I Thought We Were On A Break

I'm back.

Today I am 53

And I'm just going to talk about some things.

First of all--does anybody want to help me migrate back to Blogspot? I cannot stand Wordpress. I do not have the technical knowledge to work with it nor can I afford hosting fees with GoToHeckDaddy.

I will pay you!!

Secondly.....We are remodeling our house and it is like living in an episode of "Hoarders". Our kitchen cabinets have been emptied and I have found tiramisu mix that dates back to 2005. New cabinets are being installed every day.

Black mold was found under our house.

We are going to have the head of Russell and Jeffcoat, local realtors, come out and do a "Show and Tell." Basically, thanks to black mold, improper and not up to code wiring, etc. our house was a firetrap waiting to go up.

I have been buying a few pieces of Wedgwood on ebay and some twit just shipped a darling little box from England in an old laundry detergent box and its broken and I AM SUPPOSED TO PAY TO HAVE IT SHIPPED BACK TO ENGLAND before I get a full refund but I HAVE TO PAY FOR THE POSTAGE.

I DON'T THINK SO, EBAY!!!!!!!

I am looking to find a cheaper nursing home for my mother. I asked for a reduction in fees and the Chief Financial Officer ridiculed and humiliated me. I have spent 4 years trying to come up with the funds to pay for $7500 a month and I am sick of it. There has to be a cheaper place where she can live. At this point she needs a safe warm place where she is fed--she does not need the fancy trappings that the current nursing home offers. She deserved and needed a nice place to live when she moved in since she still had some lucidity but at this point she has the mentality of a vegetable.

The goldfish in our house swim to the front of the tank when Roger walks up but ignore me because Roger always feeds them. Our little African frog puts his foot down when we sprinkle food in the tank so the other frog can't get to the food. He is twice the size of the other one! We have to distract him while we surreptitiously funnel some food to the other frog.

My mother has less reasoning power than the goldfish and frogs.

This is not a happy thing.

I have a Social Security Disability hearing on February 23, 2012. Please say a prayer to the Deity of your choice that I get it!! I need it. I often am bedridden 20 hours a day.

Our chiropractor is getting a hyperbaric oxygen chamber! I am really excited!!! Maybe this will help!!!!

I need to go to Wedgwood Anonymous. I love that stuff!!! Thank heavens I ran out of room to put it!!!

The girls are doing great. Madeleine has been invited to join the International Baccalaureate program at high school (HIGH SCHOOL????????? DOES NOT COMPUTE) next year and Meredith is finally finishing up elementary school!! I can't wait....YEAH, I know that childhood is fleeting and all that, but next year, she can ride the bus. This year, since she is in a special magnet program for embryonic engineers, we have to provide transportation. 6th grade can't arrive fast enough!!

I went to a great church service on Sunday with my chiropractor's wife. It was a Pentecostal service, 1/2 black and 1/2 white people. It was wonderful and joyous and fun and there was nothing but joy and love in the room. It is enough to make me seriously consider joining a church like that. Great music, people dancing, worshiping God...instead of hushed hymns and a boring service.

My life sucks, but not as bad as people who are losing their jobs and houses and spouses and kids.....My job is gone but I have great kids and a healthy spouse and I am BLESSED.

How do you get a 13 year old to talk to you? Mine won't talk to me. I suppose one day she will need money or a ride somewhere. She's a great kid but....I miss talking to her. I miss photographing her. So I was just wondering if Laura Ingalls Wilder stopped talking to her parents when she was 13? Did Louisa May Alcott? Our kids are well behaved and polite and do great in school and in life, but she won't talk to me. Pondering if it is a first world luxury to be able to retreat to your room and read Breaking Dawn without engaging in conversation with your parents.

Peace out, all!!!

New Year Resolutions

Happy 2012.

I've been pretty absent from this blog, and I apologize.

I never make New Year resolutions, because it just means that I feel guilty when I break them, but this year, I've decided to be different and make them.

