Houston, we have a problem

To add my own immediate reaction, I give fair warning to all of you :

The next person who tells me a story about a friend of yours who knows a couple who had so much trouble and just did "x" and wham they had kids, I'm going to reach down your throat and pull your fucking intestines out. I know you mean well, and I thank you for your concern, but that story isn't supposed to make us feel better, it's supposed to make you feel better about what's happening to us. It might give you hope, but we've exhausted our supply. Save us the torture of having to smile and pretend that your story, unlike all of the countless others we have heard, actually made us feel better, while inside we're mourning the slow deaths of our hearts.

There's nothing to be pleased about at this point, save perhaps we got this news of not-pregnant today and not on Christmas day, which was going to be the case if the current now-defunct cycle had continued. How's that for a silver lining. The next thing to concentrate on is making sure Wanda is healthy, and I suppose you can watch this space for news on that front when it's available.

Meanwhile, adoption has never looked better.

Mission Aborted

Went to the clinic for an ultrasound and bloodwork, and the news is not great--well, abysmal. It seems that three months of menopause did not calm my ovaries and decrease the amount of estrogen in my blood. It is in fact worse. I have larger cysts than before the treatment. Current process aborted, and we will have a consult in a week or so. My worst fear is that I may have a tumor or something on my ovaries. I'm sure there will be further testing. No matter what, the future looks grim with regard to actually becoming pregnant. Maybe Ben can carry the baby...

In the mean time, we've decided to go full throttle on China adoption. No reason to wait any longer. I am fresh out of optimism.

Here We Go Again!

After some false starts, the big one came last night. I have not had a period like this since June, so I am grateful. No wonder I was completely mal-adjusted during yesterday's Advent Procession. Today is Day 1 of the next cycle of In-Vitro, and I'll try to keep you up-to-date. Must call the clinic and report the big flow. Until tomorrow.

Home, where my loves lies waiting, er... not-so-silently for me

When we first moved into this house, we had some brief correspondance with the former owners over matters postal. They wanted to be sure that their forwarding was working as it should (i.e. they wanted only their own mail, and not the horse and tackle magazines of one S. Musselman, who we must also presume lived here at one point, and who we must also also presume had a love for all things equine - the fence that lined the lower property boundary (and when I say lower I mean the downhill side - we live on Jan Hill, after all) looked just like the fences you might see surrounding the classical hollywood horse-pen (we detested this fence - we didn't even know it was ours until our lower neighbors (Alan and Valerie, who own the second stupidest dog on the planet) pointed it out to us, at which point we immediately yanked the thing out of the ground and turned it into the compost heap container which now resides in the back yard - in this case apparantly bad fences made good neighbors, only Alan and Val hated the thing as well)), and so were asking us to keep an eye out for any correspondance on their behalf, which we were all too pleased to do, since the whole thing with the house worked out so well for everyone.

In one of the correspondances they pointed out to us that joining the local neighborhood association wasn't good for much of anything except listening to locals complain about noise from either the Greek Festival, which happens over a single weekend every Fall, or the nearby airport. We don't notice the airport noise so much, (although I admit that there's an increasingly large number of large planes zooming overhead, and this little airport isn't supposed to be handling that kind of traffic), but when the Greek Festival gets going, I have to say it's impressively voluminous. However, the people involved are having so much fun you can't possible begrudge them the aural assault. It was definitely something we had to explore, and so a few short months after we moved in we attended our first Greek Festival. It has now become a requirement of our residency. The Greek Festival starts off our Fall in much the same way that I believe the Jazz Vespers is going to be starting off our Christmases from here out. It's just not Fall without a huge pile of Greek food and Disco Jesus.

Ah yes, Disco Jesus. Well. The Greek Festival takes place at the absolutely ginormous Greek Orthodox Church on Clairmont road, an easy walk from our house (entry to the festival is supposedly a few bucks, but the locals in the surrounding neighborhood usually just let themselves on the grounds through the back fence of the property, and the organizers of the festival turn a kindly blind eye to it). The sanctuary of this church is graced with what I hear is the largest mosaic gracing any dome in the southeast, and it is unquestionably a mighty thing to witness. You can take a really neat photo tour of the sanctuary if you like. For me, however, the best mosaic in the room is not the one on the ceiling, it's the one just to the right of the altar, and while you can sort of see it on the photo tour, I give it to you here in variously improved shades of details. Ladies and gentlemen, Disco Jesus:

What sort of fails to come across here is that, first of all, this really is a beautiful mosaic. The colors in the muted lighting of the sanctuary (the same muted lighting which makes both taking a good picture with your phone impossible and taking a good picture with a real flash camera painfully, tactlessly obvious) are breathtaking. Second of all, Jesus is wearing robes of purest white, and he's clearly executing a disco maneuver, ne'er you mind the hands of the damned he's clutching. It's a John Travolta move executed only as Jesus can execute it - no wonder they made this mosaic to depict it! Next thing that probably happened right after this mosaic was snapped was that it started to rain like hell - good thing the mosaic is under a nice domed sanctuary!

Aside from Disco Jesus, though, the Greek Festival truly is a delight to the senses. We've prefected our routine to something like this:

1. Sneak through the back fence.
2. Head straight for the ticket booth to get food tickets.
   
3. Get food.
   
4. Eat. Enjoy music coming from stage. Consider dancing.
5. Get more food.
6. Eat. Enjoy music coming from stage. Under no circumstance is dancing now possible.
7. Go say hi to Disco Jesus.
8. Get Greek pastries.
   
9. Eat some, save some for later.
10. Go see the various shops where they sell kitsch raning from religious iconery to Greek Island Portraiture. Buy nothing whatsoever.
11. Go get freshly fried donuts and Greek Coffee.
    
12. Eat.
13. Consider getting more donuts and coffee, remember just in time the bag of pastries.
14. Sneak back through the back fence and walk home.
    

I believe that this finally concludes the Home series of postings. I think I remember saying I was going to post the Kia Saga from the original Chronicles, but then after that I guess I'll just have to start making new shit up.

Cute Furry Things

Here's the requested photo of the Killer Wabbit,
in action in Carnegie Hall.
Yes, it's a well-traveled wabbit.

Under the radar, under the weather

In a race befitting the grand tradition of... oh say the Laughalympics, it appears that both the Chronicles and our companion site have been blog-slacking pretty comprehensively over the last month. In defense of Meeeegan, however, I will note that her solo output nearly doubles the Chronicles' combined two-author output, so we must be clear as to our relative measurements here. In short, we suck.

My own excuse is that I've been finishing up other projects in the hopes that I will be able to devote more time to this whole writing thing, but, in the grand tradition of great-american-novelist-wannabes, I've failed to measure up to the demands of the task. And with the Christmas season approaching, this does not appear to have a chance of changing in the near-term. I did manage to produce my first-ever DVD of an archived tennis match, however, with all of the commercials edited out, and title screens and music and everything (they're coming to take me away, ha haaa!), so the interim has not been entirely wasted. Next up on that front is a wedding dvd (one my dad can actually watch)!

I've also been fighting a head cold that Wanda brought back with her for me from New York City. My wife went to New York City and all I got was this lousy head cold. And a t-shirt from the Carngie Hall shop. Oh and a kick-ass hand-puppet of the fearsome rabbit from "Spamalot". It has sharp pointy teeth! I came out ok.

Another point I wish to make while I'm posting is that I seem constitutionally incapable of posting anything briefly like Meeeeeegan does. I think if I had to write up something as adroitly and succinctly as she always does my hands would cramp. This is a characteristic I think I must work on. Look for more one-offs in this space soon.