Bless Your Heart

My dad called Friday afternoon and announced that he was coming up from Florida for a visit and that he was already in SC at my uncle’s house. He said he would drive up to my house Monday with my grandmother (Nanny). So on Monday Jon and I spent the day with my dad, Nanny, my sister Sara, and her two boys. We had lunch, toured Sara’s new homesite, hung out at her mother in law’s, and toured my house. Then Tuesday Sara and I drove down to my uncle’s to see my Pappy. Pappy is blind and wasn’t feeling up to the last leg of the trip up to NC. It was so good to see him. Bless his heart, I just can’t imagine how scary and frustrating going blind would be. He was glad to visit with us all. My uncle Kevin (the one who cut off his thumb last spring) came over to visit and brought his wife so it was a mini reunion. Pictures can be found here.

Our tiny little town is now home to a Starbucks! We feel so special, esp since my in-laws have been wanting a Starbucks in their much bigger town for years now. The building is so cute- very Tara with columns and ceiling fans and a big patio. So cute. It was pouring down rain and late at night so these pics aren’t as good as they could be-please excuse.

Rachel sent me this link the other day about Sharpies. You know, the marker. The link started a conversation about how my mom’s boyfriend Hale didn’t know what a Sharpie was until a couple of years ago. He said he’d heard of them, but had never been introduced. Well then that led to a conversation about another of Hale’s recent discoveries: tuna fish. When you open a can of tuna, mix in some mayo or mustard or both, maybe some relish, then put in on bread, our family (like many, many others) calls it a tunafish sandwich. That cracks me up because you wouldn’t say “steak meat” but we say tuna fish- redundant.
Anyway, a couple of years ago there was a huge ice storm. People lost power for weeks. Our house had a working wood burning fireplace so Mom, Hale, Morgan, and Sam the dog came and bunked down with Jon and I for a few nights until we could get power back on. The power outage was widespread- even restaurants were without power. And the ones that had power were packed. So for dinner one night I said I’d make tuna fish sandwiches.
Hale said “What do you mean?”.
What do you mean, what do I mean?
Hale- How are you going to make tuna sandwiches with no power?
Well, I don’t need power. I’ve got a regular can opener, and we’ve got chips and stuff for sides.
Hale- But how have you been keeping the fish fresh? And what are you getting out of the can?

At this point the room was silent with everyone looking at Hale in bewilderment. The man didn’t realize that tuna for sandwiches came from a can. He had never made tuna salad before. He had seen it at restaurants and delis, but he actually thought they made the tuna salad from leftover tuna from the fresh slab of fish. He was wondering where we had been keeping an actual tuna. It was one of the most bizarre conversations I’d ever been a part of. How can you be over 50 years of age, spend a good portion of those 50 years a bachelor, and not make tuna fish?
It makes you wonder what “normal” thing that you take for granted is fascinating and new to someone else!

That’s what Jon calls me- the pantless wonder. I just don’t like wearing pants. Clothes really, on the bottom half of me. If I had my way, I would be able to wear big, blousy shirts or baby doll dresses, and bloomers. Oh, and flip flops. Kind of like an ice skater’s outfit minus the skates, and a little more roomy up top. Now, it’s not that I think I look like a supermodel or anything. I’m not wanting to show the world my legs or tush. I just feel all restricted. I don’t mind swishy skirts as much, but you can’t wear those everywhere, and then you have to have just the right top. Just the other day Lisa and I were talking and she said “You’d do anything not to wear pants.” It’s so true. All I have to do is change society’s idea of how a woman should dress and I’ll be all set!