1. I resolve to be realistic about this blog. I am going to write whatever I want, whenever I want, and not worry about making a million dollars a year from it.

2. I resolve to accept the fact that old friends who have disappeared from my life were never really friends in the first place.

3. I resolve to accept the fact that one true, good friend is worth one hundred ephemeral "friends" who have vanished from my life. I resolve to LISTEN to my friends when they talk to me.

4. I resolve to stop being in pain. I have a lot of reasons to be in pain. A painful disease, a dying mother, financial worries.....I resolve to take the medicine I need to stop the pain without feeling guilty. I resolve to deal with my mother by simply saying a short prayer for her every time I think of her and not wallowing in guilt, shame, sadness, things that can never be fixed, etc.

5. I resolve to win my disability case with Social Security.

6. I resolve to touch up my roots faithfully.

7. I resolve to be grateful for my blessings.

8. I resolve to save all of my receipts.

9. I resolve to stop eating gallons of peppermint ice cream (my particular brand of crack)

10. I resolve to forget about all the bad things that have happened. The people who caused me pain and anguish certainly aren't thinking about me. I am not wasting my time thinking about them.

So.....That's it for me. How about you?

MEN SUCK a/k/a But He Can Name The Starting Lineup For The 1969 Mets

Me: I think I've selected the ornament to add to the tree for 2011.

Husband: Huh?

Me: Y'know, this will be the twentieth year that we've added one special ornament to the tree. Remember 20 years ago we were getting serious so I suggested we both pick out one ornament to start our tree out if we got married?

Husband: Huh? (quickly faking fond reminiscing smile) Oh, yeah!! It's BEAUTIFUL!!! (quickly slinking out of the room to watch basketball game)

Why I Know Kim Kardashian's Wedding Was Faked

CAKE!!!

CAKE MURDER!!!

Okay, when I saw this picture I almost cried. Tears gathered at my lovely blue eyes. But I choked them back. Unable to speak, I pined to join a pool betting on how long the wedding would last and win so I could buy a cake like this.

Ladies and Gentlemen, in all seriousness, that zillion dollar cake could have been donated to a homeless shelter, but instead was thrown in the trash. Who does that with the top of their wedding cake?

Yes, the wedding was definitely faked. The amount of money spent on this wedding was, in today's economy, obscene.

Yet, I cared enough to write an article about it, entirely ignoring the fact that SEO engines might bring me some hits. The people who come here aren't going to stick around to hear about a fibromyalgia stricken adopted adult with a couple of surly Chinese tweens who talked their mother into going out Black Friday night and spending an obscene amount of money on clothes at Kohl's. Just because Madeleine was down to one pair of jeans that fit her. In my day we just washed the one pair of jeans we owned on rocks every night.

Hope y'all had a good Thanksgiving.

Here is what I am thankful for.

I HAVE A SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY HEARING DATE!!!!!! In February. Please send positive thoughts into the atmosphere for me. This would ease our financial worries so much.

Roger's surgery is over with.

Madeleine's braces will soon be off, and I'll get to start making payments on Meredith's. Hey, at least I won't get out of the habit of doing so!! And by the time Meredith's are off, we can start making payments on college tuition.

Another thing I wonder--is a 4 year liberal arts degree one of those things you have to get even though it can bankrupt you and may never prove to be of any financial worth? My friends' kids are either taking jobs that they would have sneered at when they were 16, going back to a tech college to be plumbers and nurses, or simply sitting in their room riffling through their student loan bills and sobbing hysterically, often joined by their parents.

My grandparents told me parents to get a practical degree or they wouldn't pay--so did my parents say to me. I guess I'll carry on the tradition. I got a BA in broadcast journalism. It has helped me tremendously. It helped me take pictures, learn to make movies, and helped me learn how to write.....

More on that later. Hope you had a good holiday and are ready for the Christmas/Hanukkah madness to begin.

