Orphanpalooza Portland

The last hardcore partiers finally toddled off into the night, Mojo is curled up in bed and I've retreated downstairs to put this into pixels for the record. Portland ALTercation "Orphanpalooza" 2007 is history. Wow.

Before I go on - this is the view out of little Nola's window in Millicent and Floyd's beautiful Victorian house. Is this great, or what? It's like she's going to be living in the treetops!

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Anyway - what a cacophany of ALT-parent energies! We had meself and Mojo (and the Peep), the Austin inamoratas from Walternatives, B-gal from Moonbeam, W&J from Buttercup, Millicent from Different Dirt and Kelli from Waiting for Sprout. Much emotion was outpoured, much drink was intaken. All things adoption were thrashed out (with dark looks cast towards the Dark Lords of the Adoption Sith, who hold us all in their thrall), much else was dragged out and beaten to death (you haven't heard impassioned until you've heard Millicent talk about getting mugged and the unreal experience of getting U.S. fire-and-murder-news in the E.U.) and a genuinely good time was had by all.

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In my experience there are few who I would trust implicitly with my money, my drink or my woman. These people...they're paisans. My muckers. My companeros. Good times...good times.

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We started over at K's with an incredible Chinese dinner Saturday evening. Her "village" showed up in force, with little adorables in tow, one of whom to my inexpressible delight decided to take up residence on my knee while endlessly dipping her green bean in the soy sauce and sipping it (her mom said that it wasn't exactly a shock - she's a soy-sipper from 'way back...) She nibbled tiny chicken bits from my fingers and was, in all respects, a darling. Don't get me wrong - the Peep is mah boyee - but this little sweetie captured my heart with her gentleness and her incredible personality. And only two!

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I only hope our mei-mei can be such a little darling!

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The next morning we foregathered at Millicent's to admire the work her people have put in on her beautiful Mississippi district Victorian home. As you know if you've followed her - or this - blog, she and husband Floyd have been working to get their home back in shape after a disastrous fire for little Nola, the girl from Fujian they're bringing home within a month. The fire was horrific - I don't think I realized just how awful until today, when I stopped to look at the back fence. As you can see from the picture, the fence post was charred by the heat - and this post was at least twenty feet from the back house wall where the fire was the most involved!!! I stopped taking pictures and reached out to touch the post: deeply charred on the house side, nearly untouched on the far side. This is what the fire was doing. All I could do was stop in wonder. My god.

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But, like a phoenix, the Victorian house is rising from its pyre. The inside is lovely, grand, but still a home, from the gorgeous Roman mosaic on the shower floor to Nola's eyrie on the top floor front. The group all loved the promise of Millie and Floyd (and Nola's) beautiful home...

In the Fire Direction Center tradition (started last week), I have protected the group's identities in the attached snapshots by giving you just the feet to work with. So here's the ALT-gang in Millie's future family room: from left to right, Mama Sprout, JzBoy, Millie, wzgirl and Poodlemama. C and H were already downstairs, gloating over the gorgeous countertops, the rich detailing of mouldings and wall colors and the sensuous texture of the fir floor underfoot.

OMFG. There's a little girl waking in Fujian province who has no idea that this loving home is waiting to enfold her.

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Later today the group coalesced again, this time at the Fire Direction Center for an afternoon BBQ and hang out. Much drink was taken, everything from quinoa salad to lamb shish-kabob was ingested and the conversation ranged far and wide. Again, here's the nether regions of the group: Mojo on the right, buttercup, Millie and walternatives right to left. A nice snapshot of the gang breaking in the new deck...

And, of course, no evening would have been complete without the Peep adding his unique brand of entertainment to the mixer. And sweetBabyJesus does this boy love him some Kelli. It'd be embarassing in a sort of Anna-Nicole-and-J-Howard-Marshall way except that the Peep is totally clueless on how to gain the affections of his beloved: the closest he came was to badger her to come downstairs to listen to BlueGal sing "The Meanest Mommy" song. We're still unsure what this meant to him. It sure didn't work for her...

But here he is anyway. We sure had fun at the ALTercation. Hope everyone comes back real soon to meet our little girl and the big grown-up Peeper. We sure had fun with y'all.

ALTercation Portland 2007

Today's the first day of the ALT-DTC06 Portland "Orphanpalooza". Hungry-eyed, unchurched and empty-souled prospective adoptive parents of heathen Chinese orphans, driven frantic by the long wait for referrals, will descend on Stumptown to revel and drink and curse the CCAA and all things redthready-and-ladybuggery. Stay tuned for intimate reports from inside the Belly of the A-Parent Beast as we take the latest spin on the Chinese Wheel of Orphan.

Twelve Days

In twelve days we will sink down in our undersized yet expensive seats as the 737 rotates off the runway at PDX, on our way to the next stage of our lives, on our way to our daughter in Guangzhou.

We've worked for it. Goddamn but we've worked.

