A New Look

Tonight there was a caricature artist at the WABE holiday party.




How much do we love this? A really whole lot!

Facebook Plagarism

I stole this from our friend Ted's Facebook site. Couldn't resist. I'm sure you'll understand.

A Tentative Offering

I found this little ditty a few hours ago in a long-lost writing folder, and I liked it so much I tweaked it a bit and now I'm going to foist it off on you. One thing - I have alternately seen "Dipsophobia" defined as "fear of drinking" and "fear of drinking alcohol". If it's the former, it's a good title. If it's the latter, not so much...

Comments welcome!

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Dipsophobia

Lizzy was a normal little girl in most ways. She had a cute little haircut, wore cute little shoes, said cute little things. You’d never know to look at her she lived in mortal fear since that day at the park. That was the day they had started taking her big brother away. Oh, he came back, sure – but he didn’t smile as much any more, and he seemed somehow more serious, less willing to talk to Lizzie than before. Lizzie was sure it had something to do with that fountain, and she was terrified of going near it.

“Look how tall he’s gotten!” mom had exclaimed, watching her son drink, unassisted for the first time in his life, out of the tall, green, bird bath shaped faucet which stuck out of the ground by the hotdog stand. The Summer had been going on forever, and while the heat was crushing it also was comfortable in a way, completely surrounding you with its presence, making you feel drowsy and safe. Lizzie loved Summer. She also loved her brother – he was her own personal sun. Until the fountain did something, and mom took him away.

She was only a year younger than he was, that’s what mom said. Lizzie didn’t know what that meant and she didn’t care. Every morning when her brother was leaving she opened her closet door and checked her height against the mark she had made (with her yellow crayon, of course) which was her idea of how tall her brother was on that day. She had almost forgotten about it over the Summer, since her brother was back and was almost back to normal again. Maybe he was cured.

Summer was ending, however, and when Lizzy opened her closet door she noticed that the mark was a lot lower than it used to be. She knew she hadn’t changed it, and ran screaming into the bathroom where she locked herself in and wouldn’t come out until her brother promised he would help her to make mud pies, which was her favorite thing to do. By the time she remembered she’d have to go to the park to do it, it was too late. She had already been coaxed into the car.

They pulled into the lot, and when daddy opened the door the heat leapt in and grabbed her, feeling like a bully today instead of a friend. Lizzy bolted for the sand pile, as if she could outrun all of the water faucets ever made, but her brother beat her there easily. A sure sign he had changed – he used to let her win. She refused to look over at the hotdog stand, however. Whatever else awaited her, first there were mud pies to be made.

Adoption Update : Major Milestone!!

It's been a while since I raised my voice on the ol' blog here, I realize. It seems as though I've been in the middle of one long stretch of living too much to have time to write anything about it. Well, that changes today.

Lots of you have been patiently waiting and asking what-the-fuck-is-up with our adoption status. Today we sent off the first of two massive FedEx packages to Great Wall Adoption containing a really ridiculous bulk of paperwork which we have painstakingly collected over the past few months. We have one more of these mailings to go, and then we're done with everything but the waiting.

The really good news (as if that wasn't good enough) is that the stuff we need for the second mailing is already done, pending the finalization of our home study, for which we've just completed our last mandatory social worker visit! Once we finalize the home study, we send that entire mess off to the U.S. Government for its blessing, and once we get it back we send our second huge mailing off to Great Wall.

The number of hoops, ladders, roadblocks, hazards, and general government fuckery we've had to jump though, climb up, navigate around or beat to a bloody pulp with our fists has been utterly, comprehensively mind-boggling, but it's DONE. We are THIS CLOSE to being done with everything but the wait. And MAN do we look forward to it! We were getting seriously tired of the guilt that would hit us during a day when we didn't have time to chase down that piece of paperwork, or call some government official to bug them about the status of our request for information. The last few forms are just for us to fill out and mail to people. We'll be getting that done as we wait for the return of our documents from the government, so that when they get here, we turn them right back around to Great Wall.

So raise a glass everyone, the hardest part is done! Done done done done done DONE MOTHERFUCKING DONE!!!

Success at Immigration!

As per my post from October 2, I have been waiting for Officer Griffin to call me when my "dead" immigration file has been resurrected. Well, surprise, surprise, I have heard nothing from her or anyone else at immigration since that wonderful day. So, this morning I took the bull by the horn and made another appointment to wait for 90 minutes to have my 5 minutes at the counter. Amazingly, I waited only 25 minutes this time around, and when I walked up to the counter, Officer Gilmore seemed much more sympathetic than his cohort. At first he said that they don't do that at this office (meaning that they do not possess the G-24, Certification of Documents, which must accompany a copy of my Naturalization Certificate in order for it to a Certified True Copy). Well, I gently insisted that Officer Griffin was in possession of one of these forms when I last was at the facility on October 2, and that she has not contacted me regarding my status since then. I also did not waste time in turning on the pathetic and pleading persona that I can feign when need be. I was ready to cry, if necessary. C'mon acting chops, go! My new strategy worked, for Officer Gilmore returned after about 15 minutes with the G-24 all ready to go. We are even closer now. Hooray for Officer Gilmore and HOORAY IN GENERAL!!!!!

We're Soooooooo Close

Finally, I think I have an employment letter that will suffice for our China Dossier!!!! It is only the fourth version I've obtained since January of this year. We began the year way gung-ho, and then we took a big ol' break for the majority of the year. We have been in super-completion mode for the last 6 weeks or so, and this was an important step for us. The first letter was no longer good because we let it lapse more than 6 months. Then, then second one was not notarized, so I had to ask for a third. The third was no good because the notary commission expired today. However, miracle of miracles, we have a second notary public in the building, so I was able to have her sign off on the fourth and hopefully last employment letter. I'm gonna fight with Immigration again tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!!!!!

Putting it out there

After a long rehearsal last Monday night we went out for some beer with friends, and we actually had a fairly heated political discussion during which two friends felt that most Americans were doing well and happy with their lot. The other three of us were not in agreement, and I read this on NY Times this morning that certainly helped to substantiate our point. Even those who don't "know it" can certainly feel it.