My husband Jon is a manager for a local grocery store chain. He’s been with this company for 15 years and has lots of stories. He worked late last night and came home with quite a doozy.
Jon was watching the security cameras last night when he noticed a scuffle on one of the aisles. He went to check it out and came upon two men in a full on brawl in the Health and Beauty Aids section of the store. Jon used his portable phone to call 911 and rallied the troops (any larger men working in the store at the time who could help keep innocent customers away from the brawl). You don’t want to get directly involved as you never know who’s carrying a gun these days and I’m not having my husband blown to bits over a dispute on aisle 6. The cops came, tried to calm the men down, but they were out of control. Four more police cruisers showed up and they finally got the fighters under control. The story then came out.
Man #1 had spent the previous couple of hours hiding out in the restroom drinking stolen vanilla extract. Drunk, and I’m guessing rather fragrant, he stumbled out into the store proper and discovered his brother was doing some shopping. Vanilla man had some beef with his brother and decided the best place to settle this was near the deodorant and toothpaste. Brother was caught off guard, but put up a decent fight. These guys didn’t go down easy. There was much cursing, yelling, and throwing of assailants against police vehicles.
And now there’s some serious extract restocking to do on the baking aisle. Who knew you could get wasted in a bathroom on vanilla extract? They sell beer & wine. What would make a guy bypass the party aisle and head straight for the baking section?

Today my sister Sara and I went to Mr. & Mrs. Long Talker’s house to visit and meet their new baby. Sara brought the boys (my fabulous nephews Jake and Joey). Baby Long Talker is just adorable. He’s only 5 weeks old so he’s mainly just eating and sleeping. So tiny. “Rochelle” looks great, and is doing a wonderful job with him. Baby has some long monkey toes! Such a cutie!
So, Daddy Long Talker surprised us some more. Today he totally stayed in the room while 3 women discussed babies, breast feeding, nipples, breast pumps, the works. Jon or my BIL would have high tailed it out the room at the first mention of “nipple sheild” but Daddy LT hung in. It was kinda weird.
After our visit we went out for lunch at a place that calls itself a Family Sports Pub. Jake needed a change and there was no changing table in the bathroom. After asking the waitress poor Sara had to change Jake on the floor of the manager’s office. Then the waitress spilled a couple of drinks at the next table and what was weird was that they didn’t have a mop. Other people showed up with tons of paper towels. So odd that a place that has been open for months, and an established national chain, has neither a mop nor a changing table.
It was just a strange day full of bizarre oddities.

When I call a married girlfriend’s house and her husband answers the phone, I like the conversation to go a certain way. Example: my Brother in Law is great at answering the phone when I call. We’ve been friends for 15 years- longer than he’s even known my sister, and yet he seems to get it. This is how it goes when I call:
BIL: Hello?
Me: Hey brother Marc!
BIL: Hey sister Shanny!
Me: How are you doing?
BIL: Good, how are you?
Me: Good!
BIL: Hold on I’ll get Sara. (or, Sara’s not here, or if Sara’s tied up he’ll take over and fill me in on what’s going on.)
See- he knows that as much as I love him, I’m calling for Sara most of the time and he doesn’t waste any time getting her on the phone.

Now let me tell you about my friend who we’ll call Rochelle, and her husband who we’ll call BJ. Rochelle and I have been friends since high school. Her husband I’ve only known since they started dating. He and I have had maybe 15 personal encounters. I like him very much, but we’re not especially close. I haaaate having to call her house. The girl can never get to the phone. BJ is all over it. And this is how it goes:
BJ: Hello?
Me: Hey BJ it’s Shannon. How are you?
BJ: Well hey Shannon! I’m good, how are you?
Me: Good!
BJ: So…what’s been going on lately? Haven’t we been having great weather? When are you coming to visit again?
Me: Well, that’s actually why I called. I wanted to check with Rochelle about-
BJ: Did you see that last Tom Cruise movie? Did you hear about that new restaurant? Have you heard the new Coldplay cd?

Aaarrgghh!! It’s rapid fire. I can’t answer a question before the next one comes along. And you know he doesn’t really care if I’ve read the latest Grisham novel. He’s just a social chatterbox. Which is fine, but come on! Just. put. her. on. the. phone. It can take a good 5 minutes before I find out Rochelle isn’t even home!
Give me just the facts man, just the facts.

