Not Noah

What a day. Harrison spent last night at Deedee's house, so he wasn't with us when we met Jason & family at the Longbranch for brunch. It was nice to get to see them once more before they headed home, and the great news is, we're hoping everybody will be together again in 4 weeks (weather and work schedules permitting, that is!)

Just as the "Shaffers South" were driving off, we got a call from Deedee that Harrison was ready to come home, so we picked him up and came home to decompress and watch "Journey to the Center of the Earth". Harrison loved it - so much so, that he wanted to watch it again right away. We pursuaded him to watch our new copy of "Wall-E", instead, and Julio decided to run to the mall and get some smoothies for us. As we finished watching the special short feature, "Burn-E", I decided to call the shelter and see if Noah was back from his vacation. He was, and the lady I spoke to said we had a VERY good application, and if we wanted to come see him, we would be allowed to bring him home with us today.

Well, that's all Harrison & I needed to hear! Julio wasn't quite as enthusiastic to learn we could bring a dog home with us today. He was planning on visiting, coming home and mulling it over a little more before making such a big decision. So, on the 45 minute drive over there, we discussed all the added responsibilities of getting a new dog, including cleaning up after him, etc.

We finally found the shop, after first passing it in the dark snowy weather. We had to park across the street in a parking ramp, extending our anticipation even longer. Finally we were in the store and the moment we'd been waiting for since Wednesday seemed about to happen! We approached the lady at the front desk, mildly giddy but trying not to look like crazy people unworthy of dog ownership. We told her we were there to meet Noah, and she got a strange look on her face.

She went on to tell us that she didn't think Noah would be a good fit for us. As we were on our way over, she was reviewing our adoption application and Noah's paperwork. She noticed that the pound where he'd come from had performed a "temperament test", but that their office hadn't conducted one, yet, so while we were on the road, she was conducting their test. Apparently what they do is, they give the dog a toy and when he is interested in the toy, they slip a fake hand by it - Noah failed the test. He growled and then bit the fake hand. They said they didn't think it would be a good idea to bring him to our home, when we have kids Harrison's age there for much of the day.

She said we could still meet him, but that she had some other dogs that she thought would be a better fit for our family. As she led us back to the kennels, my heart sank. How could I explain to this woman that we weren't looking for just any dog - we needed to find our dog - the one we are meant to be with?

We got back there, and Noah was finishing dinner, so she couldn't get him out of his kennel just then. She pointed out a sweet brown dog named Bugsy, but he was part Pit-Bull, and I have a concern that as he got older, he might revert to instinctive behavior, which for his breed is not great around kids. She started telling me about another dog, but I saw the most beautiful golden dog who at first glance looked like a chow, but she turned out to be a one-year-old mixed breed - they think she's part Collie, part Golden Retriever and part Samoyed.

They got her out of her Kennel, and she came straight up to Harrison and me, nuzzled us and kissed us each on the nose. Julio was just getting in from going back to the car for the leash we brought, and when he saw her, his face switched from "we can't be bringing a dog home now - we just got the house cleaned, for crying out loud" to "ok, a kennel, a big bag of premium dog food, a seventeen-dollar hair brush, matching collar and leash - does she need anything else? Let me go get the car ready so she'll have a comfortable ride home!".

In other words, she had him at Hello.

We watched her interact with other animals, and she behaved just like Yuxia would have - a little timid around anything smaller than her, and determined to befriend anybody she could. A cat came strutting up to her, and she nuzzled the cat and gave it a lick on the head.

I was feeling very guilty to love this dog so much, when we were there for Noah, not her. So I asked if we could please see Noah, before we made any decisions. Noah came springing out of his kennel, determined to make for the door and completely uninterested in any of the humans in his wake. His hair was coarse and not pleasant to pet, and he was very hyper to the point of being unpleasant. Go figure.

So we decided Noah's purpose in our life was to lead us to our real dog, much the same way that a small stray black lab opened the door for me to adopt Yuxia...but that's a different (if similar) tale.

Family and friends, meet our new pack member: Sugar (Azucar, or Zuki for short)

(PS - Thanks, John, for getting the ball rolling again for us - can't wait to hear about the new pack member destined to join your family soon!)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Thanksgiving Break Day 3: All About DOGS

Julio had the day off today! He and Harrison began the day by sleeping in, then we met Deedee and her kids for an early lunch at BK, let the kids play in their play area for an hour, then went to the 1pm showing of Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

There were a bunch of adorable dogs in the movie, which almost made up for the complete and utter lack of storyline or clever dialogue. Then we got home and I checked up on family blogs, and read that John and Karen are looking to expand their pack.

John's blog had a link to http://www.petfinder.com/, and I of course could not resist checking it out, as I have so often since Yuxia died (was that already a year ago last September?). Unlike all those past visits, I came across a profile so compelling it gave me the same feeling I had when I first met Yuxia back in 1992. After talking it over with Julio and Harrison, we decided to submit an adoption application for Noah.

We called the shelter, and it turns out Noah's foster parent decided to take him out of town for the holidays, so we won't have a chance to meet him in person until Monday or Tuesday. Say a prayer and wish us luck - we may have a new family member by Christmas - will it be Noah? Right now we hope so!

Thanksgiving Break Day 2: Build-A-Bear

Today we met Julio for lunch at the Mall near his office. After lunch, he walked us over the the Build-A-Bear Workshop, where Harrison made a Zebra named "Impmon" and Abbie made a Bear named "Snowball". We had a super time, though Harrison was a little melancholy about being a boy, because "girls can enjoy stuffed animals clear into high school, but it's not cool for boys to like them by the time they're 10...no, I mean, like 13...."

