Into a New Year

The next school year will soon be upon us. OK, what I mean is ME. We had our first production meeting on Friday for the season. First show is “Into the Woods.” I LOVE THIS SHOW! I am not typically a fan of musicals, but if you need to do one, this is one worth doing. More than shallow entertainment, and great music. I was thrilled when the play selection committee agreed that this would open our season AND our new performing arts center.

I went into the meeting with high hopes. But it didn’t last long. I have worked with this director before and should have known I would be unhappy. Her concept? Actors in tree costumes on roller skates. “I think it will eliminate the need for a lot of scenery.” There I sit thinking “WOW, I guess you don’t want scenery!? Maybe I should leave now and save us both a lot of pain and suffering.”

I kept my cool as usual. It will be a semester filled with “educational” moments. Wish me luck.

The Perils of Penelope . . . pineapple, that is.

When I wrote in my last post :

 Stay tuned to find out the fate of Penelope Pineapple.  Will it be the grill, the blender, or something more sinister?! 

I didn’t actually intend to blog about the pineapple in my refrigerator.  BUT, dinner tonight was so good that I just have to share!  Not only was it really good, I didn’t ruin my calorie count eating it.  Sorry, it was not the grilled desert (but here is the link to my favorite gilled pineapple/desert), not the blender, it was the chopping block!  (Insert evil laughter here.)  

Grilled Tuna with Pineapple and Rice

This recipe fed my family of three with a lot of left-overs.  (Yum, I can’t wait for lunch tomorrow!)

First the tuna (2-6 oz. Steaks).  I marinated it for about 30 min. in the following ingredients.  A zip bag with the excess air pushed out works really well.  With the bag you don’t need to make a huge amount of marinade to cover the steaks.

• 1/4 cup Olive Oil
• 1 TBS Soy Sauce
• 2 TBS Lemon Juice
• 2 Cloves Garlic smashed
• 2 Tsp Grated Ginger Root

While the tuna marinated in the fridge, I started the rice cooking.  (Mini Rant:  DO NOT USE INSTANT RICE!  If you are bothering to cook real food, cook some real rice while you are at it!)  I used 2 cups (rice cooker size) of Jasmine rice (my fav!) and used a can of low sodium/fat chicken stock and added water for the rest of the liquid.  (Using low sodium/fat stock lets you control the amount of these ingredients in your food.  You can always add more if you want it.  It is not a diet thing, just a good cooking habit thing.)  I also tossed some minced onion (1/2 small), and ginger root (1 TBS) in with the rice.

While the rice was cooking and the tuna marinated, I chopped up the following:

• 1/4 Pineapple in 1″ chunks
• 1 Orange in 1/2 ” chunks
• 2 TBS Fresh Cilantro 
• 2 TBS Fresh Parsley
• 2 TBS Fresh Chives

(Some red pepper would’ve been nice, but I didn’t have any.)

By now your rice is well under way and you can grill the Tuna.  4 min. each side over high heat.  (The grill must be preheated.)  When rice and tuna are done, chop the tuna into bite size chunks.  Toss tuna, rice, fruit, and herbs together and add:

• Juice of 1/2 Lime
• 2 Tsp Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper

And toss again.

Serve with Soy Sauce or Nuoc Mam on the side.  I prefer Nuoc Mam myself, nothing like the salty sweetness to go with the ginger and pineapple!  What is Nuoc Mam?  Vietnam’s all purpose condiment made from anchovy extract, salt and sugar.  One of those things that is WAY better than the sum of it’s ingredients.

And now the Mom’s are out there saying, “Grilled Tuna!  My kids/husband will never eat that!”  But they will. Really.  My son has remarked that last two times I have served tuna “Mom, how come tuna tastes like chicken?”  I don’t know the answer to that (in part because it doesn’t taste like chicken to me), but I do know he eats the tuna with less complaint than chicken!

So, there it is; the first post about the pineapple in my fridge.  Tune in tomorrow when our villain will say, “Smoothies anyone?”

Are you kidding . . . .

***RANT WARNING****  

A letter arrived today from our adoption service provider.  It was to inform us of the recent warnings and increased risks associated with a Vietnamese adoption.  In  addition, having dispatched their duty of “informing us” they want us to sign a document that says “Despite these risks, we wish to continue to pursue an adoption from Vietnam”, but will not hold them liable for losses due to an incomplete adoption.   Oh, and if we are not successful, they don’t actually owe us anything but will transfer a modest amount of fees to another program.  ERRRRRRGGHHH!

