. Along came Thor...and we’re suddenly wondering how quickly we can move back...but Floyd made commitments...but the house won’t be done...you get the picture. Then we add the issues with my little place of employment (I think we called it R2D2 before). The messages are mixed but I’m hearing they could use me back in the office, like...now. The conversation went something like this...

“So, I’ve only got one or two months left to play in Ireland and you want me to come back early and go to work? Are you out of your fekkin’ mind?”
...
“Oh…you’re going to pay me?
...
“How much?”
...
“I’ll see you Monday.”

It’s just that simple. We have a few expenses right now so we’ve gotta dig deep and just do what needs to be done. And if that means going back to the States, AND my cubicle, AND being away from Floyd for 4-5 weeks, AND not seeing our home together for the first time, AND not spending our anniversary together...so be it. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Having a Baby: Oh yea, Thor, I almost forgot...NOT! Thor is front and center in all of this mayhem. As y’all know, Thor is in China’s Waiting Child Program because of her cleft lip/cleft palate. That program works a little differently from their Traditional or Non-Special Needs Program. Our Letter of Intent (LOI) was sent to China on June 26th and we are now waiting for our Letter of Acceptance (LOA), which is actually a letter from China asking if we’re still interested. Ummmm....gee, let me think... This seems like a crazy step, but they are simply seeking confirmation (the other name for this step) that we can handle her special needs. These days the LOA can take over 100 days to get (ugh) UNLESS your original file (the one we sent in May 2006) was already through the review room, which would mean that it may only take about 35 days (much better). Now, we’re pretty sure our file was out of the review room but we just don’t know for sure. It gets kind of complicated and involves lots of dates and I won’t bore you with it (as opposed to boring you with all this other stuff). Needless to say, only time will tell, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it (except take deep breaths). Then after we send back our LOA we wait another 3-4 weeks for our Travel Authorization (TA) and travel can happen within a few weeks of that. Essentially, if things go according to schedule we could be traveling as early as mid- to late September or as late as mid-November. But there is just nothing certain in this whole process, so we still send out LOTS of good juju.

Speaking of good juju, we are off to London this weekend because we have to renew some adoption paperwork (the thumbs-up by the Feds, i.e. the Holy Grail of adoption paperwork) and, in order to do so, we need to renew our fingerprints. Yes, you heard me correctly. Renew our fingerprints. Because they changed so much over the last year. I would really love for somebody to tally up what it costs, financially and mentally, the potential adoptive parents to comply with all of these fekkin’ silly-ass rules to bring home their child. I realize there have been a few bad apples but, man! The Feds (I can't even bring myself to name their office in this blog because I just know they're reading it) have us all by the cajones and it just isn’t comfortable. So, the good juju comes in the form of the vibes that we send to the Feds so that they do not choose to mess with us and we can get our renewed paperwork before we travel (feel free to light candles...if you have any left).

So – off we go to jolly-old London. We have our sights set on toy shopping to help stock the little care package that we’re sending to Thor and her foster family. We’re also going to check out the precious antiquities that were plundered from ancient sites all over the world, such as those we just saw in Turkey and Pompeii, and now reside in the British Museum (for safekeeping of course). We might sample a few real ales as well. So, as usual, any complaints I might have about such things as renewing our fingerprints are now falling on deaf ears.

And let’s not forget the nesting. That instinctual maternal nesting that I am so needing to do right now...and can’t. Imagine. I can’t decorate her room because it’s on the other side of the planet. I can’t buy baby stuff over here because it’s wayyy too expensive and we’d just have to, somehow, get it back to the States. It’s a little frustrating. But you know what I can do? I can make lists. I can make lists of all of the lists that I need to make. That’s what I CAN do. I can also read books about adoption and attachment, join Yahoo Groups, research craniofacial surgical teams back home, talk to other adoptive parents, bake cookies, and...make lists of lists.