In Judith Warner's blog, she wrote,"based on a new set of data from the I.R.S...It showed that America’s most wealthy earn an even greater share of the nation’s income than they did in 2000, at the peak of the tech boom. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, the Wall Street Journal reported, earned 21.2 percent of all income in 2005 (the latest date for which these data are available), up from the high of 20.8 percent they’d reached in the bull market of 2000. The bottom 50 percent of people earned 12.8 percent of all income, compared with 13 percent in 2000. And the median tax filer’s income fell 2 percent when adjusted for inflation (to about $31,000) between 2000 and 2005."

Boy, that gave me another dose of reality as I realized that I make just pittance above the median income in the United States. I, with a B.A., and M. Mus., and someday a D. Mus, am barely doing better than the median income. By the way, I make less than 40% of my boss' income. That sucks. No wonder people are discontented, even if they don't know it yet. Judith Warner wrote about the media's inability to perceive the state of Americans' discontent as a factor in mis-predicting the presidential potential of Hilary Clinton. The media has abandoned the fast disappearing middle class and our needs; therefore, they could not foresee Hilary's popularity among the vast majority of Americans. It's Saturday, so my thoughts go no deeper.

USCIS Sucks!

What is this USCIS, you ask? Well, it is U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and I had a run-in at the local office today as I tried...yes, tried...to obtain a Certified True Copy of my Certificate of Citizenship. Since it is illegal to photocopy this certificate, I had to make an online appointment to ask for a G24 in person. The G24 certifies the copy of the certificate so that it is legal and can be authenticated. Apparently, on my certificate, it states that my name is "Wei na Yang aka Wanda Wei na Yang," which differs from what they have on the computer system. They only have "Wei na Yang" in the system, so this "Wanda Wei na Yang" is not legal. Hello, isn't this what the aka stands for? The original CIS officer had no problem with me signing as "Wanda Wei Na Yang," so why should Officer Griffin be any different? Hello, I can has phonics? This caused so much confusion for the local office that they are requesting my "dead" file from the bowels of Immigration vaults somewhere in order to verify that it's okay for me to be also known as "Wanda." This verification isn't even required on the G24 because the inventors of this form understood (at one time) that when an immigrant first comes to this country, most likely the name will be the anglicized form of their original name, and that once naturalized, they may also be known as something else. I proved that I am the person on the certificate with no less than 2 forms of photo identification, so all they had to do was fill out the G24 and send me on my way. Instead, when I asked if I could have a time frame for when my file may come in because of adoption paperwork's time-sensitivity, I was stonewalled with at least five minutes of "I don't know," "I can't tell you," and "I can't." After a subsequent conversation with another asswholery "Officer Dean," I have determined that the local offices never see the actual Certificates, so they panic when it becomes clear that the script they usually follow will not suffice. Not only that, Officer Dean asked me how long my certificate had been lost, and when I told her that I have the actual certificate, she had to go talk to a supervisor. I doubt that she talked to any superior. They like to lie, truly.

Goddamn it, I am a U.S. citizen, and I do not deserve to be harassed like this. So, this morning I arrived at 8am for my 8am appointment, and had to take a number because the appointment means nothing. Seventy minutes later my number was finally called, and when I walked up to the window Officer Griffin tells me that she will have to, at an unspecified later time, call me after she verifies that I could be also known as "Wanda." She could not verify as to how many days or weeks this may take, but that it probably won't take years. Nice, huh? So for now we'll bypass the local office and send a notarial statement with a copy of the certificate to Washington D.C. so that it can be certified. I hate Immigration Services. I also had an unexplained fear of going to them, and now I know why.

DOH!

We've now signed up for the Dragon Dossier Service with Great Wall China Adoption, and no, it does not mean what you think it means. We are now using the agency to assist us in the document certification and authentication stage. They send us a FedEx envelope, and we send them the stuff they say we need to send them. Whew! This should make things easier. Today, I have obtained the notarial seal for the copy of my Chinese Birth Certificate, and tomorrow morning I have an appointment with Immigration to obtain a certified copy of my Naturalization Certificate. The picture on it is hilarious. My hair is so tall; actually, more specifically, my bangs are really tall. Besides that, Ben has ordered new Certified Birth Certificates, and we will go get our police reports real soon. Oh yeah, we both have appointments for our physicals this Thursday, October 4. Funny little story about that...well...

The CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) unveiled a new set of regulations at the beginning of this year, and for some reason we both thought that the weight requirement was a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 30 or below. We have operated under this assumption, especially regarding our early summer Phase One South Beachness. You can see the whole list here. For fun, I thought I'd look up the regulations again, just in case we had missed anything, and lo and behold, I discovered that the BMI requirement is 40 or below. So, instead of Ben trying to lose five pounds in 10 days, he can actually be as heavy as 279 pounds and still be within range. DOH! Not that he wants to weigh 279 nor do I want to weigh 248, but we could:-P This will most likely result in some bier trinken by my beloved very soon. He has abstained for the last 10 days or so. What discipline! Our terrible collective memory has resulted in us getting in better shape, even if we feel a little bit blond today. Whew! I'll keep you posted as we keep gathering speed on this adoption journey.

Me, Reflective?

The Emory Alumni Association people recommended me to the Emory Wheel as an alumni of interest who might want to say a few words about Emory in the special section for alumni weekend. They seem to think that I am worthy, which surprises me. However, I did submit a reflective essay to the Emory Wheel today, and maybe it will be published. Even if not, here's my 500-word ditty. Bon appetit, y'all! (Many thanks to my editor, Ben Temko, for correcting my grammatical snafoos ahead of time :-)

I had a hectic day today, not unlike most of my days, but in the midst of running around, talking on the radio, teaching singing, and singing at temple, one thing pervaded my thoughts—my 15^th college reunion. There’s much to celebrate, but it’s also a reminder that time is passing; a perfect opportunity to reflect on what those four years continue to mean to me, personally and professionally. Overwhelmingly, I am grateful to Emory, for all the challenges, triumphs, and failures that I endured and still cherish today, and how Emory taught me to examine, to feel, and to play.

