O! Sebastian

A bird and her head

Even though my birthday isn't for another week Mr. D gave me my birthday gift, a Flip video camera. This camera is very low tech and for some reason reminds me of a super 8. I think because it doesn't do a lot but it is easy to use and the picture is excellent and does not require flash or any fancy business. My only complaint is that it takes forever to publish on your computor and then forever again to upload onto Youtube. I shouldn't complain as it is a pretty nifty gift and if we have a decent connection in Bangalore I will be posting often for everyone to stay in tune with this growing miracle child.



We are lonely today because the kitties left with dad AND aunti Jayshree, uncle Subbu and cousin-sister Sujaya. The house is so quiet. We will pack a little and play. Here we are Peeking. Watch her little hand at the end crunching "good-bye".

I haven't posted in a few days and it has been quite an emotional week. Two major disappointments, one closer to heartbreak.

Our adoption agency decided to send their admin. liason on vacation when our readopt papers needed to be filed with the superior court. We are late making a hearing date and have been told there is no way we will get a hearing before August 15. We have flights out of California on the 16th of June so... the readopt may not happen at all until we return to the states which for me is a big problem. Luckily, Sanbate has a us passport.

The other problem is that our birds won't be joining us in India as the US is so strict about birds coming into the country there is a chance they wouldn't be allowed back. This put me in a funk for 2 days, crying and carrying on, as my bird Sebastian has been a huge support to me for the last 8 years, especially when I was single. She and I are extremely close and she is such a sweet, loving, and trusting bird. I am just shattered about it. :(

I am enjoying the company of our neice Sujaya and she has been absolutely great with the baby. We will be having a great summer together with Sujaya and her family in Ohio. At least I will be able to spend time with kitties and birdies then, because they will be living in Ohio while we are in India.

I know this isn't a polical blog but I just can't help it. I am crazy for Senator Barack Obama.

Knowing I may not be able to watch all the movies on my "list" I have been on a Kurosawa Kick. Movies by Kurosawa I recommend:
Ikiru
Throne of Blood (based roughly on Macbeth)
Hidden Fortress
Red Beard
Kagemusha
Stray Dog


I also recently enjoyed Harakiri by Masaki Kobayashi.

A new movie I LOVED which reminded me of a fresh Hal Hartly movie was:
Juno
!!!

It is hard to believe we are leaving soon, (4 weeks!). The cats are going to Cincinatti a week on Wednesday. That leaves birdies, (Sebastian and Scrap), Sanbate and me. There have been very few responses to the craigslist ad so we may as well have a freebie on the weekend. I haven't listed my car yet but who wouldn't take a perfect rav4? I will miss my car. It saved my life twice, once in a snow storm and another time on the highway driving 70 mph. I will also miss driving. How am I NOT going to get nauseous riding in the back seat? With the poor air quality etc.?
AW, Quit yer yappin' and get packin'!

Everybody loves a BOX!







Well, that is unless you are moving and have to fill them.
I have listed some stuff on Craigslist for free and for sale. Most of it sort of useless. I would like to just chuck it but that is not the right thing to do.

Sanbate is learning to eat with a fork and spoon. She loves her board books, especially the ones with animals.

It was hot last night! 91 degrees in our house.
Poor kitties were like little defeated pancakes. Sissy slept with her legs dangling to air them out and Missy licked ice cubes for an hour.

Sanbate in a bathing suit ;) and I went out back and filled up every large container we could find, watered plants and played in the water until Mr. D came home. The house was still stuffy at 7pm so we opened the rest of the windows and could hear the neighborhood cooling off.

Remember the nights at the houses of your "friends with children"?
How silly they seemed trying to get their kids to sleep?
How it appeared to you that they were playing the clown pretty well for their kids?
I just realized it is an actual game you play with your kids.