We have been waiting (2nd on the list, remember?) since April of ‘07 for a referral.  We have reached 1A status, and so have been on the brink for 4 months of waiting that should have been six weeks.  There is only ninety days left until the MOU expires.   Who on earth would chuck all that at this point in the process??!!!  O.K., I know this is a legal thing because they know that MANY families are going to be deeply disappointed.  And in the good ‘ole USA this means you have to find someone to blame and heal your heart with a law suit hopefully resulting in cash!

Honestly, my hands shook when I opened that envelope, we weren’t expecting anything from their office and it was addressed to us personally.  I didn’t think it was a referral, but hoped it was some sort of personal news.  Every request for information that I send always results in getting general info about the program.

AND, I don’t want another program!  In this time and place adopting from Vietnam IS not only plan “A” it IS THE ONLY PLAN!

 

Sheesh.

Too Much to Digest

The news recently has been too much to digest.  The beginning was the warning about adoptions from Vietnam and announcement summarizing “Irregularities” from the US Embassy in Hanoi in late April.  These sent me reeling.  Not only did it put into question our current efforts to adopt but also cast doubt upon the adoption we completed more than 6 years ago.  

Shortly after that announcement I discovered WordPress and the community of those concerned about adoption.  I read blogs from other adoptive parents, I read blogs of other waiting families, I read blogs of birth/first/other mothers, I read blogs from parents in Vietnam in the process of bringing their children home, I read the pages of organizations like Adoption Buzz and  Ethica, and I read the blogs of adult adoptees, (most notable, that of Julia, whose blog I discovered the day of her death.)  I have learned so much, but I’m still trying to digest it all.  I feel a bit like my brain has burst like an over-filled balloon.  And there is more to learn and absorb!

So, bear with me as I try to work through all this information.  First the things I am sure of:

 

1. The adoption of S was never an act of charity.  It was an act of selfishness.  I wanted to patch a hole in my life, so that I could find joy each day instead of emptiness.  I am so irritated, angry with people who tell me “He is so lucky you found him.”   It is not true, S is a wonderful person who would’ve found happiness with another family in the US, or France or preferably even Vietnam.  When I respond that “I am the lucky one.”  it sounds petty and wrong, and they don’t get it and I need to find a better way to express this.  ”I am lucky to be with him.”  is a start.

 

2. Adoption number 2 has a different purpose.  S needs family.  Family that understands S’s history, shares his story.  Someone to be connected to after I and J are gone.  Sure, it’s for me too, but there is more to it this time.  

 

Things I need to work out: 

1. Do we continue with our current adoption plans?  I think so.  I was very anxious about the slowness of the process this time, but now I feel the need to be patient.  Now, the time that this is taking means that our adoption service provider and the USCIS is proceeding in a moral fashion and taking the time to follow the procedures that will ensure our child was actually an orphan.

2. How do I do a better job of parenting S?  How do I balance my needs as a parent (source of income and other support) with his needs?  In particular, his need to have access/exposure (I still need the right word for this.) to an Asian community?  I have made some attempts at this but they seem feeble, and so they probably are feeble.  I have tried to make some things available in terms of proximity; having them in the house; books, art, the movies I watch, the kinds of food I serve and the way I serve it.  I have arranged trips to watch Lion Dances at a martial arts school where they have teams.  This felt a bit forced, I enjoyed it hugely, but I’m not sure S cared or understood.  Does it matter if he understands when he is 6, (meaning it would soak in for later life)?  Do I keep it up until he says “enough mom, I don’t care”?  Or do I wait for him to request the information and then help him?  Maybe the strategy is to use the first tactic when he is young and the second when he is older?  While there are many Asian children in our school system, it would not be a wild guess to say most of them are adoptees, helpful, but not the same as a community of Asian families.  If we were to move, how would he be accepted in a Asian community when he has Caucasian parents?  Understanding what is needed is much simpler than supplying it, but I still don’t even know what to supply.

3. I’m not really sure where I stand on the “Second Choice” or “Plan B” discussions I have been reading.  While I understand the significance of this to the child, and that it has HUGE significance for them, I feel no need to to make apologies for our path to adoption.  How a person ends up in a position in life is complex and largely due to chance and not according to any plan.  How do you explain or justify how you met your life’s partner, or your relationship with anyone for that matter?!  (Standard cliché: “Life is what happens to you while you are making plans.”)   The idea that adoption is somehow “the great consolation prize of life” infuriates me.  I hope that society makes some progress on this idea while I am still alive, but in the mean time . . . .   How do I talk about this with my son?   It doesn’t matter how I feel.