I am grateful for the professors and classes that challenged me to think and to examine the world and my relationship to it in a deeper and more connected way. Even though I took History of Western Civilization in the midst of intense rehearsals for Godspell, Descartes and Kant still have managed to keep my mind pretty busy over the last 15-plus years with contemplations of existence. Even psychological statistics proved incredibly helpful in preparing me for the analysis of radio listening habits, a crucial skill for me at WABE. Without Dr. Nowicki’s seminar on relationships and Dr. Edwards’ seminar on love, I may never have known how to truly connect with my emotions. The Chinese are known for being stoic, and as extroverted as I am, I needed to know that to feel deeply is to recognize pain and reconcile with it in an honest way. When you can put this into practice, good things will come. I know that without this honest dialogue, I would never have found the love of my life and partner-in-crime, Ben Temko (Emory College ’92). I also know that without the emotional foundation that Emory gave to me, our marriage would not have survived two years of unsuccessful fertility treatments or the subsequent year of grieving. Through all the tears, we were not afraid to face our fears and despair with a healthy dose of laughter and play.

Yes, Emory also taught me to play and to enjoy life. A resident advisor taught me that downtime was as important as scholarly pursuits, and I followed her example by always being mindful of having fun. Playtime for me included spending time with friends, acting in Ad Hoc and Theatre Emory productions, and singing in choirs with Dr. Alfred Calabrese. Eventually, play time became my life’s pursuit, and I am now finishing my music dissertation from Indiana University Bloomington.

My years at Emory laid the foundation for how I have lived my live as an adult. I am grateful for how beautifully rich my life has become, for all of its ups and downs, and for how I’ve lived it as a thoughtful, feeling, and joyful person. My hat’s off to those who are just starting their journey to adulthood, and may you all take away with you the tools you’ll need to live the best life.

High Holy Days

I'm just hours away from the first of five Yom Kippur services that I will sing in the next two days, and I am dreading it for one reason only--the hideous substitute cantor that was hired for this year's services. He cannot sing nor read music. Reports are that he has had the music for at least two months, and he arrived knowing, at best, 35% of the notes. He doesn't even know the words to Kol nidre!!!!! He is simply an embarrassment to the temple and to the sacredness of these religious proceedings. Ben will be coming to one of the services tonight, mostly because I really want him to experience the cantor, a.k.a. disaster. The choir's last rehearsal with him was so excruciating that we all started to sing his notes for him, even the teenagers, who were much better than him, I might add. Oy.

It seems that lately I've had nothing but rants, and I will work hard to change that, I swear. On a good note, Ben and I are getting closer with our adoption paperwork. We'll post about that soon.

Aveda Sucks

A Capitalistic Rant:

Aveda discontinued my favorite hair goo, Light Elements Finishing Lotion. Goddamn it. I am a creature of habit and am covetous of hair products. It takes me forever to find something I truly like, so how dare they discontinue it! On top of that, they changed their reward program so that it is no longer appetizing for this bargain huntress. They were giving away a "starter kit" of trial sizes to each individual when they sign up, but now they're just going to offer double points on your first purchase. Fuckers. Mind you, this little change happened some time between June 30 and today, because when I tried to join on June 30 at the Aveda Institute after a haircut, the little emaciated check-out girl explained that they were out of these "starter kits" so I'd better go to another Aveda location. Well, I was short on time that day, so it took me 2 months to finally "get to another location." The reason given to me for this change when I went to the Aveda Store in Lenox today was that people were joining just to get the free stuff and not really purchasing anything. Well, they had not met me, had they. I am a drugstore beauty product girl, but when I found these products, I finally became a convert. Ben is even a convert now, so how dare they insult me. Loyal I have been for the past couple of years, at least. (I know that this is incredibly ego-centric, but I'm just foaming at the mouth a bit right now.) I hate the R & D that it takes to find a new beauty regiment. For god's sake I've been using the same Clinique face crap for well over 15 years now. Now I'm hunting down some of this "discontinued" hair goo on ebay. Hopefully I'll be the highest bidder (and still get it for a bargain price). Wish me luck. I'll know by this Friday.

On the move

The Chronicles has gone out of the country yet again, and we didn't even fucking manage to finish the last Paris according to the Chronicles. Our last trip was to Dublin and London, ostensibly to sing at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin and Westminster Abbey in London, but really it was because our full-Irish/English-breakfast-ometer was reading dead empty, and that's just not a good thing. Four hundred pigs, 67 cows, 9000 proto-chickens and no less than 30,000 acres of various grain fields are now in their respective states of expiration thanks to us.

Newly discovered beer favorite : Smithwicks

And oh yeah:

Hottest temp we faced on the trip : 81
Temp we faced deplaning in Atlanta : 94

FUCK it's hot around here!

So we have a few days back to frantically get our working lives in some sort of re-order and then we're off to our first ever Temko Family Reunion in Lake Tahoe. Looking WAY forward to that!

We've both finished HP7.

I've not played tennis in 2 weeks and it's killing me.

I think we gained all of the weight back we lost prior to the trip. This was the idea, but it's slightly depressing to have followed The Plan so perfectly thoroughly.

More later... maybe...

The Joys of Public Radio

The air-conditioning has died for the umpteenth time at work, and even though there are fans everywhere trying to circulate cool air from other parts of the building, I am in the middle of hell. The heat is reminiscent of Rome (Italy, that is) in the middle of July, except there are no gelato stands here. The electronics are even more unhappy than us humans, and that is a very bad thing. The folks in charge would rather spend money on superficial upgrades and trying to cram four more cubicles here in radioland than to fix the things that are fundamentally wrong with this building. Ah, evasive tactics meant to distract from the real problems of an organization. Since my brain is sweating it's so hot in here, I cannot promise to be terribly coherent. This I know...I wish I had my own car so I can get the hell out of Hades as soon as I sign off today, but alas, the asshole who ran into us last Saturday has ensured my fate for today.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Let me start with this:

We're sore but ok. We got god damned lucky.