Peace out,

Lorrie

Roger Goes To The Hospital

Smiling Through The Nerves



Go Gamecocks!



A Man And His Dog Heal Quickly While They Share Coffee And Bananas



Roger had minor wrist surgery on November 2, 2011, which explains my absence. Between donning the special nurse's uniform Roger bought for me (Are they SUPPOSED to have cutouts?) , driving the children around everywhere (Please give me a taxi meter for Christmas, bill to be presented when they earn first paycheck. Notice I optimistically say "when" not "if").....I've been very busy.

But he is doing great. Went back to work on Thursday. The doctor added extra cartilage, scraped out dozens of small bone spurs, and shored up sagging (cough-I swear that was the word used) tendons. He already felt better in the recovery room. Said the shooting pains in his arm had disappeared.

Once again, I honestly do not know how he managed to somehow stumble through 38 years without me. I looked at the insurance and decided it would be a good time to do it as our bills have been high this year. I set the appointment and informed him. He sat back casually and said, "I'm glad you did that. Y'know, I've been having awful shooting pains up my entire arm."

Dude.

If one ounce of my pain could be cured by surgery I'd be slicing myself open with a Veg-O-Matic.

So off we went, and I tried to inject levity into the proceedings. It was easy. Hey, it wasn't ME getting sliced and diced.

The nurse started to ask the ritual questions and the anesthesiologist dropped in for a chat. She turned to me and said, "Could you help out?" Sure.

"What religion is he?"

"Satanism....I'll be sacrificing a goat during the operation in the parking lot. Well, except maybe across the street since you have the no smoking signs up..."

.........

"Oh I'm just kidding!"

"You know," she laughed, "I seriously have always wondered what I would say if someone ever meant that."

The anesthesiologist got him prepped and off he went on the cart. I leaned over to kiss him and addressed the group waiting.

"Please don't worry too much. I've got lots of life insurance on him (then I broke up laughing), so it's kind of a win-win."

(yes. I swear I said all of this).

So he was carried out on a wave of laughter, which was more difficult to manage than a stretcher.

He's doing fine, and I'm so relieved to have this over with. He was told it was a'comin two years ago, but put it off. I just believe a man should have as much dexterity in his hands as possible. To do household chores and all.

Yue Yue, I'm Mourning for You

It could have been one of our girls.

It could have been one of our girls lying broken and bleeding on the street, as the world mourned.

It was the sheer luck that a security camera happened to catch the footage of a 2 year old girl gleefully riding her tricyle on a busy street while her parents shopped when she was run over twice by cars.

Seven minutes passed, while the security camera mercilessly continued to run, capturing footage that broke the heart of the entire world.

Ten years and thousands of miles separated the broken and bleeding child in China from the thirteen year old Chinese child who lay on our couch tonight, idly flipping through my iPad. If she had stayed in China instead of being adopted by a middle class family in America, she might have been resting after pulling a ten hour shift assembling that iPad.

What was the child in my house thinking about?
Did she catch the gleaming pool in the moonlight from the den as she walked through it to curl up in the mahogany Craftique bed her adopted grandmother willed to her?
Was she thinking about using her phone to text a friend? Another vibrant, well fed, joyous friend attending a good public school, taking high school courses in the eighth grade?
Was she mentally revising the English I Honors paper she is writing, the first of many that she will one day turn in to college professors at an American university?
Was she remembering the first grown up Halloween party that she and her sister attended the day before, or wondering if she would receive the iPod Touch that she asked us to give her for Christmas?
Was she anticipating getting the braces off of her teeth before school started after the New Year's Eve party she planned to throw?

An eleven year old girl adopted from China sat on the floor and laughed as she played with her puppies. She did not need to think of using them for food.
She proudly placed the paper announcing that she had been selected for Math Olympics on the refrigerator, texted one last friend, plugged in her cell, and curled up under the designer quilt I had found on ebay for pennies on the dollar.
She could be pulling a blanket over her head in a tent after spending the day working the fields, or the day working in a factory breathing poisonous air that her adopted family (grandfather, great grandfather, great aunt, grandmother) worked so hard to make illegal in America.

