Archive for September, 2006

African Princesses


2006
09.28

Don't know if you've caught the Sept. 25th issue of Newsweek, but in it there is an article about a girl adopted by a family in West Virginia who is now twenty-eight and decided to try to find any surviving family in Sierra Leone.  It turns out that she is, by birthright, a princess.  It's an interesting story, someone is making a documentary about it and stuff.

This just makes me that much more curious about establishing some sort of relationship with any of Rose's relatives in Ethiopia that we might be able to locate. 

Aargh!


2006
09.27

I am having a serious problem keeping my sense of humor right now, so I'll post this, you'll laugh, and then my misery at this moment will not be for naught.

Moments you think about bringing your kids with you to the bar for a martini.

It's 4:30 pm and you're trying to do the laundry from this morning when your daughter had an accident and wet through the "pull up" onto all of the bedding.   The dog is taking this opportunity while you are in the basement to start tearing up the bathroom garbage, you are addressing this and you hear the bread machine walk itself off the kitchen counter, falling to the floor (probably committing suicide) and in the process spilling pizza dough all over the kitchen floor.  Dinner plans back to square one.  Mop bucket in the garage is full of spiders (one of my least favorite things).  The kids shoes are full of dough.  The playroom floor is covered in marbles.  And your husband doesn't seem to recognize any of these things as a problem.

Top that, folks!

Letter from Dubya


2006
09.20

We received Rose's Certificate of US Citizenship today.  Her "green card" – which is no longer green nor a card, actually.  Pretty cool.  Now I can start the paperwork for an SSN, Wisconsin Birth Certificate, etc.  Our insurance company will be thrilled!

Along with the certificate was a letter from the president congratulating her for becoming a US Citizen.  Not that she had a lot of choice in the matter.  But I was pleased to know that "Americans are united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals.  The grandest of these is an unfolding promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a  chance, and that no insignificant person was ever born…  And every new citizen, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American."

It's a very pleasant letter, I will certainly put it in her scrapbook.  The question is whether or not to juxtapose it with an article about the fence the legislators in this country decided to build to keep some immigrants out.

Rose and the Dogs


2006
09.18

Rose and the dogs have become fast friends these days, despite Dharma looking a bit greyer every day.  She follows them around, hugging them and trying to pick them up and stuff.  She calls them by name, sort of, variations of "Dharma" and "Django" or "Djangy". 

The other day I was doing dishes and Rose comes in and starts to play with the magnets on the refrigerator.  She sees a picture of the dogs we have on there and laughs.  I say, "dogs!"  And she points to Dharma and says, "Dharma".  Then she points to Django and says "Stop it!"  And she repeats this for a few minutes, long enough for me to get Chuck to come witness what his daughter is doing…   It hasn't taken her long to figure out which dog is the naughty one.

Although Dharma is an evil genius, I am convinced she plans the escapades but Django is always the one we catch standing on the table licking the butter (literally and figuratively).