It was such a nice day. Slightly cooler than a normal Atlanta Spring day, slightly overcast. I had spent a wonderful morning playing tennis, and we had just left Sam's Club with a fresh batch of hummus with chips and cherries on our way to a nice family dinner. We were headed south on the I-85 access road at Clairmont, waiting at the stop light at the intersection. We were first in line. Our light turned green. We weren't in a hurry so I took my time as I started into the intersection. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of green.

WHAM

A green Jeep Cherokee slammed into our rear quarter panel, spinning us more than 200 degrees and up onto the median dividing the return access ramp from the access road, or we would have spun around some more.

There was no sound of tires screeching. The rat bastard motherfucker never even tried to slow down. He was no less than 4 seconds late getting to the intersection, and he tried to simply gun it around us. He didn't make it.

This was our poor car just after the wreck. We were coming in the direction that the red mitsubishi in the background there is headed. The guy who hit us was coming in the direction of the 3 cars side by side in the background.

After a few minutes I started having lower back pain, and not 30 seconds after that the paramedics showed up. They asked if anyone was hurt, and I was trying to stretch my lower back out when I told them I was fine. They told me to stop stretching out my lower back, and that they wanted to take me to the hospital as a precaution. This is me getting strapped to the stretcher. They call it a standing takedown, which makes it seem like something Daniel Laruso would administer, but it just means they strap you to the thing vertically and then lie you down horizontally. I tried to tell them I was OK but they were adamant, and, bigger than me.

We wound up at Northside Hospital (again) and after a few hours were both discharged, me with back spasms and Wanda with a magnificent set of bruises and an elbow swollen to the size of an orange. We were told to take it easy, and that the pain would get worse before it got better.

Oh, good.

We did eventually get to the family dinner, but two family members had to come and get us at the hospital, for were a) in no condition to drive and b) had nothing whatsoever to drive even if we were.

Here's another pic of our poor car. Notice the windows and separation of wheel base from frame.

Here's another pic of our poor car. Notice the sad condition of the door handle.

Here's another pic of our poor car. Notice the front wheel is BROKEN.

Here's another pic of our poor car. Notice the back door no longer fits in the frame.

Here's another pic of our poor car. Notice the trunk door no longer fits in the frame.

We went to retrieve our stuff from the car at the tower's (Brown and Brown, nice folks all) to find the hummus, chips, and cherries spread liberally all over the back of the car. Both chip bags had exploded. The hummus container exploded, covering the inside of the trunk with the stuff. Neil wins extra points for helping clean that up.

Now we are home, shaken, bruised, sore, and THANKFUL that we got away relatively unscathed. We can replace the car. It could have been, oh, so much worse.

Impresario 2007

While WABE was in the middle of the spring pledge drive, I was driving to Gainesville for rehearsals for Mozart's The Impresario at Brenau University's International Opera Center. As Miss Silvertone, I was the perky, vivacious diva. Yes, I'll admit that typecasting was involved, but what can you do? The opera was a great success, and I had the unbridled joy of working with William Fred Scott, the director of this here opera center. A great time was had by all, with the most delightful element in that of my presentation wig, as seen here. Don't I look good as a blond?

Lucky 13

Note : I posted this on the actual day but it didn't show up for some reason. Here it is now, in its original format.

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Today, April 23rd 2007, is the 13th anniversary of the Yang + Temko union. The good news is that Wanda and I both called in to our places of work to tell them we weren't coming in, and then spent the entire day knocking around Atlanta together.

The bad news is that we spent all day driving from one doctor's office to another. Yesterday Wanda developed a stomach ache which got progressively worse, and after losing a night's worth of sleep she called the doc this morning, gave them her symptoms (pain all over her abdomen, sore back, fever), and then was told she had to go in. Right then.

So, we rushed showers and headed to the doc. After some rather painful tests we were sent to the lab for some blood work, and then they gave her an enormous tub of barium-milkshake to drink and sent us here so that they could give her a cat scan of the area to see what the hell was going on. The doc was thinking appendicitis. We were hoping virus. You see, if Wanda has appendicitis, and they have to do surgery, then that means that we can't move ahead with adoption proceedings for another year. They require a year to pass after your last surgery, I suppose to make sure you're OK, though it seems punitive to me.

So, surgery bad.

We sat around waiting to get cat-scanned forever. Finally they got her in, and then spat her back out again. Ten minutes later there was a quasi-verdict : it's not appendicitis. We were then sent here (notice how fucking far that is) to the emergency room, where we got to wait around forever again (it is so possible) before seeing another doctor. This time there were x-rays (which did not, thankfully, require the barium milkshake), but after many more hours and many more tests, nothing whatsoever new was learned, only that Wanda's appendix looked normal, as did the rest of her internals in the vicinity. They pumped her full of antibiotics, gave her prescriptions for more along with some pain meds, and sent us home. All told, we were gone for around 14 hours or so.

So, we spent the entire anniversary day at doctor's offices, or on the road to a doctor's office, all the while with Wanda in some pretty serious pain. When Wanda herself says it's a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the "worst possible pain you can imagine" (those were the words of the triage nurse at the emergency room), then that means it's about a 72 for you and me. Wanda's 7 puts me on the floor screaming like a little child.

We had plans to eat a lovely dinner somewhere out romantical-like, instead I ate this, my first food of the day, by myself at about 8:30 (it was the only place I could get food, and this meets my criteria for ever eating at McD's), and in about 5 minutes while Wanda was in for x-rays for the second time. Wanda, the poor girl, didn't get anything to eat except that disgusting, enormous Barium milkshake, and she was in pain the entire time just as an added bonus.

All along we joked how romantic it was (in between Wanda's gasping in pain), and we did remember to say "Happy Anniversary" to each other along the way. One thing for sure, it has been a memorable day, and will help to make us appreciate the good times all the more.

I love you so much baby! Happy Anniversary! Now go enjoy your hydrocodone!

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The postscript to this is that after a follow-up today, the docs are now saying diverticulitis, which means no surgery, just antibiotics and later, a colonoscopy! Yay!