By now you all know the story of the peasant child nicknamed Yue Yue who was run over by two cars and left to die on the street while people casually walked by her, motorcycles swerved to avoid her, and everybody ignored her until after seven interminable minutes a woman rushed to move her out of the street and her mother rushed to her side.

I don't understand why the child was left alone for so long-SEVEN MINUTES???? And who knows how long she had been riding her tricycle before she was run over? But never mind that minor detail. Her parents will have to live with that the rest of their lives. But hey, she was only a girl. She has a big brother. He's the prince of the family. Lord knows, if they had to lose one, at least it was the girl.

By now we all know that China has discouraged potential Good Samaritans by stupidly ruling that they could be fined and punished for helping a hurting stranger, and that new laws are already being drafted to protect the next person wondering whether to help or avert their eyes when they are confronted with a desperate situation.

And the little girl immortalized forever in the merciless video has died. Tears have been shed. Breast beating articles have been written. China has been exposed for what it is..a country that places very little value on poor people, especially baby girls.

We, along with thousands of other First World citizens, were lucky enough to adopt two children from orphanages ten years ago. Our girls, along with many of their sisters and brothers (perhaps biological, or cousins, or half siblings), are growing up in first world homes. Many of their parents have different racial identities, most Caucasian, although every ethnicity in the world has adopted children from China.

And now I'm going to talk about the elephant that was in our nice middle class living room tonight. There were several elephants, and a couple of sacred cows. It was a pretty crowded den.

1. It's always best to be with your birth family. Vicious experts have worked very hard to demoralize the happy parents who carried home their children from foreign countries by charging them money to merrily assure them that they were only fifth best, after birth families, etc etc etc.

NO IT IS NOT.

And, as you have read so many times, at least I can speak from the pulpit labeled ADULT ADOPTEE WHO KNOWS THE PAIN OF NO BLOOD KIN.

2. China is a proud and wonderful country.

NO IT IS NOT. It is a crowded, filthy, corrupt country filled with people who are forced to bury their good qualities to survive. The babies born there are just like you and me but they are raised in a society that teaches them that human life is not real meaningful, quality of life is a luxury, and only the strongest survive and if you have to bury your good qualities to survive, you do so. Girls are not as good as boys and money is all powerful (just like the US)

Let me tell you a little story.

I hear whispers in the darkness. Whispers flying into my interested ear of well meaning First World parents of Third World adoptees who have donated millions to China hoping to save other children born in the same circumstances as their children. I hear that orphanage children do not receive an education and are turned out on the street at age 16 with no job skills. Prostitution, factory work, or death quickly follows.

I hear whispers that millions of dollars given to adoption agencies and funneled to Chinese officials have found their way into corrupt pockets instead of to the orphans they were supposed to help.

I was born cynical. Twelve years ago, our agency instructed us that we should spend a good deal of money on honorariums (gifts) to the orphanage officials and nannies that arrived and placed our children in our arms. We were not to be hurt by the fact that the gifts were not opened in front of us, nor were we thanked. That was the Chinese way. Well, I was pretty cheap when I was born, so instead of spending another hundred or two dollars I went to Goodwill and found some Disney World t-shirts that looked brand new and some silk ties for a dollar apiece and I wrapped them up in recycled gift bags and stuffed them in our suitcases. As promised, the officials gathered the items up (some professionally wrapped) and bundled them off without a thank you.

Our luggage containing our orphanage gifts arrived two days after Meredith was placed in our arms. I tried to give the gifts to the nannies who were still in town. The big gun had already left for the orphanage. THEY REFUSED THEM!! They didn't even open them, just shoved them back at us. AHA I KNEW IT I exclaimed to Roger. They don't get to keep anything, so why bother to even take it back with them? And if they opened them and kept the gifts, someone would rat them out. Whatever, he sighed, trying to give one girl a bottle and entertain the other with a can of Pringles.