So that’s where we’re at these days. Oh, and it’s been raining for 43 days straight here in Ireland. I don’t think I mind it as much as some but I definitely feel a wee bit mental. Something tells me it’s not the rain though.

Inter-Continental

An internetty friend over at China Calling suggested we post a Google Earth image of where we live. Cool idea! I love Google Earth and we've had some fun playing around with it in the past. So I thought, hey, I'll post satellite images of our Irish home, our Portland home, our property on the eastern flank of the Cascades, and the City in China where Thor lives.




The interesting thing was this...you know how when you type your location into Google Earth and the image "flies" from one place to the next? Well, as I flew over vast stretches of land and giant oceans to get to each place I started feeling knots in my stomach. Anxiety. Almost a cold sweat. I started to feel, well, a little spread out. I felt an overwhelming need to pack up shop, go grab Thor, return to our nest and never leave. Ever. I suddenly needed all of these things that I love to be very very close to me.

And then I looked at the scale of things. Look at our Ireland home at 7,500 ft (obviously not a lot of demand for high res satellite imagery to, say, count sheep). We are one of the little brown dots near the top of the screen. Let's just say it'd take a while to walk down to the store to pick up a loaf o' brown bread. Yet, look at our Portland home at 3,500 ft. Ack! Houses upon houses upon streets upon freeways upon Plaid Pantrys. Then compare this to where Thor lives in China, viewed from 35,000 ft. Even at this elevation it's poor resolution because, well, because it's China. Gazing at that image I can almost hear the noises, the shouting, I can almost smell the warm, dank, choking air. At our cabin you can hear the wind touching the leaves. It's amazing to me how different these places are.

I suppose, though, that when you bring it back down to a human-scale, it's all about home. Floyd and I have "homes" in several places (does that sound pretentious or what?) and we've been traveling so much over the last couple of years that we joke about the concept of home. Where is home? We've taken to saying, "Home is where the Jezebel is" (Jezebel being our cat). Now that we've added Thor to the mix, I'm thinking that home is wherever she is. So here are some pictures of our "homes" on a more human scale. Thor's home? Well we don't really know what it looks like, but this image is certainly closer to the truth than any of those other doorways.




So it looks like I won't really feel at home until we've got Thor and Jezebel taking naps under the same roof (sigh....).

An Amazing Day

I just need to document this day. This amazing day. Right now my heart feels lighter and I feel an optimism and a joy that I haven’t experienced in a good long while. So long, in fact, that they feel kind of strange to me. Almost like trying on clothes at the Bins (where clothes are brought to "display" with a backhoe and you buy them by the pound) where you just found this cool blouse but, good Lord, you don’t even want to know where its been. You look great in it, but, hmmmm... That kind of strange.

So, yes, optimism and joy. And why, pray tell, would I be feeling this way? Well, a couple of reasons...

After waiting two long weeks (well, six months actually), we finally received our first check to rebuild our home. I think I mentioned before that our (almost thoroughly incompetent) mortgage company originally mailed the check to our charred wreckage of a home back in the States. Whatever. And then it took them for-fekkin’-ever to get their act together to then send the check to us over here. Meanwhile, our contractor can’t start because, well, it takes a lot of money to rebuild a house. But today, oh blessed of days, the check arrived.

We live behind a locked gate so it’s always a hassle when packages come. They’ll ring when they get to the gate and you have to go up and meet them. If it’s an important package I’ll usually stay at home to wait for it but, really, how lame is that? Now this would, indeed, qualify as a very important package, but I had my first piano lesson in a while (and I had actually been practicing) so I didn’t want to miss it. ANYhoo....I’m sitting at the piano at my teacher’s house, a few minutes away from my house, and the mobile rings. The conversation goes something like this...

