August Photos

I held back from posting these for a few days, hoping that maybe I'd be able to save some typing and be able to announce The Call. Alas, no call. It's a mixed blessing getting wonderful photos like these -- I can see that he is happy and well cared for, and that he looks good in pink (which is exactly what his sisters will dress him in); the flipside is that no matter how happy he looks, he's still not here.

The details:

• height: 32.7 inches
• weight: 26.3 lbs
• head: 18.9 inches
• He has 8 upper teeth and 6 lower teeth. All the better for biting with... can't wait for him to meet the judge.

Island of the Day Before

In Umberto Eco's novel the protagonist is shipwrecked within view of an island, and he's convinced that he's on the international dateline -- that magical place where you can change the past, since it's the only place where you can step into yesterday.

That's me. I feel like I'm at a disadvantage, since by the time I wake today, it's already tomorrow there. They've gone through their day, and this judge has obviously done it without having made a decision, once again. She's busy making tea, or reading the newspaper, or getting her Mercedes tuned up, or planning for her retirement. (We can only pray for the latter for those coming after us.) Maybe if I were in her time zone I could do something to influence things. I could speed up the tea making, highlight the important articles in the newspaper, bribe the mechanics to get it in and out in under fifteen minutes, and give her a nice brochure on a retirement village in Fairbanks. (Where her cold heart will find a sympathetic home.) As it is, I can't do anything. It's already tomorrow, and today we didn't get the call.

Not Today

Today was the first of our potential Call Days. It's now nearly 6 a.m. in the morning tomorrow in Taiwan, so I take for granted that we're not getting the call.

And today is his 18th month birthday.

Nothing more to say.

New Birthday

People following this trek know that we've had lots of bum luck the whole way through this process. Whether it was the dilemma of having to get three Canadian birth certificates, when one is all you're allowed, and not needing them after all, but paying for three, and only getting one, or whether it was having to have all our documents re-notarized -- we've done it all.

You may also have noticed that during all of this I was applying for U.S. citizenship, and that I was doing my darndest to get them to change my incorrect birthdate to my correct birthdate. Alas, I got my new passport on Friday and it looks like the government has won. I've got myself a new birthday. In the ecstacy and patriotic fervor (p.s. notice the new U.S. spelling) of my Oath Taking Ceremony, I didn't notice that that document had the incorrect birthdate. So, I was screwed from that moment. The Department of State declared that because it is on my Certificate of Naturalization, my birthday is officially February 14, not February 17, 1967.

I called CIS today and explained the situation. No problem, they said. All I have to do is fill out form N-565 and note the change. Oh, and include the $220 filing fee. But, I said, it was an error made by you not me. Unfortunately, she said, the N-565 will only be reviewed if it comes with the filing fee. They may decide not to cash my check, but will not review the application without the check. Call me conspiratorial, if you'd like, but I doubt that I'd see that check returned.

So, based on my string of bad luck this year, I'm sticking with the new birthday. Next year, when you're buying roses for your partner on Valentine's Day, make sure to remember me, and hope that my luck has turned. I'll have spent my $220 filing fee on a bottle of Jadot grand cru, celebrating my 40th birthday.

The Meta Call

Well, we got the call about The Call. Which, when you look at it honestly, is really the call about the call about the call. The real call that matters is the one with the travel date; the emotional call is the one about the first decree; and the kind of weird one is the one about the call about the first decree.

But we do appreciate the information, we really do. Kerry called yesterday to say that they had received some good news, that we can expect our first decree between August 23rd and September 1st. They usually don't get this kind of advance notice. We're happy to be tossed any bones whatsoever. We don't know how long this judge will pick her teeth while waiting to issue the second decree, so I'm not even going there yet.

For us, it means that for two weeks we're given a reprieve: no need to worry about things on a day-by-day level. We know that there will be no call. Which is better than the expectation.

Cute in Camouflage

Thanks to Lynne Brown for shooting this video while she was visiting St. Lucy's a week or two ago. Seeing little Xiao Yu (I think that's what she's saying, though it might be Xiao Lu) run around has put us within inches of declaring his name.

Here's hoping that the wait is soon ending.

Hope Springs

Sheri and I abandoned the kids last night -- actually overnight -- and hit the town. We always have big ambitions of doing things, but usually end up having appetizers and drinking and talking in the same place for hours and hours and hours. We probably would have done that all night, but had a concert to catch -- Bruce Cockburn. For those who don't know, Bruce is a mash up of, I don't know, Thomas Merton, Che Guevara, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Louis Riel. There's just something about his music -- it's lyrical, passionate, angry, funny -- that always strikes me poignantly, especially in concert.

You may or may not know his song Lovers in a Dangerous Time. There's a line partway through that is one of those few moments when a human being looks at the grand, confusing universe around us, our place in it, and gets it. (And I'm not the only one who thinks this about the line -- a collection of his songs by a bunch of fellow Canadian artists uses the line as the album title.) I was ready for the line, feeling it coming, and when he sang it, the tears streamed down my cheeks -- not the coolest thing in a concert, but I don't think that anyone noticed.

nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight --
Gotta kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight

That's where I am. You can read through my posts here and I probably seem a bit flippant about all this. My anger and frustration, a growing depression, none of these are very apparent. But it's dark, and I've come to the point that I hope that we'll get a call from Taiwan not today or this week, but maybe this month. And some days I am sure that it will never happen, that this boy I believe is my son will disappear from us. In that darkness there is only one thing for us to do: kick, fight, tear at the very fabric of the universe around us, wrestle God to the ground. Passively sitting back, confident that all will be well -- sometimes that's just not an option. And, though it might not appear so, that is hope.