One last thing : this is not to say we didn't celebrate at all - we threw a little shindig last Friday night (which got off to a roaring start when I accidentally broke part of one of Wanda's big toenails off with my large clodhopper feet during our prep work hours before) which lots of people attended, and everyone had a blast. We'll post pics of that in the near future. First we have to figure out where the hell the camera ended up.

Adoption Update & Venting Some Steam

It's been awhile, we know. Many of you have yelled at us, online and offline, to tell us to get on with it already, and we've heard you. Last night Wanda and I plowed through all but two of the remaining pieces of paperwork to complete the home study. The two remaining are the medical reports, which we will schedule for this week, and the police reports, which I will take care of tomorrow, if possible, this week for certain. Those two things are also requirements for the overall adoption paperwork pile, and are two major accomplishments along the road. Houston, we have movement once again.

Now, that said, let me explain something.

Wanda and I had a nice late night outing last Friday, just the two of us at one of our favorite late-night-outing locations, the Brickstore Pub in downtown Decatur. It was noisy and energetic, and we had a lovely time screaming at each other to be heard over the general pandemonium surrounding us. What we discovered was remarkable.

You've all heard of those 5 stages of grief, right? Turns out Wanda and I are still both smack in the middle of denial. We refuse to accept that we'll never be able to have our own biological children. We still have hope that something might work for us some day. So here's the rub - we both us of feel, even though we know it's not rational (and if there's a more rational person around than me, I'd love to meet them), that proceeding with adoption is giving up on biological children forever. Our mental and emotional roadblock is the fact that we see adoption, on some level, not as moving forward but as giving up. And neither of us are the quitting type. Not even a little bit. We're stubborn, and driven, and both of us believe that, if we just try hard enough and do everything just right, that we will achieve any goal we set for ourselves. It's just inconceivable to us that we can't accomplish anything we set our minds to.

It also doesn't help that we HATE having to go through this adoption thing, and we hate it with a white hot passion. We hate the paperwork, we hate feeling judged, we hate the constant feeling that we're just not good enough to have our own kids, when the entire fucking world around us can do it. We can't shake the gross unfairness of it all. It's offensive in the extreme. Much of this, of course, is tied to our underlying grief, but it's thorny and complicated to say the least.

You see the problem?

Well, now so do we. Both of us were on the verge of tears many times during this very loud conversation in this very public place (it was largely cathartic in many ways, being able to scream like that knowing we weren't screaming at each other - I recommend this highly). I verge on tears just typing this shit out. It's deeply painful to contemplate - Wanda and I have essentially lost 4 children in the last 3 years. They might not have been physical, actual children, but in our hearts we were planning birthday parties and teaching them tennis and music and sending them off to Emory and sleepovers to their friend's houses and having play dates with our friends' kids. They were so real to us. We could smell them, feel them, hold them in our arms. You show me anyone else who goes through that kind of loss and has their shit together any time soon. We talk and walk and laugh and play and seem like our ordinary selves on the outside, but inside we have all-too-easy access to what feels like an endless well of grief. It's really not like us at all to dwell on something this much, or to let ourselves be held back by any kind of burden, but this, this is a special sort of circumstance, and all we're trying to do is weather the storm.

What we decided is that, in the meantime, we can begin to separate the mechanical process of adoption from the emotional and physical process of grieving, so that we can move towards something that we know will bring us great happiness, and that is having a pack of children running amok in the house. We've already made a start with last night's paperwork spasm, and it will continue this week as we try to conclude the proceedings as soon as possible.

I can't tell you how much we appreciate the support, well wishing, and even the ass kicking we've been getting during this time. I hope you all understand that we're doing the best we can, and that we really do want to get this done, even more than you want us to get it done.

A lot more.

I Wuz Robbed

The Tennis Channel is having a contest, the grand prize for which is 2 weeks expenses paid to cover the French Open as a journalist, with press credentials and full access and everything. This, to me, would have been paramount to having died and gone to heaven, since this would have folded up some of my favorite things about life (i.e. tennis, writing, Paris with Wanda (oh yes, Wanda is with me this whole time - as if she'd let me go on my own!)) and put them all in my lap.

The entry for was 500 words or less on the topic "What would you do if you were commissioner of tennis?" This is an interesting question because currently there is no commissioner of tennis, just a bunch of governing bodies which squabble endlessly with one another. They asked for creativity and to show a knowledge of the game of tennis. Here is my essay, which I found out tonight did not place in their top ten, which was the requirement to move ahead to the semi-finals of the contest:

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Imagine a sports bar in Indianapolis on Super Bowl Sunday. Devin Hester of the Chicago Bears has just returned the opening kickoff about 287 yards for a touchdown, and everyone is already fearing the worst. Painful specters of failures past re-introduce themselves to people who had thought them long banished. The broadcast cuts away to a commercial involving a singing frog and some sort of marsupial. The bar is quiet, only the forlorn clinking of bottles audible over the inane sounds from the TV. The commercial ends, and this is what is heard upon return:

“Due to time constraints, we are moving ahead in this game.”

Upon return, the score has moved from 7-0 Chicago to 16-14 Indianapolis. You can imagine the pandemonium which would ensue, and yet tennis fans have had to endure it for as long as tennis has been on television. For some reason, it is acceptable to cut bits of a tennis match out in order to fit it into some pre-ordained time slot where, directly following, there is nothing to be seen but large men with chainsaws cutting wood, or an in-depth look at the sport of nerf-herding.

It’s not even as if the cuts are tastefully done. I remember watching a Sampras match wherein Pete lost the first set, and upon return from the commercial break, those dreaded words:

“Due to time constraints, we are moving ahead in this match.”

Upon return, Pete has evened the match at a set apiece, and the announcer, I believe it was Barry “7^th Game” McKay, chimes in with:

“That’s got to be the best set of tennis played by anyone this year!”

Well thanks for nothing, mister editing-room goon, I’m glad you got to enjoy that fabulous set of tennis. The rest of us will sit and wonder about it, perhaps we will begin to read that book about knitting we’ve been eyeing. We at least know that when we inevitably put it down, we can pick it back up again where we left off!