Me: "Hello."
FedEx Guy: "Ehh...FedEx here."
Me: "Great! Where’re ya at?"
FedEx Guy: "The gate."
Me: "Ok, Ok (panicking)....I’ll be there in.....12 minutes!"
FedEx Guy: "...and I’ll be gone."
Me: "Gah!!! But I desperately need the package that you have for me (I’m now packing up my lesson supplies and running out the door)...please...can you wait just a few minutes...I’ll be right there."
FedEx Guy: ".....nah....I’m fekkin’ lajughehsghegfrsedj....."(something in a really strong Irish accent)
Me: "Pardon?"
FedEx Guy: "...yea...I’m up to me neck. I can’t wait for ye."
Me: "Then tell me where ye'll be...I’ll come to ye...I’ll meet ye in fekkin’ Dublin if I have to...."

And, amazingly, we worked it out. We did the deal in a parking lot. I picked up Floyd at work, we met “your man” in the parking lot, we signed the check, then we packaged it back up in another FedEx envelope and sent it back over the water to our bank back home. Efficient eh? Now we only have another, ohhhh, I’d say 6 or 7 checks to do that with before we’re finished rebuilding the house. My nerves should be pretty well toasted by then. But today I am happy. It’s been almost six months since the fire and today...we can start to put her back together again.

And if that wasn’t good enough....

I’ve been kind of freaking out about this whole adoption thing. Oh yea...remember that? We’re adopting a wee one from China. Well, I don’t talk about it that much these days because there just hasn’t been a lot of good news on that front. The wait just seems to get longer and longer and the process seems to be getting less and less reliable. It’s like if you’re at the grocery store and you’re ready to check-out (and, no, I’m not comparing our future child to a head of lettuce....don’t be silly) and you survey the lines at the check stands....hmmmm....and you pick one. And you’re standin’ in it...and you realize that it’s not moving very quickly. In fact, the other lines seem to be moving much faster. And, hey! Those people got in line after you and now they’re walking out with their groceries!....and you’re still in line. And then you look ahead in your line to see the checker and the customer arguing...the checker isn’t happy with the customer...the customer starts to beg and plead...he’s sobbing...but the checker gruffly sends him away.....without his groceries. God. How devastating. It must suck to be that guy. But, wait. The checker might not like you either. What if he yells at you and sends you home without your groceries? And as you continue standing in line, you watch other people go through their lines....much faster....and go walking out with their lovely bags of groceries. But you can’t move because you’re afraid. You're scared stiff actually. You've never wanted anything more than this bag of groceries and you're desperate. You’re afraid that if you jump lines then maybe everybody’ll jump lines and you’ll be too slow and you’ll wind up in the back of the line again....or maybe that checker will go on break and then that line’ll slow down too. Aarrrggghhhh! So you stay in the line that you’re in....and hope for the best.

Get the picture?

So I called a representative of our agency today and I was talking to her about their different programs (AKA the other lines) and we were discussing the wait times for those programs, etc. and she said something to the effect of, “...well, from a timing perspective, you wouldn’t want to switch into that program because you’ll be getting your referral from China in about six months...” Wuh? Could you repeat that please? Six months? At first I thought she was delusional. We’ve been hearing (from unofficial sources of course) that our wait could be two years and over, which would put our referral at least another year out. And she’s telling me 6 months? So I questioned her. And I questioned her some more. This woman has always been, in my eyes, a very honest and reliable source of information on International Adoption. Always. But six months? She indicated that, because of the new regulations going into place in May, the referral process would speed up significantly and that the wait times would not exceed 18 months. Hm. So I’m thinking....and I’m thinking...

You see, there are a lot of things about this that just don’t make sense, but talking about them would detract from my amazing day and I'm just not going to do that. Suffice it to say, a lot of things, indeed. But, you know what? I want to believe her. I really really REALLY want to believe her. I desperately want to believe her. So, you know what? I’m going to believe her. So, please, don’t rain on my parade. And DON’T shackle my high. Because, today, it feels like we’ll be meeting our little Thor before the winter solstice!!!!

So, shush, just give me this one, amazing, day...please....