Saturday we went to our agency’s adoption seminar. We wanted to attend a seminar before officially applying as we had some questions. All of our questions were answered and then some. We learned a lot. Our facilitator had just returned the previous week from picking up her 2nd daughter in China, so she was full of fresh info. Two other families came in with their adopted kids, one from Guatemala and one from Kazakhstan. Lots of good info and adorable children.

Some interesting facts that we learned about adopting from China:
-There are over 1000 orphanages in China.
-Only 2% of all the children in the orphanages get adopted. 2%!
-Apparently some parents can develop post adoption depression. Like post partum. Who knew? (that can happen no matter where you adopt from)
-Unless Ling Ling is re-adopted here in the US if she ever needs a certified copy of her birth certificate she’d have to write to China!

Hearing from parents who adopted from countries other than China was very helpful. With Kazakhstan you have to stay in country for 6 weeks. Whoa! Who can do that? And in Guatemala you get your referral very quickly. The babies are in private foster care- very well taken care of. But things can go wrong and the mother that was there had her referral for over a year (!!!) before she could go get her son. I would die from the torture of waiting and knowing what your baby looks like and not being able to go get him!

We also learned that Chinese adoptions are taking right around 13 months. Which is perfect- right around the time we’d predicted. We’ll still add a couple of months to the timeline to allow for anything to go a little awry. So now we’re more comfortable in our decisions- China, our agency, everything. And more than just being comfortable, we’re even more excited!

My MIL is a librarian and yesterday was her library’s 5th birthday celebration. She’s recruited me to face paint during the parties the last couple of years. This was the library’s 5th birthday and the largest party. Knights and princesses and dragons and castles made up the decor and theme. A local artist painted big cutouts for the kids to get their pictures with. Click on all the pics to enlarge. There were sack races and games and such. I painted faces for 3 and a half hours straight. 125 kids. Sweet monkey knuckles my line never ended. I painted tons of swords, flowers, frogs, hearts, turtles, etc. One tornado (by request, not normally in my reportoire), which looked like a big bruise. The kids were so cute. A little boy declared that he loved his turtle, and that he loved me too. One little girl would periodically yell out “What’s the hold up?” while waiting in line. Then she got in the chair and had no idea what she wanted me to paint. I made posters with design ideas they could choose from. I figured if I could draw it I could paint it. I thought I had a pretty good selection going, but it wasn’t enough for one little girl who wanted a cheetah(!!!). I talked her into a dragonfly. There wasn’t enough time for me to snap pictures of all the kids, but I did get a couple. Little Batman had a runny nose so I had to be careful not to come away with a snotty paintbrush!

Jon’s been busy with some little upgrades to the house. We want to get the house as much in order and looking nice as we can before Ling Ling comes home. *** We know that when she gets here there will be very little time left for home improvements. He hung a ceiling fan in our bathroom, which I know is a little unorthodox, but man does it get hot in there. It’s an L shaped room with just one vent, so there’s precious little circulation. And because “it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity” that kills ya, we need circulation. So we bought a teeny fan. It’s pretty cute. He also replaced those ugly brass light fixtures the house came with that hang over the garage door and the pendant on our front porch. The “brass” had turned to yuk, and they’ve just never been pretty. New silver ones look much better. Thank goodness Lowe’s knows we’re on a budget and offers things like lights and fans on the cheap! Now I just need to get one more coat of paint on the front door, put the hardware back on, and we’ll be in business.

***To clarify a few things: 1. We are big planners and like to be prepared. We are trying to get all non Ling Ling related home improvements done before the paperchase plus work plus everything else gets too busy. We know that once we’re knee deep in forms we won’t have much time. Then there will be the 6 mos or so wait once we are DTC, and we have set that time aside to work on her nursery and playroom. Our house was not brand new when we bought it, so there are lots of small cosmetic changes we’ve been working on that we’d like to take care of before our focus shifts 100% to her.
2. I bought a few outfits, but that is the end of Ling Ling shopping until we are DTC.
3. We’re estimating (and hoping) that we will be able to travel to pick her up late summer to early fall 2006. That will happen if we get our paperwork powered through and the time to match us with a child is around 6 mos. We shall see.