Here's a quick tour of the physical results of our preparations. I'm not sure, honestly, what made all this happen. Nesting? Nervous energy? Both? But the result has been a wholesale makeover of our little home on N. Amherst.

First, outside, there's an entirely new deck. Watersealed, inspected, complete. Note the nice two-level effect. We still need a bit of shrubbery.

Where the old east bay window once leaked and mildewed in unhappy malconstruction: behold the newly installed, painted and cleaned side door.

One note regarding the construction of this entryway: enlarge the picture and take a close look at the floor along the bottom of the door. We knew when we started remodelling that the northeast front of the house had settled "some", probably early in the life of the building some time in the 1920's. But there's a difference between knowing something and knowing it. Now, we know that the front of the house really does slope downhill. This had an interesting effect on laying the laminate floor. Inside of midroom it was quick and simple. Toward the front? Cleaning the corruption out of the House Republican Caucus would have been easier. Herculean. That's the best description for the task. Looks nice, tho, doesn't it?
You've seen the back hallway - the last bit was to replace these...

...nasty landlord snow globes...

...with better-looking pendant lamps from IKEA. Our spending this year at the purveyor of meatballs and laminate furniture make up 0.001% of the GNP of Sweden.
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I'm glossing over all the other stuff, like the new "OTTAVA" lamp and the new "BJÄRNUM /JÄRPEN" shelves in the bathroom, or the cute little "ALSEDA" footstools out front, or all the painting and detailing...
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Done. Done, done, done. We may still be flailing around but at least the house is ready for Mei-mei.

But first a visitor had to go home. Yes, it was time for Christine and the Boys to come and take Oscar the Ginormous Fish home to his family. I'm afraid to relate that there wasn't a moist eye in the Fire Direction Center when he went into his five-gallon bucket for the trip down to Capitol Hill. It helped that the Peep had dumped a bluefin tune-sized helping of his reeking chiclid food in the tank that morning, most of which had hydrated and was pretty foul by the time it came to move the Big Boy.

As she put her lips to the siphon in hopes of avoiding a full mouthful of vile chiclid tank-water Christine, in a most unmaternal voice, muttered "I thought he'd die. I really did."

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But as I've related, Oscar is the Fish Too Mean to Die. He survived yet another move, and is currently stinking up the Wilson's new house.

To help with the move, Peep and his friend The Poet posed as Asian gangsters. Note to self: do NOT let those boys watch any more John Woo films.



The amazing thing is that we've spent most of this weekend doing nothing in particular! No home improvement, no frantic e-mailings or phone calls. Lazed about the house, taked stabs at reassembling May's (Peep's old) crib, gone to Columbia Pool. But nothing more than idling about. What a lovely feeling.

We did have a pleasant surprise this morning: our friend Millicent, of Different Dirt, stopped by to visit. She's back in Portland just for what amounts to a moment before leaving to pick up her own daughter the same week we leave for Mei-mei.
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I have some nice snapshots of her and Mojo chatting and was going to post them here until I took a moment to look through the Dirt and realized that she seldom posts closeup shots of either her or Floyd. I'm not particularly concerned about people getting creepy about what I post here - I work in Southeast Portland, forgod'ssake, where "creepy" is a resume term - but I realize that others are and that she might be. So here's my own bloggy tribute to the fact that we tend to see as much of Millie's bare feet over at her blog as we see the rest of her.
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It was a lovely visit, and after that we went shopping for prezzies for the lovely workers in the Lianjiang City Social Welfare Center - I bet the lads'll be stylin' in their Oregon State University 2007 NCAA Champion Baseball t-shirts. Heh heh...
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So it's Labor Day tomorrow, and another two short weeks until we fly. All we have to do is pack and prepare for a fun get-together with our homestyles from the ALT-DTC Yahoo group coming for our September "Orphanpalooza" get-together.
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Speaking of which...I had to share this. One of our visitors mentioned that she was pining for the fall colors she misses in the southcentral U.S. - she loves the brilliant turn of leaves and asked if our "fall parade" had begun. I hated to disillusion her but had to give her the truth straight from the shoulder:

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To: XXXXXXX (address redacted)

From: FDChief@msn.com

Re: Fall colors.

<<"Fall Parade"????>>

(name redacted). Girlfriend. Here in Portland we have two seasons, and they're sort of like a Pamela Anderson video:

1. Hot (July-September)
2. Wet (October-June)

The leaves don't turn except for 15 minutes (2:00-2:15pm) September 27th, every year. After that they mold on the tree, fall off, and get slimy on the ground.

Oh, and slugs eat them.

So if you're missing full color fall and coming here hoping to...ummm...did I mention how magnificent the mighty douglas-firs look in the autumn light?

Looking forward to seeing everyone, parade or no parade...

...and your little dog, too!

Is this the part where Marilyn huffs out "Happy Birthday" like her girdle is too tight?

Never mind. HB, Nic.