We don't have school the last week in October. I think that would be an excellent time for a referral trip. God and I have been chatting about this. I'm not sure yet if He agrees, but He knows my feelings on the matter. I'm just waiting to hear back if there's a better option. (Usually there is...)
I heard 15 July that my papers were being sent for translation. Agency girl estimates 2-4 weeks for translation. She also estimates (off the record) a wait of 4-6 months, with most recent family with same age/gender/health specs waiting only three months.
We could be translated by now. Then, if we wait August, September and October...it's possible, but a little fast. Ann Marie, however has had feelings all along that things would go quickly once the papers were back in Russia.
Let's keep thinking. If we DO go in the last week of October, then it's POSSIBLE that we could have court 3 December. That would be 1000 days since the day I announced my plans to adopt to the world right here on this very blog.
That would be cool. Fast. But very, very cool.
(The Seige of Leningrad during WWII lasted 900 days. If we heard something on 18 of August, that will be 900 days. I guess we could hear that my documents were translated then...but that won't really make me feel like the seige has ended.)
Okay, so I lied. I didn't knowingly lie to you. And, I'm not completely sure I've lied to you. (Which would mean that this post telling you that I lied is actually a lie.) But I think I've previously presented you with untrue information.
Remember this recent post about referrals? (I so enjoyed reading what others pictured The Waiting-for-Referral Place to be like!) Well. Things are different.
It used to be that you were registered and then waited for a referral.
But, there's a law that says that a family must be matched and presented with a referral before they've been registered for x days (I think x = 90...Jim?). Because so many people have similar requests for age/health requirements, it is not always possible to do this. So, either a family could be presented with a referral who does not match their requests or they are not given a referral within x days. Either the law is broken in the x-factor, or an unsuitable referral is given.
To avoid either of those situations, some regions (or some agencies...I don't really know) have started to do things a little backwards. What is actually going to happen with my dossier is that it will be translated and then held by new agency's workerman, S. (I don't think he will actually hold it in his hand all the time. I think it will be in his office.) When S knows that there is a child/ren who match my requests (I don't know how he knows this. Spideysense?) then my dossier will be registered and I'll be officially given the referral and invited to meet her/them.
I'm kinda bummed about this. I know it doesn't really matter, in this case, if the horse is pulling the cart (I was going to say troika instead to give it a Russian flavour, but thought it might be stretching the horse-before-the-cart cliche too far for it to be recognized. Opinions?) or nudging it from behind...but...it messes up my mental picture. I guess it basically works the same...that the piles I've imagined are in S's office and he has the pictures of PAP's from Tricia's war room plastered around...but...it just feels...backwards.
And, what about all the piles from other agencies? They're not in S's office. (Please--it's not that big.) So, how do we fit those people into the mental picture? Where exactly are their documents? In THEIR agency's offices? (This region has many agencies working in it.)
If someone from another agency has the same requests I do, and a match becomes available, does S, his Spideysense a-tingling, go rummaging wildly through the piles, shouting my name at three perfectly-manicured women assistants? Do they all race to find my dossier, and then pass it to S who grabs it and simultaneously attempts to hurdle the metal wastebasket and put on his jacket? When he fails to clear the bin and bangs his shin and has to hop and mutter expletives, do the well-shod women retrieve spilled paperwork from the floor and stuff it back in the folder, even as S heads out the door? Does S then sprint for the MOE's office, limping slightly, in a fierce competition with other limping, swearing facilitators whose jackets aren't quite on to get me registered before those other people? Is it just The Amazing Race after all?
And it means that my big goal of REGISTRATION! is not really for trues. I guess, instead, it's when my stuff is translated and neatly piled in S's office (surely the piles there are neater...I can't imagine those three women letting it get too messy...) and my picture's up in the war room.
But is so ephemeral. (I know that means short-lived. But it sounds like it should mean fairy-like, elusive, insubstantial, amorphous. But those words that actually mean that don't have the sound I want. Just humour me.) I don't think they'll tell me when that is. So, we won't get to have the registration party after all. I guess the party will just have to wait. Shocker, eh?
I have been neglecting my duty as provider of silly-little-quizes lately. Here's a quickie:
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And that is a very good thing because I've just finished season two of Joan of Arcadia and there is no season three. (Highly rec that show. Well-written and well-acted. Clever. It amazes me that a group of people who have a very different world view from mine can come up with a show that, when viewed through my own world view, lines up in all the essentials. It's thoughtful and very nicely done. Season one is brilliant. Season two is good. Mary Steenburgen doesn't ruin it the way you'd think.)
We do not yet have car. It seems the wrong part was sent from the US--though they were quick to tell me that they ordered the correct part. It might be finished in the next two weeks. Right now it's sitting at the mechanics all taken apart and filled with orphanage donations.