As commissioner of tennis, my first act would be to strike new TV deals which flatly prohibit the cutting short of any broadcast match, be it live or tape delayed. What do you mean there are aliens landing on the capitol? Federer and Nadal have split sets, we’re not going anywhere! Your local news is next but they’re going to have to wait, because Sharapova and some other Randomova are playing a 3^rd set tie-breaker - they’re already at 67-67 and nobody shows signs of being able to hold serve anymore. Are the manic fumblings of my local police force more interesting than that?

Furthermore, I will enact sharp penalties for those networks which tape-delay a match, but then pre-announce the score for you anyway. Perhaps we’ll sneak into the network president’s home and steal all of his faucet handles. I promise you, retribution will be swift, completely unpredictable, and painfully awkward. Just like the lobotomization of a tennis match.

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So now you can go to the Contest Home of the Tennis Channel's Contest, read the other essays, and explain to me how in god's Great Green Greasy Limpopo River of a fucking world did I not place among that group of essays. Granted, there's a bit of a bite-the-hand-that-feeds-me vibe to mine, but for one, I'm not talking about the tennis channel I'm talking about ESPN, which everyone who watches tennis knows is the worst instigator of this sort of behavior (but TTC is not above this behavior themselves and it infuriates me), and for another, fuck them if they can't take a joke. They have no idea I wrote a program which automatically sent e-mail every single day to Comcast's programming department which read, simply "Dear Comcast, Please pick up the Tennis Channel! Thanks, Ben", and that thing ran for the better part of 8 solid months before Comcast finally caved. I LOVE the tennis channel, I just need full matches, thank you very much.

I only like one of the so-called semi-finalists' essays more than the one I wrote. Can you guess which one it is? Double bonus for anyone who knows (and can say why!).

Fuckers.

Whodathunk it?

While googling my favorite countertenor today, I see that Andreas Scholl has a MySpace page. He is a composer of pop songs, mostly of the 80s New Wave kind, and I love them. He's such a cheese ball. Did I ever tell you that I met him, back in 2000, when I went to Belgium to compete in a Baroque Singing Competition? He was one of the judges, and he's 6 foot three of pure dreamboatness. Now that's a countertenor, baby.

Paris, Day 1

Here, at long last, is the beginning of our Paris bloggage. I have the pictures on another site, and you can find them as links throughout the posts. Enjoy!

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As some of you may know (as if we didn't brag about it for the past month), Wanda and I went to Paris on the weekend of February 23rd for a quick getaway just for the two of us, and also to celebrate Wanda's birthday. We left Thursday afternoon, got into Paris Friday morning, and left on Monday to arrive back in Atlanta Monday night very late. Those of you who have finished reading the post below about how we got sick on Wednesday will be wondering about that, so let me put your mind at ease.

We were sick the entire fucking time.

This didn't stop us from having a great (if occasionally surreal) time. I kept crib notes on the whole thing so that I wouldn't forget anything, but looking at them now they are vaguely illegible. I'd blame this on the various fevers but anyone who knows me knows I have the handwriting of a 3 year old terrier. None-the-less, here's how it all went down:

We started with one huge suitcase (for many layers were packed, as weather predictions varied wildly) and a guidebook. We got to the airport plenty early, and it's a good thing, as weather in Chicago (our connection - yes we flew west to go east... it was far cheaper than a direct flight) was delaying flights for several hours and we only had 1:45 worth of layover to make our connection. Luckily for us, the enormously helpful lady at the American Airline check-in counter switched us to an earlier flight (lesson learned : ALWAYS get to the airport early!), so when we got to Chicago we had only about an hour to wait for our outgoing flight to Paris, which was itself delayed, but not as badly as we'd feared.

Upon our arrival, we wended our way through the airport to discover that our gate was a short excursion from the food court, wherein bad Chinese food was available for purchase. We're pretty much Chinese food whores, we'll eat it anywhere, any time, under the assumption that even bad Chinese food is better than a fast food burger. In this particular case, we were wrong. That was some of the nastiest Chinese food ever. That shit made the stuff at Colony Square seem like Iron Chef food.

We survived it, and caught our flight to Paris, about which there are three noteworthy things:

1. There was absolutely the most adorable Chinese baby being carried around. We made eyes.
2. I tried watching a movie without sound (the headphones they provided were the in-ear kind and hurt like hell), and wound up profoundly confused by the end of it.
3. We had Mister Tuberculosis behind us, and every time we were about to drift off to sleep that fucker would unload with the most horrifying coughing and squishing noises imaginable. He also didn't bother to cover his mouth while he did this. Guess what we're both suffering from now...

So, neither of us slept worth a damn, and we hit the airport dazed and confused, but ready for some fun! The fun began almost right away on the Metro on the way to our hotel, as some sort of security problem at a station along the way caused us to take nearly 2 hours instead of the expected 30-45 minutes. We did have a nice conversation with an Irish guy while this happened, during which the entire contents of my left nostril abruptly exploded out of my nostril and on to my shirt. As I had a fistful of kleenex this was easily (if disgustingly) remedied, but not the kind of social graces one wants to present upon arrival in Europe. The Irish guy thought it was funny as hell. This is why I so like the Irish!

Finally we arrived at our stop, exited the Metro station (funny story : the first time I went to Paris in 1992, a friend of mine and I got stuck for more than 2 hours in the Metro because neither of us knew that "Sortie" meant "Exit"), and after walking half a block, we saw this.

That's the Eiffel Tower for those of you keeping score at home. We at this time became rather agitated. Our hotel was less than a block from this point, so when we got there, we saw this. Thanks be to all the gods, our room was ready. This allowed us to shower, refresh, and do 2 important things - get ourselves an immediate lunch date at the Jules Verne, the restaurant located about a third of the way up the tower itself, and to make reservations at a little place around the corner for Wanda's birthday dinner, for which we had packed a very nice set of clothes so we could go out and look adult and stuff.