Families were asked to donate $1000 American dollars for an air conditioner for the room that the babies had lived in. Playing "Dumb Tourist" (a role that came as natural as breathing) I asked one of the hotel bigwigs how much an air conditioner cost. Oh, about $400, he replied. Then his head snapped around. Why do you want to know? I was already sprinting for the elevator, announcing that our gift would be 1/2 the amount asked for. The orphanage did send us pictures of the air conditioner and a picture of a sign stating that the air conditioner was given in honor of the six babies, including my Meredith, who lived in that room. I would love to show her the room one day...

3. So you're saying America, or the other First World countries that have adopted children from Third World countries (PS What are Second World countries) is perfect?

I AM NOT EVEN GOING TO DIGNIFY THAT WITH AN ANSWER.

4. First World parents saved their children adopted from a Third World country.

YEAH WE DID. We may have saved their life. We have given them a chance to grow up in a nation richer and blessed with many material things that they could not have in China and we have given them love and parents. The only thing that needs to be added is that we did not save them because we are good people, we saved them because we ourselves were chosen by the luck of Fate to be born into a world that gave us the opportunity to have more things. And because we craved and yearned to have children.

5. Our children saved us.

YEAH THEY DID. They saved us from a life without the pitter patter of little feet in many cases. They saved us from a lonely life. They have brought us joy and happiness immeasurable by any human yardstick. And they know it, because we tell them so frequently. In my case, they saved my life, because after the fibro hit, they kept me firmly determined to live because I could never abandon them, due to vows taken as holy as those made in a cathedral.

A few years ago, I asked Madeleine if she wanted to return to China to see her birthplace.

Are you crazy? she asked. Let's go back to Hawaii!!! (We got free tickets due to a flight bounce and flew there just before she turned two) Or maybe Paris, she mused, having recently read the famous Madeline books. She has never wavered from her belief that China is a terrible place. Born a genius, I feel sure that she remembers bits and pieces of orphanage life. Of course I am working to help her change her mind. Of course I do not denigrate China in front of her. I don't think either child has read the news story, and I am not going to bring it up.

One day in the not so distant future, I may be clicking on Priceline and buying tickets to Hawaii, or I may be renewing passports and showing them the Eiffel Tower in the moonlight.

Many people believe that two thousand years ago a child named Jesus changed the world. I am not going to tackle that theological question, but I can tell you one thing that I hope with all of my heart and that is that a child named Yue Yue changes the world.

THANK YOU AND HERE IS A CUPCAKE!!!

I am so filled with gratitude to all of you who commented, emailed, sent your love.

Thank you, thank you.

I used to swear that I would never write a flounce post. You know, trainwreck. Woe is me. Poor little me. The world hates me.

I'd read others and think snottily, "Hmmm. Begging for hits. Everybody loves a good down & out story. I'll never do it. I'll keep my problems to myself, the way I was raised."

The Southern Lady way.

But I sat down and wrote that post because I wanted to. It came from the heart. I...um...I don't know how I can justify it...aren't ALL posts supposed to be from the heart?

I just want to thank you so very much for reading and caring enough about me to make your way through a mess of whining and moans.

I guess we all need to let it out once in awhile. I know I feel 100% better now. We all have problems. Some people have worse problems than others. But this I know is true. I do TRY to give back, post encouraging things, etc. And it felt SO DARN GOOD to get it back.

I promise I won't make a habit of these posts. It's the pain. The chronic physical pain. I could take on the world if I weren't for this pain.

And..the fatigue. I have not been out of the house except to go pick up Meredith from school for ten days. In order to do something fun, the planets have to align. I have to feel energetic enough. The pain level has to be fairly low. Those conditions rarely come together.

Okay!! ENOUGH.

THANKS.