From the US to Kazakhstan and Back
Sunday, October 26, 2003
I've resigned myself to the fact that everything I want to get done is not going to get done in the next 36 hours. My new battle cry is I'll do what I can and just live with the rest.
Seems every time I start to do something, my mind starts racing and I realize that I will meet my daughter face to face for the first time on Friday. Years of saving and waiting are about to come to a head. I just can't seem to hold a thought of anything else in my head.
I don't know if this is how people feel who have children the "regular" way but it's exciting, scary, unnerving and happy all at the same time. The only way I can think to describe it is this is probably the happiest and most scared (afraid isn't the word, it's plain out scared!) I've ever felt. To think that I'm about to take a child away from everything she's ever known and build a family with her is an awesome feeling. It's a good thing children are flexible because I'm sure I'm going to make a lot of mistakes.
I guess the only thing a parent can hope for is that they do more things right than wrong :)
Everything is packed. For those of you who are reading this, are adopting and haven't gotten to this point yet, I will warn you that those little money belt things are not big enough for all your cash. Not even close. Either find one that's bigger or get about three of them. I finally rigged together a sort of zippered (not metal - won't make it through the scanner at the airport) leather wallet with a strap made of bias tape. It should work fine. I'm going to sling it over my shoulder so it's worn like a purse. Not that it won't be obvious I'm carrying something under there but at least it won't be easy to get to.
Autumn in Texas. It's unseasonably cold here today. I had to finally turn the heat on. Yesterday, the air conditioner was on all day. It's been raining most of the day and I can smell the wood smoke from the apartments that have made a fire in their fireplaces. Makes me think of winter in Minnesota and the big wood stove my dad had in the basement of the house in town. It could be -20 degrees outside but the basement was like Texas in summer and it always smelled so good.
Tomorrow will be a busy day. Last minute everything. In a scant 36 hours I will be at the airport waiting to leave to a place that before all this started, I had never heard of. Sometimes life takes some odd turns.
I find it interesting that as I was cleaning out my spam filter, there was an email in there that suggested they had a product that would get rid of spam for me. Someone sent me spam to tell me how to get rid of spam. I'm betting it doesn't work.
Spam is kind of an interesting phenomena, anyway. Kind of like online telemarketers. Do people actually buy this stuff? Do they go to these Web sites and purchase photos of cheerleaders and find out how to fire their boss? And if they do it once (which is understandable) do they do it a second time? How many pieces of spam does it take to make one sale?
Which brings me to the telemarketers and the Do Not Call List. Another interesting debate. Over 50 million people signed up for the Do Not Call List. The telemarketers got all up in arms. How could they make sales if they couldn't call these numbers? Oh, the inhumanity!
To me, the Do Not Call List should be a boon for telemarketers. It contains over 50,000,000 phone numbers of people who are not going to buy anything from telemarketers. 50,000,000 numbers that would be a waste of time to call leaving however many other numbers that seem to be open to telemarketing calls. They might even buy something.
Yes, I signed up for the list. It came down to one night when I was sound asleep (because I get up so early, I go to bed quite early.) and the phone rang. Without looking at the caller ID, I picked it up. Telemarketer. When I explained to this woman on the other line that I had been asleep, she said, "Well, as long as you're awake now...." I was dumbfounded and again explained I had been asleep and would like to return to that state. She then got quite rude and wanted to know when she could call. I told her never and hung up.
People like me are naturals for the DNCL. I will never buy anything from a telemarketer. Please don't call me. Yes, I can politely say "No thanks" and hang up but that doesn't seem to deter them. I can request to be taken off their list, that doesn't deter them either. Only the threat of massive fines seems to work.
Many telemarketers say the DNCL will leave them jobless. Fine. Get a real job and stop annoying people.
Update on the readiness. I'm blaming the weather for it now. It's just cold outside today. How can I work when it's something like 60 degrees outside? I even had to turn on the furnace.
The pictures are done and in their albums. I'm quite proud of myself for getting that done. Of course, the laundry is about done and I am cleaning or organizing or whatever you want to call it.
The suitcases are packed. Everything I need is in them, I believe, and probably a lot of things I'm not going to need. The only thing left is cleaning and that isn't my favorite thing to do.
Ernie, however, has worn himself out. He's pictured here after a hard day of, well, sleeping and eating and sleeping again. Poor thing. He works so hard :)
A short commercial for Canon printers. These folks make the finest printers I've ever had the pleasure to use. I've just succeeded in printing out 56 photos (well, actually 60 since I cropped off two sets of two and had to reprint them) with never a glitch. When I ran out of ink, it stopped and told me. Kodak may make the easiest to use photo printing software (even though they don't make Picture Easy anymore which is a shame) but for hardware, you just can't beat Canon.
End of commercial, back to work.
Multitasking Day. Jane Fonda has nothing on my printer. It's getting a major workout printing all the photos for the judge's photo albums. I need pictures of my apartment, bedroom, family and cats. Two each. Since the apartment has been such a disaster with packing and rearranging and everything else, I didn't really want to show the judge that. So, it's the last minute for me again.
I guess I could have taken them to Walgreens and had them printed out but the geek in me said, "Why do that when you have a perfectly good printer here?" I always listen to the geek in me. So, 28 pictures x 2 = a whole lot of paper, ink and time. Guess some of you didn't know you'd be immortalized in a Kazakhstan court. I just hope they don't steal the plans for the Boo Ray :)
After taking pictures of the bedroom, minus the suitcases, I had to track down pictures of the family. Why do I have almost no pictures of Jeff? It's a good thing Dad's been emailing me pictures for a long time or I'd have been up a creek. Thanks, Dad!
I'm also finishing the packing (couldn't pack the camera until I had the pictures), doing my laundry, blogging and trying to keep the cleaning going. I keep telling myself it will get done, don't get overwhelmed but that's pretty hard when you're looking at two days to go and a mountain of work. I'm trying to do a little at a time. Focus on one area, finish that and move on. Come Tuesday morning, whatever is done is done, whatever is packed is packed and I won't be able to do anything about it. Just so I remember the important stuff, the rest will be fine.
Thinking that I'll be spending two mornings in Almaty and probably won't want to unpack the coffee pot (assuming it's still in one piece!), I found some coffee tea bag things. Boil the water, pop in the bag and voila! Coffee! It may sound like I'm obsessed with the coffee but after traveling for 26 hours or so, sleeping in a strange country and having to wake up early, coffee's going to be very important. The last thing I need is a caffeine withdrawal headache. And, after all, I am from Minnesota where coffee is king -and no, I'm not taking Lutefisk - the smell would make them run me out of the country before I even got off the plane. Talk about hazardous materials! I'm not that Minnesotan :)
The desk moving took its toll. I slept until about 9:00 not realizing the time change and it was really 10:00! I would never survive as a mover. Thanks again, Leatha, for giving up your Saturday afternoon to help. I couldn't have done it without you. I'm a little sore, though. That'll work itself out soon, I hope.
Back to the printing, laundry and cleaning. Send me some positive energy so I can get this all done.