A Pothole on the Road to Recovery

I’ve been waiting for a good time to give an update on how our house is coming along and I thought that, tonight, the eve of firing our first contractor, might be a good time. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, our home was “essentially destroyed by a fire” back in October. You see, Floyd took a two-year assignment over here in Ireland so we left our home in the Northwest. I think for some folks this would be a no-brainer, but there were two things that we struggled with in deciding whether or not to move over here. 1) was my job/career, which I was really engrossed in, and 2) our home. It’s an 1899 Victorian that we had put a lot of sweat and money into and, frankly, we were just way more attached to it than any sane people should be. I had bought it before I met Floyd and everybody thought I was crazy. It needed loads of work and it was in the “wrong” neighborhood. My first night in the house was marked by some dude running through my yard blazing a handgun and shooting at lord only knows what. Call it the welcome wagon if you will. When the cops came and laughed in my face for buying the place, I dug my heels in pretty good. Ever since then that house and I got pretty attached.

So, fast forward about 10 years and she’s gutted to the studs because some fucking toads that were renting the place couldn’t see fit to use an ashtray. Sometimes I think our home was just so pissed to have these toads living in her that she sacrificed her innards to see them leave. It just seems like something she’d do. She’s that kind of a gal. Uppity I suppose.

We hired two contractors when we were back in the NW. One is a specialist in disasters, fire, floods, wind storms, etc. An ambulance chaser to be sure, but we were in shock and were steered towards these folks because of their experience in dealing with fire (and saying all the right things to people that are in a state of shock). But they knew nothing of working with older homes so we got another company that would do all the finish work. This second company is well-respected in the area and we really liked their portfolio. Not to mention the fact that they’re just really nice people. So we had our team together, everybody agreed to play nice and get along, and we felt good enough to come back to Ireland.

So, if you’ll forgive me for stating the obvious...it’s really hard trying to rebuild your home when you’re on the other side of the planet. Especially when the ambulance chaser doesn’t see fit to call you back or return e-mails. Yea. That makes it a little bit harder. And then they’re ripping the shit out of the inside of your house, and you don’t know if they’re making the effort to salvage the 100-year old straight grain fir molding that you and your friends busted your asses trying to restore, or if their crew of illegal workers, that are undoubtedly underpaid, are deciding whether to pocket the door hardware that could go pretty far in supplementing their meager income. You think about these things in the middle of the night. Especially when nobody calls you back. Yea. It gets rough.

And then you try to share your frustrations and fears with folks and they just remind you of how fortunate you are that you get a new house at the end of the day (!). Well, let me be the first to tell you that burning your house up is NOT a good way to get a new house...especially if you never wanted a new house and especially if the thought of a new house kind of makes you itch. So, while I realize all of the ways in which Floyd and I are blessed, I think I’ll continue with my story of the blessed re-building of our house. Thankyouverymuch.

Thankfully we have a few friends in the area (like the Fire Chief and family) that are willing to check in on the homestead for us. Based on pictures taken through cracks in the boarded up windows and doors, it looks like things are progressing just fine. The charred and melted material seems to be decreasing and we can see studs. Progress. This is good. But, still, the updates are woefully few and far between from the folks that we’re paying and the ulcer-causing knots are growing.

In the meantime we’re getting excited about a few things. We decided to take the “opportunity” to make some changes. Knock out a wall, tear out an unused chimney, make a bigger kitchen, create more storage space, build a staircase that’s more suitable for little people and....drumroll please....putt in some solar!! Actually, we don’t know if we can afford the solar stuff but Floyd’s a big solar freak and he’s working on a system that would hopefully heat water for space heating (radiant floor heat) and our domestic hot water. Joy. Big joy. But I’m containing my exclamation points because we don’t know if it can happen yet. So if any of you have experience with solar power or radiant floor heat, give us a shout, we’d appreciate the opportunity to pick your brain. I really like the idea of walking the talk (the “sustainability” talk) and taking a 100-year old home and getting her geared-up for the next 100 years. This gives us joy.