The Napping/Sleeping game:
(Can only be played after quiet time with a book)
Allow mom to rub back for 1 minute and then make her stop.
Lie still for 1-2 minutes and begin closing eyes.
When mom sits down at the edge of the bed, get up.
Refuse to lie down.
Let mom "help" you to lie down 3 or 4 times.
Wave by by to mom.
When she leaves, cry as loud and long as possible so that the neighbors (and dad) remark, "Wow, she is really upset!"
When mom comes in, clearly flustered, smile and start game over again.

When mom gets tired of the game and starts to cry or throw a pillow etc., it is time for the actual nap/sleep.

Well I blew it, (I guess I am overwhelmed with the move, posting stuff on Craigslist and worrying about how to do it with no friends and family to help us pack up)
ie:

I left my husband's car lights on. We should have known when the keys didn't unlock the car on Monday but didn't put two and two together.

Yesterday we discovered the error and my husband was furious at me and told me not for the first time, "you are so irresponsible!" He was planning on showing the car today to a prospective buyer. Last night was spent trying to get the battery out of the car, which required special tools. The job was not finished and today the battery needs to be replaced. (Why the hassle? Mercedez ML320)

Last night I did not sleep for nightmares(mine) and crying from our daughter and cats.Yes. Our cats cry in the night too, like ghosts.

This morning I woke up feeling broken down and the feeling has not gone away.

First Bruise



Today she earned her first bruise. I don't know what she fell on but she started crying very loudly and wanted to be held closely. I didn't notice the bruise on her cheek until we went through the car wash later. Why do I feel guilty? Because I was clear across the apartment and in another room when it happened.

Posting has been a challenge as the girl is so curious and wants to help. But the one item I am a "mean" mom about is the oven. Today I gave her a very loud NO! when she started fiddling with the knob on the range. Poor girl. She looked as if to say, "How strange. She just touched it a second ago."

My mom and dad made it to California but were stricken with sickness the entire (short) trip. Well, it is a good thing our plans weren't ambitious. We made it up to the Marin Headlands and to our favorite breakfast place in Sauselito. My sister's daughter caught the flu and her husband was in the middle of studying for certification exams so she wasn't able to come. Still, it was wonderful for my parents to see the baby and they will be able to share their trip with the rest of the family. E S was just so sweet and open to them which didn't come as a big surprise. Most orphan babies tend to be very trusting. It isn't necessarily a great thing but in this case, with my dad getting up there, it was a blessing. My parents were smitten.

These eyes...




I believe the stress from the excitement of having my parents and sister come and visit has taken its toll. A fight with Mr. D about moving to India. A karfuffle about the fact that the readoption may not be finished in time before we leave for Ohio. This is due to the fact that we prioritized getting Elianshu a passport and we were not able to send necessary documents for the readopt because they were being used for the passport.

And We have many things to accomplish in the next month:

Posting items on craigslist to sell i.e. cars and electronics/appliances. (The outlets in India are not compatable and one would need a serious overhall in the electric system in the house to use one's appliances and electronics).

Packing/Shipping and giving aways items we cannot or do not want to take with us: Lawn furniture, plants, lamps...

Stocking up on goods not available in India like medicines, vite supplements, toys, clothing...

Closing up accounts, and
Heavens NOOOOOO!!! Closing my New Yorker magazine account unless I can get them to send it to India. I am an avid and devoted fan of The New Yorker. I truly hope I can continue to read this one magazine. I absolutely love love love.

Forwarding mail.

Deciding what to bring for the summer in Cincinatti. I have sent a travel crib to my sister-in-laws. But what else aside from clothing do we need? Her car seat, toys, books and booster seat. But what else? Hmmmmmm....

She walks! Starting May 1st and now taking up to 20 steps. But who is counting. I am just getting ready to take a good video of it so wait a minute...

Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on “White Voters” Is Fiction
By Al Giordano

I turn on the TV, read the political columnists (and a significant number of analytically-challenged bloggers, too) and all I hear is a bunch of white folk prattling on about their favorite narrative: “Obama’s losing white voters!”