We left immediately for the tower, and after some fumbling about around the base managed to find the proper entrance to the restaurant lift. Here we are eating lunch at the Jules Verne:

This meal was a) the most expensive meal we ate the entire weekend by a significant margin, and b) a very long, protracted affair. The service was impeccably slow, allowing us to nearly fall into exhausted stupors on several occasions (recall, we're sleepless going on about 20 hours now, and working hard on our second week of flu-ridden-ness). Our menu selections went as follows (this does not count the endless supply of warm, crusty bread they brought to us, which I think kept us alive for the first half of this meal):

	Wanda	Benjamin
Appetizer	Foie Gras and Chicken Terrine	Smoked Salmon with Veggie Mash
Entre	Fish with about a pound of butter sauce	Perfect Rare Steak
Dessert	Rum Banana Cream Monstrosity	Chocolate Strawberry Tart Contraption

We got tons to eat, and afterwards went out to the observation deck to check out the view. Here's our hotel from the Jules Verne observation deck.

We took a bunch of other shots:

The green in front of the tower.

Towards the Sacre Coeur.

My absolutely adorable wife.

Vertiginous view of the tower.

Us, cold.

Upon leaving the Eiffel Tower we proceeded to head back to the hotel for a brief moment to inform the concierge that we would not be needing those 7:30 dinner reservations. I told him we were just getting back from lunch (about 3 hours have passed since we left for lunch, so now it's around 4:30 or so), and he did a classic double-take and said "Mon dieu! You have been gone already zis long? Oui monsieur, I will cancel ze reservation!"

From here we Metroed to Notre Dame because, hey, it's Paris, you just have to go. We walked around there for a bit (obligatory "we're at Notre Dame" photo) then decided to go walkabout for a while, seeing the Centre Pompidou and visiting one of the great newer features around paris : the elf-cleaning toilet! It's free, and all you do is go in, use it, and then leave. It then locks itself for a few minutes while it performs a thorough self cleaning (it sounds like a really enormous toilet flushing, but I hope this is not actually what is happening) and then opens back up again. WAY better than a port-o-potty! While in the vicinity around Centre des les Halles we took the opportunity to grab a snack (you can't tell, but that is a banana nutella crepe, which I will vote for as one of the new seven wonders of the world - it did NOT come out of the self cleaning toilet, much as it might look that way), and a bottle of wine, and then dove back into the Metro in order to get to the Arc de Triomphe.

By now it was dark and getting colder, but we took the time to take this picture, and then decided to walk back to our hotel, since we were quite warm by this time. The nice thing about your hotel being near the Eiffel Tower is that, anywhere you are in Paris, you can find your hotel easily by following that enormously tall building around until you catch it. So, we walked down the Champs Ellyses to George V to Pont d'Alma, following that enormous pretty monument, when suddenly it started to sparkle. I mean seriously sparkle, flash, and otherwise look dazlingly pretty. It must have taken hundreds of thousands of very bright LEDs on random timers to create the effect. It was utterly spectacular, and so we spent a few minutes near the base of the tower just savoring, partaking of a bit of canoodling, and celebrating Wanda's birthday in the most magical way possible. We'll never forget it.

Finally, we reached the hotel. We ordered room service (cheese plate, salad), cracked the label on our wine, and toasted our success at surviving our first day. At exactly 10 PM, both of our sinuses completely jammed up. We couldn't breathe at all out of our noses - total cloggage. To this day we are blaming the wine, not for any specific reason but because it seemed like the right thing to do. We fell into an uneasy, exhausted, and yet totally satisfied slumber.

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Adoption Update + The Real Miami Sound Machine

We've finished our social worker visits for the Home Study portion of our adoption proceedings! We had our in-home interview and Wanda had her personal interview this past week, and all went just fine. She liked our house, she liked our neighborhood, and she likes us, she really likes us! Next week we finish that set of paperwork and then begin the final push to gather the rest of our requirements. We're getting there!

Meanwhile, today the ASOC heads to Miami for a weekend engagement at the ACDA National Convention to sing Ralph Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony. It's an amazingly fun sing, and since our recording of it won the Grammy, we expect enthusiastic crowds. Plus, it's 80 degrees down there, so we're packing sunscreen and swimsuits! I knew I should have gotten into better shape over the winter - I resemble nothing so much now as an over-ripened cement truck.

Paris stories and pictures are coming, I promise! We had a miserable week following our return from Paris as we were both extremely sick the entire time (including the time in Paris, alas), and just haven't felt up to the task. We're better now, so upon our return from Miami we'll blog the Paris trip, and then after that the Miami trip. Stay Tuned!

Adoption Update : Social Worker Visits I & II

A few weeks ago we had our first meeting with our social worker who is working our adoption case for Families First. It was a brief meeting (only an hour) and was just a chance for the three of us to get to know one another a bit before we delve into the serious stuff. Our SW is a very nice woman, and the entire tone of the interview was not "I am judging your fitness for adoption", but rather "Let's get you some babies already!" Any time she asked us a question, she would listen to our answer and then describe how she was going to fill out the information on our adoption recommendation for best effect. It was, for me, a great putting-of-at-ease. She asked us how we met, which degenerated into us telling her The Story, at which she laughed (as most people do), so much so that she ended up saying "I've been doing this for 18 years and I have never heard anything like that!" So we all hit it off just fine, and made appointments for the rest of our interviews. I had my solo interview last Wednesday, and Wanda has hers next week, at which time we'll also do our final group meeting here at the house, and that will finish up the home study requirement on the road to adoption, excepting a few more forms to sign (always with the forms!).

For my solo visit, I'll start by saying that on Tuesday both Wanda and I started developing itches in our throats, and slight headaches. We figured this to be a result of the incredibly stuffy conditions from Monday night's ASOC rehearsal, but as the day progressed Tuesday we both got slowly, steadily worse. Wednesday we woke up with fully formed colds. Wednesday after lunch I drove the 3 minutes to the social worker's office with a bundle of kleenex and trepidations firmly in hand.

It turns out, I needn't have worried. Our SW continues to be a gentle and positive presence, and while she asked me interesting questions about my family and the period of time both directly before and directly after the divorce our family worked its way through, she was never once judgmental. She instead was interested in my thoughts regarding my own actions, reactions and the buildup and cleanings of various scar tissues which inevitably form around such an event. She asked other questions about things she found of interest in the adoptive autobiography I wrote for them, questions I found interesting and decidedly insightful, as they suggested that she wasn't just going through the motions, but that she had read and thought about my writing. I find the fact that someone else is working as hard as we are at this enormously comforting.