But then there’s the ambulance chasers. Ugh. We’ve been waiting on an “engineers report” from them for over a month now and it just came in yesterday. Completely worthless. Like completely. Nothing redeemable at all. I don’t even think the few crayon drawings were of our house. And we waited over a month for this? We postponed all design work as well as delayed submitting the budget to insurance AND pretty much guaranteed that we won’t be able to move into our house when we move back to the NW....for this?! Whew. Now that’s some fine project management right there.

Thankfully our other contractors, the nice people, are willing to step in. Unfortunately, their employees are all paid livable wages (haha) so we don’t know if our insurance can afford them. But we’re going to try and make it work. You know all of those magical incantations and de-smokifications that the ambulance chasers claim that only they can perform? Turns out anybody can do it. The magical mystery ozone chamber (that can suck so much smoke it probably cures lung cancer)? Yea, you can buy one for like $300. The witchy “smoke-sealer” that they paint all remaining surfaces with, the one you thought might be made with the eyes of newts? Yea, it’s called primer.

Firing somebody is not something we take lightly. It’s serious stuff to mess with somebody’s bread and butter. And the guy we’re working with seems like a pretty nice guy. Family man and all that. But we can’t let our old gal get burned again, so it’s gotta be done. Besides, I see sunlight on the horizon...and the soothing of my pre-ulcerous knots...once we get him out of our lives.

So that’s where we’re at. Maybe once we get this icky stuff out of the way I can post about the wet dream/nightmare of getting/having to pick out an entire house worth of appliances, countertops, cupboards, flooring, hardware, sinks, baths, tile and fixtures in one week. Oh...and paint colors...for the whole house (jaysus, I’m starting to sweat-I wrote a post back in July '06 about what a color freak I am but I have no clue as to how to provide the link to it-go to my archives and check it out if you want to get a glimpse into crazy). I think you can see the whole wet dream/nightmare thing going on here.

If any of you have some remodeling stories to share, I’d love to hear ‘em. Or maybe you have a favorite range (we know what wzgirl’s is!-once again, I can't figure out how to provide a link to that one post of hers where she raves about her AGA), or a favorite faucet, or a fridge, or a light fixture, or a....you get the picture. We’re open. Oh, and blessed.

Don't rent your house out to toads

This is a letter that I just wrote to our homies....thought some of my internettys would like to know what's been going on and why I've been so incommunicado. I'm not the same person I was a few weeks ago.

To our Friends and Family,

For some of you this is an update and for others this may be the first you’ve heard of it. On October 24th our home in Portland was essentially destroyed by a fire. They think it started somewhere on the back porch, smoldered for quite some time, then engulfed the entire back of the house in flames. As far as fires go, they say it was a pretty impressive one. It even burned a good part of the apartments next door. The firefighters had it out in less than an hour of their arrival but the damage was still significant. Thankfully nobody was hurt.

Our home is a modest 1899 Victorian with lots of personality and is pretty well known in the neighborhood, especially by those folks that appreciate old houses and the work that we’ve put into her. I’ve included a couple of before and after photos. As you can see from the pictures, this fire meant business.

The good news is that the professionals say that, while it has to be torn down to the studs, we can put her back together again. Our insurance agency has been good to us so far and we’ve been meeting with contractors that can do the work. We’re hoping to find people we can trust because we’ll be overseeing the rebuilding from back in Ireland, and sometimes that can feel like an awful long ways away.

We realize that it’s just a house and that we are still blessed in many ways. We are lucky to have each other and Jezebel and all of our friends and family that have shown us so much support over these last couple of weeks. But it still hurts. We poured so much of ourselves into that house and we loved her in a big big way.

So, when you have a moment, let us know how you’re doing and send us and our home some warm thoughts and good wishes. They’ll be put to good use.

Much Love,

Millicent and Floyd