They’ve swallowed the Clinton racially-obsessed spin, hook, line and sinker. Some, because they are gullible, haven’t an original idea in their little pea brains, and follow the pack of what everybody else is talking about. Others, because they like to toss around knowing falsehoods. Nary a superdelegate can go on Fox News without being berated by an anchorperson screeching (this is pretty close to an exact quote): “But your duty as a superdelegate is to select the most electable and that’s Hillary Clinton!” That these anchorpersons are Republican partisans openly cheering for Senator Clinton is our first clue of the game afoot. One of the major successes of Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos is that it has got all the right-wing pundits and reporters marching lockstep behind the effort to give Clinton enough oxygen to keep slashing away at Senator Obama, who remains the prohibitive likely Democratic nominee.

And when Clinton wins state primaries that, because of demographics, she was always going to win - last week, Pennsylvania and next week, Indiana - they then wave that event up like a blood-soaked flag as proof of their narrative: See? See? We told you so! White people won’t vote for Obama!

So imagine my pleasant surprise this morning to see a New York Times columnist, Charles Blow, who did what none of these chattering lunkheads have done. He looked at the hard data of how voters, white and black, view the two Democratic candidates - favorably or negatively? - and how those views have progressed over time. The data is based on multiple CBS-New York Times polls (among the most respected survey outfits among competing pollsters) over two years and more. Check it out:



Nobody - not blogger, nor superdelegate, nor cable news anchor - should open their mouths with another word about this contest until they’ve studied those graphs and the numbers upon which they are based. Blow explains:

Since January, the Clintons have pummeled Barack Obama with racially tinged comments and questions about his character…

The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much.

Wait. The numbers show that the cynical effort to turn the 2008 campaign into a race riot has hurt the popularity of one candidate among an important demographic, and it’s not Barack Obama:

On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period).

So, to sum up: Look at the damn graphs. You can see that Clinton is in a staggering free-fall among African-American voters, her favorability is down 36 points while 17 percent view her more negatively than before, while Obama’s favorable and negative ratings among whites have paired at five point increases. You can even see the small dip - about two percentage points - in his popularity among whites that can be attributed to the news cycles about his ex-pastor, and see that it has leveled out and is now on a straight horizontal line (meanwhile, Clinton’s numbers among blacks continue on an extreme downward precipice). The greater context is that even including Obama’s slight dip, he’s more popular today among white voters than he ever was prior to February.

Not since Ronald Reagan has an American presidential candidate withstood such an assault in the media and seen his popularity not hurt by it, but, rather, galvanized by it. That’s what is meant, in politics, by the term “Teflon.”

Those facts won’t stop many media (and Internet) talking heads from continuing - whether out of gullibility or intentional dishonesty - to prop up the “white voters” narrative, but it ought to inoculate you, kind reader, from believing it.

Don’t let yourself get upset when some idiot repeats the false media narrative. Don’t plead with them to tell the truth (they won’t; remember, they’re either stupid or dishonest). Mock them. Ridicule them. Expose them as the lightweights they are showing themselves to be, with all the confidence that understanding the hard data ought to provide you.

Let Operation Anti-Chaos begin!

ES likes the bath toys
but I had to throw them
in the dishwasher to get rid of the noxious plastic fumes right after we brought them home. We have so little of that kind of thing I don't know how families can stand the horrible smell. Like a skunk on hormones.

Yesterday marked the first "walking" day. Five steps. With repeats throughout the day. Today she has made a big effort to be upright when possible, using the furniture to navigate around the house.

On the advise of our pediatrician, who was also adopted, we are now giving up the bottle in the night. Last night was the first installment of "rage against the establishment", sponsored by ESD. Tonight I blog because I am a light sleeper and the rebellion from the crib inspired me to look at cute pictures of our sweet and demure child from the quiet of the guest room.