So, next week is Wanda's solo interview, then our last family interview, and then we begin the final phases of paperwork collection and cleanup. There's still so much to do!

Adoption Update : Home Study I

This afternoon I received a call from our social worker from the home study organization! We are officially scheduled for our first meeting with them this Friday at 10 AM. Thank goodness they aren't coming to the house just yet - we need to vacuum in the worst way! Excavation of the area rug in front of the sofa would surely reveal fossils from the mesozoic age. Even better, their office is only about a 3 minute drive from us, right across the interstate on Clairmont - how convenient for all!

Tonight, however, is Valentine's Day, so Wanda and I are going to the Atlanta Botanical Garden's Valentine's in the Garden event, which looks to be very nice (and COLD) indeed. We consider all outdoor walking in cold wether to be training for Paris, though, so it's all perfectly fine by us.

Adoption Update - Major Step!

It's been a while since we updated this, mostly because we were in the process of plowing through paperwork. I am delighted to report that we have completed the enormous stack of paperwork required to get our home study going and have shipped it off to the agency for processing.

We're on our way for sure now!

The adoption retreat turned out to be a really good thing. We got lots of shit organized, got ourselves in touch with what's left to do and the time frame in which we could get it done. We're pretty much on target now, so the next step is to get our first home study visitation in so they can tell us just exactly how baby-proof our house needs to become before we actually start bringing babies in.

Meanwhile, have we told you we're going to Paris in a few weeks? We figure while we're childless we're taking advantage of being able to just pick up and go to, er... pick up and go to Paris! We'll post pictures we take here when we return (it's not until the weekend of the 23rd, which is Wanda's birthday, which is ostensibly the reason for this trip (tho really it's a joint birthday party venture)).

One more thing to add - the new GG Kay book, Ysabel, is out and sitting on our sofa waiting for me to crack the spine. YAY!!!

Fun at the Opera

First of all, can you believe it…two blog entries in one day from the B&W gang? Well, I have to get this off my chest before I bitch-slap someone. We just came home from an amazing time at the Regal Hollywood in Chamblee watching a live, HD simulcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor. More on the opera itself later, but first, the bitch heckler. I decided that I would “host” the broadcast, which only meant that I would say hello, thank people for coming, pass around a synopsis sheet, say how proud WABE is to be carrying the Met broadcasts, and give away a few items. Well, with about 7 minutes to the start of the opera, this bitch decided to yell at me to stop the welcoming festivities because she wanted to hear the orchestra tune. I was so shocked by her rude behavior that I had only one retort. Inwardly I thought that this must be her first time at an opera, and that’s why she wanted to stop something that was fun for just about everyone in the audience. So, I asked her (probably in a patronizing tone even though Ben said that I sounded sweet) if this was her first time at the simulcast (meaning…at an opera, you imbecile). She responded by telling me, “no, but this is the first time that I haven’t been able to hear the orchestra tune.” Wooptie-doo bitch, this ain’t no opera house. We is at the movie theatre now, ho. Well, I wish I had said that to her, but very professionally, I wrapped things up abruptly and got out of her way, mind you this was before I could give away the grand prize of a Grundig Radio. When I returned to my seat, which was right behind her, the gentle lady sitting to the right of Ben told us that the bitch heckler was not exclusively rude to me. Earlier she spread her particular form of self-hatred to other patrons in the theater. Apparently she refused to move over a seat so that others could sit together. Many people apologized to me for her rudeness, and that made me feel better. I am just not used to being heckled. A stand-up comic I am not, and boy am I glad that I didn’t go off on a schiksa tirade alla Michael Richards, just in case someone was videotaping.

Now, a few short words on The First Emperor. For those of you who have sat through Peking Opera, this is a production that would make sense to you. Time stands still, and the opera becomes a meditation rather than a story with dramatic motion. The singing is virtuosic, the stage direction is stylized, the costumes are breath-taking, and the stage design is industrial and yet sumptuous. At various points you can rock out with the gu-zheng, a Chinese zither, and the orchestra becomes the vocal percussion section. Go Rockapella! With a production dream team of this magnitude, how can you not be wowed by the experience?

The production team includes China’s leading film director, Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers and Hero), and Academy Award®-winning costume designer Emi Wada (Akira Kurosawa’s Ran). Ha Jin, the National Book Award-winning novelist, is the co-author of the English language libretto.

Placido’s voice had such clarion ring, and Elizabeth Futral’s voice just shimmered in the high tessitura. I would love to see this live at the Met someday. When it comes out on DVD, go buy it, and watch it on an HD television.

Adoption Update, et. al.

Last night we started in on the mound of paperwork required by our homestudy group, Familes First. And I do mean mound. The stack is more than an inch thick! Included are various permission slips allowing them to invade our every privacy from financial to personal to criminal, but the prize-winning sow in the pen is the 11 page "autobiographical form" which we must each fill out, containing such questions as "What type of student were you?", and "What areas of your marriage do you feel can be improved upon?" Talk about a landmine question! Just surviving the filling out of this form should qualify us for a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Anyway, last night we began plowing through the stack, with a goal of finishing it all in the next week so we can get our home study underway. In the meantime we have both garnered our notarized work letters, and are making appointments to get out medical forms done. Police reports are not too far off on the horizon. We're getting there!

Meanwhile, my all-time favorite author, Guy Gavriel Kay, is about to publish a new book, his first in several years. Am I crazy for wanting to own this? But honey, it's for a good cause!

On the home front, my most recently completed project was this. Ask me what the hell that's all about, I dare you. Not for the technologically faint-of-heart! We're also about to begin redoing the closet in the guest bedroom at long last. I tore out the old "shelving" yesterday in preparation to find this lovely hole in the drywall behind the "boards" they used:

It's not the first time we've found a sub-par job done on some do-it-yourself remodel in this place - you should have seen the closets in the bedroom when we first moved in! Anyway, I'll send after-pics when it's done.