Two more weeks until school...and I have loads to catch up on in that time.
I do not have any English-speaking television channels. Usually, my slingbox would provide the background noise I need (I find that mindless English in the background is more comforting than silence right now), but I have no internet access. So I have no slingbox. I still sit down in front of the tv and flip through the channels. It's ridiculous!! WHY do I do this? It's nuts.
There are some shows that were originally in English that have been poorly dubbed into Russian. These are the shows I try to find. The ones that are well-dubbed are useless to me. But, on the poorly dubbed shows you can hear the English underneath the Russian dubbing. It's actually maddening to listen to and I can't last much more than 10 minutes. If they speak in short sentences, I can hear the English before the Russian starts. But, if it's wordy, I'm lost.
I've watched part of two episodes of Buffy this way (never was a Buffy fan...) and part of three X-files. On X-files they have one man and one woman doing all the dubbing. This is okay if it's Mulder and Scully, but the scene with Mulder and Skinner was impossible for me to follow. Unfortunately, it looks like the movie will be well-dubbed. I'll just have to wait until a copy shows up on the streets here in English.
I have many friends who say they learned English by watching films. HOW? I have a pretty good ear, but I am not learning any new words...or very few. I am able to clearly hear words I know, but my vocabulary is not increasing.
I've finished all the X-files. Again. And am ready for an intellectual discussion of the last two seasons. (But Carla's a little busy right now and she's my kindred xfilesian spirit here so I'll wait.)
Meanwhile, I started The House by the Dvina and it's excellent. If you're looking for a good read, give this a whirl.
If you read the comments other people leave, you'll remember that Allison referenced Oh, The Places You'll Go recently in her elephant-spotting. In that book, Dr. Seuss describes The Waiting Place as "a most useless place".
This morning the Field of Mars was warm and sunny and smelled overwhelmingly of clover. There was a little bit of a breeze that sent the scent dancing around. It was still early enough that the park was relatively empty. It just called for someone to stand still and bask in the happy. So I did.
And the gardeners seemed content to let the clover stay.
Here's hoping you have time today to stop and smell the clover.
One week post-antibiotics and I'm still healthy. Hooray! Oorah!
But, I suspect I have a more serious and heretofore unnamed medical condition. I think I have anti-anorexia.
If anorexia is a condition in which the person has a distorted body image, a body image which is much bigger than reality, then I have the opposite problem. I look in the mirror (usually in the morning, which might have something to do with this) and, while I see the extra...curves that have crept on in the last 2+ years that I've been adopting, I generally think I look pretty good. And then I see photos of myself and am faced with the reality that what I see in the mirror is not what the world is seeing.
This is particularly unsettling as I USED to be fairly photogenic. I made my living acting. (Ahh, the good old days...when I only had myself to worry about feeding and clothing and sheltering...) And now the camera is not my friend. I feel betrayed.
On a related note, I think my car my have Mechanical Munchausen's Syndrome. I haven't seen it in weeks. I think it likes the attention the mechanics give it.
Of course, no car means that I have to hoof it...and no internet means I have to hoof it to school at least every other day...and the fact that you cannot see the sky from my flat means I have to get OUT of there or sink into despair...which all may help to reconcile my mirror-image with my photographed-image.
See--all things really do work together for good. ;>
I admit it. I over-imbue inanimate objects with personality. A bit of this might be charming or poetical...but I think I've gone too far.
I'm not just talking about picking up a big piece of lint that the vacuum won't suck up and then putting it down again to give it another chance. I don't mean asking the cat (not that she's inanimate...) where I've left my sunglasses. I'm talking about shoes.
I have two, TWO, pairs of sandals that give me blisters. One is a pair of birks and the other is a perfect pair of sandals--a little bit of a platform, dark enough brown that they can pass for black... But both of these give me blisters.
And I keep giving them another chance. Or maybe I'm giving my feet another chance. I just want them to get along.
Not only that, I start thinking that I'll trick them (the shoes and my feet) by not wearing the shoes for a long time. I start thinking that they'll forget about blisters. I put the shoes on and walk around a bit. Everything seems fine! No blisters. No rubbing. No soreness. I don't need band-aids or moleskin. My plan has worked!
Then, about a half-mile later, it starts--soreness, rubbing, blisters. The band-aids fall off and the moleskin is useless. Those sandals and my feet really do have irreconcilable differences.
Do you know HOW many times this scenario has repeated itself? Too many. But, no more. After limping home from the post office, I've decided that's it. No more chances. I have decided to banish both pairs.
Sniff.
I hope they forgive me.
(I wrote this for you yesterday...just in case I don't get in to school to use the computer today. Except for me it's today and you're reading this tomorrow.)