 
4. Am I at ease about our previous adoption?  Almost?  After re-reading the announcement regarding the “irregularities” it seemed things got worse when the program re-opened instead of better.  I knew that corruption was a possibility during our first adoption, but  I never dreamed one human could treat another in the ways described in the announcement.  I was naive, I trusted the people I was working with, I had faith in the system.  This will haunt me, always.

 
5. If we do not receive a referral before the MOU expires, what do we do next?  How do I go about choosing to end this quest or prolonging it?

Oh, there is still more, but I have enough set out before me for this meal.  I will be lucky to digest what is already on the table.                                                                                         

Finger Printing (sigh)

J and I went to get our PA fingerprints today.  The experience managed to dredge up all those feelings of inferiority and fear I used to feel when faced with the home study process.  Gone was my “easy peasy” attitude of the “One Last Home Study” post.

When we entered the UPS Store (yes, the USP store is doing FBI fingerprinting in our county!) the clerk was busy with another customer, but finished up quickly.  J’s ID was checked and was  showed how to use the finger printing device as I watched.  Once the instruction was completed, they left the room to complete tasks in the back.  (Weird.)  The thing is very much like the device that INS uses for fingerprints, but prompts and instructions are delivered in a user friendly fashion via computer monitor.  J completed his prints and busy clerk emerges from the back, checks my ID and I begin since I have already seen the instructions and watched J complete his prints.  Despite the fact that everything is going smoothly I am somewhat on edge.  Why?  Who knows?  Perhaps that every one of these things seem like pointless hoops to leap through, how is it that the clerk can leave the room?  Anyone could have walked in the door and completed our prints while they were in the back.  Our doctor is now filling out our health forms without even seeing us, as if he too believes all of this is getting dumb.  So, when I am about half way done busy, breathless clerk reappears and announces that they will now assist me since all other tasks are completed.  They grab my hand and continue finger printing me while rattling off company policy about when to assist finger print clients and when not to.  Apparently overseeing FBI fingerprinting ranks pretty low on the priority list, and the suggestion that I was doing fine with out help landed upon deaf, or perhaps priority plugged, ears.

That hand grab was what did it.  The act of finger printing was changed from something I was doing voluntarily to gain something I desired, to something that was being done to me to prove my worthiness, to uncover some past dark deed that would reveal the monster that I really was.

I want this to be over, one way or another, I need this to be done.  That one small thing really unsettled me, it is not right, it is not good.

Waiting . . .

Two days and no answer.  Two days ago I sent an email to our ASP (adoption service provider) asking if we would need to renew our home study.  They must not even know.  

Let me catch you up a bit.  We have reached 1A status for an adoption from Vietnam.  1A status means that we have cleared all paper work hurdles our dossier is logged and a match is being actively sought. When we were informed of our 1A status in late January we were told that we should have a match by Feb. 28th.  We also have been told once we reach 1A status they thought our dossier would be “frozen”.  I never received a confirmation of this.  Our home study expires July 12th, about two months away.  Since we do not have a referral yet it is highly unlikely that we will complete our adoption before that date.   If you don’t think all that is frustrating add to it the fact that we have been “2nd on the list” since April 2007, yes 2007.  So, if we need to renew out home study it will be the second renewal, third set of fees, and about the 6th set of papers we have sent through the state and national offices to receive various approvals.   

A few days ago I read an ecstatically happy post from a young woman who was nearing completion of her first home study.  She felt all their work was over and that a baby would be in their home in as little as two months.  My heart went out to her.  I hope that she is right.  When your anticipation is that high the crash could be mighty hard.  Waiting is the worst part of the process.  When you are running around gathering papers and putting it all together you feel like there is progress.  You are doing something positive, you are moving forward.  When you wait, doldrums, every miniscule bit of news is like a tiny breeze that gives hope but no movement. 

If anyone out there is considering an adoption from Vietnam, look else where.  Those in the system already face a wait far longer than anyone could have guessed.  Each time we have felt close to moving forward, rules change, there is a new form to be submitted, or the same form again and again and again.  Things are so bad that the US is closing the system again, no new applications after July 1st.  Many people will say a new agreement is in the works and they are confident everything will be fine.  The truth is they don’t know and they are only trying to keep you calm and interested in the program.  Money is the bottom line here and in Vietnam.  The kids are just another commodity to them.