Kate's friend friend from Belarus is emigrating to Canada! He is very excited. Kate has been asked to write a letter to introduce him to Canada, with the secret purpose of showing how easily assimilated he will be. Kate was happy to do this. And, since it seems likely that a letter from Russia to Belarus will arrive without complications, Kate decided to use the Russian post. Kate took the letter to the local post office. Now the letter is on its way to Minsk and then to Canada!
It sounds so simple...
What I've experienced here is that no matter what the waiting room (post office, airline tickets, etc.), people don't wait in line. (The train station is an exception, but that's not really a waiting room. And I already posted about the "rules" that mystify me there.) There is no take-a-number dispenser and "now serving" signs. You just wait. For a long time. (I passed the time trying and failing to discern a pattern in the numbering of the post boxes.)
Actually, what you do is walk in and ask (loudly demand to know--which I never pull off) who is last. Then, you just wait and watch for this person to go up to the window and follow. It's a system that keeps me hyper-vigilant for people taking advantage (There are usually some who try--they don't ask who's last (that's the tell) but just try to sidle up to the window. They go mute when confronted.), but it works.
I'm hoping the letter makes it to Minsk. I addressed it with the transliterated address I'd been given. (I used all caps, so that should help.) I asked the girl working if it was okay that I'd written in English or if I should write it in Russian. She replied that it would cost 33r to mail. I am constantly surprised by people who ignore my questions. It seems to primarily be government employees and line-jumpers who do this. They simply don't answer. Ask a customs agent where the pens are and you'll receive silence with a stony stare and, if you persist, perhaps even a profile. They just don't answer.
Nothing pithy to wrap this up for you.
You guys are the best! Thanks for attending my little pity party.
Being the analytical person I am, I decided (it would be great if that Martha Washington quote was the one at the top right now) that the reason I was so upset (jr, I did shed some tears--and felt very childish and self-indulgent and confused about it--though I didn't have room to flop on the floor and kick my feet.) was because I had expectations that were not met. (Annie, I have no say in my flat. The school/consulate provide it and I gratefully accept.)
I expected to be bringing d2b HOME to this flat. And, while home is mostly about people, there were some things in the background of that picture--my bed, my desk, my books... I expected this flat to match my picture; to be HOME for the first year or even years of our life together. The only way I could change how I was feeling, because the bed and the desk and new bookshelves were not going to fit, was to change my expectations. Now, I see my new flat as a very nice, temporary place to live.
Perhaps most helpful was that before they leapt in to help, a friend here looked around and understood the difficulties without me saying anything. Feeling really, truly understood always makes me feel better. I've done some un-decorating. I've rearranged furniture. My friends have helped me move HEAVY furniture down a TINY hallway to make room for a bed in d2b's room. And, said friends have helped to dismantle some of the stupid elements in the kitchen. It's better. Much better.
My landlord probably won't think so. And, the landlords aren't very nice. They're rather condescending. AND, one landlord (one lives in England and one lives across the street) said they weren't even expecting me to move in, they were expecting a lady from Canada. (That would be my principal.) That might have made me maddest of all! Would they have refused to have me there because I'm an AMERICAN? Not cool. Don't get my patriotism boiling.
The parking space...well...apparently there was a meeting and "they" (if I ever chance to meet "them" one day, "they" will have a lot to explain) decided that renters would no longer be given a parking space.
So. My expectations and my attitude are changing. Pollyanna triumphs.
(Filing a new I600A tomorrow. And paying for it. But, don't have to have a new homestudy. That's something to bring about gladness!)
ps Still no internet at home so don't panic if an eon passes before a new post.
That's really enough, isn't it?
Let me just say that the photos I received were misleading. It is t-i-n-y! Even my movers commented that this was a bad flat--too small, too dark. I've certainly moved from the family's rooms to the working part of the house (from Imperial times).
It's so small that my bed wouldn't fit up the stairs and my desk wouldn't fit through the door. (Major headache on moving day.) They're going to be stored at my principal's flat. Sigh.
D2b's room has no bed. It has a massive couch. Umm...not good enough. AND the furniture upstairs all had to be lifted in through the windows before the flat was finished! Nothing comes out.
The kitchen is so stupid.
There are no bookshelves.
There is no parking space.
Beazy doesn't like it either.
For now, I'm unpacking (the movers and I couldn't all fit in the flat with all the boxes so I'm doing the unpacking) and trying to decide what can stay out. The rest is going in the sauna. (Seriously--why attach a sauna to an airplane-sized bathroom?)
DHS says that my sw was wrong. The updated homestudy must be attached to the application for renewal or else a new fee must be paid. That is not the adoption news I hoped to have for you this week. Alas.
Hope to have computer up and running at the flat soon. But, it could be days.