Thanksgiving Break Day 1: Planet X

School is out all week, which means it's field trip time! Harrison and Abbie are my only two kids this week, so we have more options open to us than usual for field trips. Today we went to Planet X, and did just about everything they had to offer.

I'm exhausted, but need to gear up for our Speech Kickoff Meeting at 7 tonight. I hope I can stay awake for the drive! *Yawn*

Not Over Yet?

So the California Supreme Court is going to review legal challenges to the recently voter-approved Proposition 8, and are expected to address the proposition itself as well as how it would affect the thousands of legally-performed gay marriages that took place prior to the voter ban.

I just don't get it. At least as concerns the marriages that took place when it was legal, what's to address? It was legal for them to be married when they got married, so they are married. You don't get to retroactively make it illegal! Of course, I'm boggled at the idea of telling two consenting adults, both of whom desire to be married, that their marriage is not legal because it is counter to the paradigms of some (not even all) churches.

I'm embarrassed to be part of this moment in history. Our children and grandchildren are going to look back on these arguments and shake their heads and roll their eyes the way we do when we look back at the bigotry of the 40's and 50's. I hope some serious changes happen soon, mostly in the interest of so many of my friends and family members, but also so we are not limited to pointing to a black president as our only source of pride in our current stage of "enlightenment".

BEN IS HOME!!!

Great news - Ben is home from the hospital, and pretty darn mobile for somebody who just had surgery on his spine. Now we need prayers for further healing - they won't know for a couple months if the surgery will result in reversal of the difficulties he developed before his condition was properly diagnosed. So PRAY HARD!

Happily Married

I love my husband. I can't imagine getting through some of the events of the last couple of years without him at my side. What I can imagine even less is how it would feel for people who've never even met me to step in and make it illegal for me to marry him, because he is from Guatemala. Or because he is Catholic and I'm Presbyterian.

I'm so lucky that the fact he was born with dark hair and brown eyes does not make it illegal for him to marry a blonde haired, blue eyed woman.

Even the fact that we waited until our son was 10 years old before we chose to enter the covenant of marriage was not held against us, by our church, our neighbors, or our government.

If we were to decide marriage was not for us, and thus get divorced, we would simply go through the process. Since neither of us is a celebrity, the only people who would even care would be our family. Certainly we would not be reviled by anybody for paying such disrespect to the institution of marriage.

It probably wouldn't occur to most people to try to pass a law preventing our divorce, and they certainly wouldn't spend a bunch of money campaigning to convince the rest of the neighborhood (city/county/state/country/world) that our marriage and/or divorce was in any way a threat to their own marriages.

Unfortunately, I have loved ones, friends, fellow Christians, and fellow Americans who can't say the same about the relationship they have with their chosen mate.

My friend Jake recently put it far more eloquently than I ever could. Whatever your current opinion of "Gay Marriage" (I add the quotes, because I never refer to mine as a "Heterosexual Marriage". When two become one, that's marriage, plain and simple), I encourage you to read what Jake has to say on the matter. (warning: some adult language; don't read this to your kids without editing!)

click here for Jake's thoughts on Prop. 8

We have a black president-elect. That's a good start. Now if only we could find a way to keep from disenfranchising any other Americans just for being the people they were born to be.

Bye Bye Birdie is HISTORY

I'm relieved to announce that our fall musical, Bye Bye Birdie is over - and I hereby swear, before all witnesses present, that I will never again subject myself to that show, regardless of circumstance (with the only caveat being if Harrison should end up involved with it somehow).

This particular production was fraught with trouble, further securing my conviction that the show itself is jinxed.

We had strange problems with students all along the way. Several kids, who last year were healthy and happy, showed up this year weighing nearly twice what they weighed last year, with attitudes that had deteriorated as badly as their health.

It was virtually impossible to get kids to show up on time for rehearsal, and both Deedee and I struggled with small groups of students who were seriously ADHD and apparently not medicated for the last part of the day.

Over the course of things, we had to kick out one performer, put another on probation, and several techies were kicked out or just stopped showing up, in at least one case because her dad decided she was done - with no explanation or apology.

Our student director lost her best friend to suicide early in the season, and basically checked out for the rest of our production time. She never even learned her own lines and blocking, let alone doing any actual student directing.

All but about 5 of our 60 students had some kind of problem going on in their families or with them personally. I spent more time counseling than directing this fall.

The auditorium was continually invaded by other groups during the day. Middle school football players and coaches even left their gear on the stage, on our set pieces, behind the closed curtain. Two weeks before the show opened, somebody wrecked half our set - walked on it, ripped cardboard pieces, set us back two weeks.

That sent Deedee over the edge, as she was already behind in construction. She had a major meltdown in front of the kids and the middle school principal. It was all I could do to not have my own meltdown, but the kids needed somebody to pull it together for them, so I had to put it off for the time being.

I had one pair of parents send me scathing emails when I sent a message to the students reminding them to vote early. Because of the damage to our set and the attention I had to pay to tech needs, we had to schedule rehearsal on election day.

I got reemed out by the parents of the girl who was already on probation for coming late and having serious attitude problems all through rehearsal. She didn't show up for 2 of the last 3 rehearsals and made no effort to contact me to tell me she was sick. (All the kids know the final week of rehearsals are mandatory and absence means automatic removal from the show.)

She then showed up to the final dress rehearsal, shocked to learn she had been kicked out of the show. That resulted in her parents storming into rehearsal a short time later, chewing me out in front of the cast and crew, her father using foul langage at the top of his lungs. Deedee had to take over the first hour and a half of rehearsal so I could get them to leave, meaning she lost her last chance to work on tech stuff.

Since September, Deedee and I had been pleading with the administration to fix the leaky roof which was pouring rain onto our sound/light boards, flowing over one of our suspended speakers down onto the entryway, where it was literally gushing down the entryway ramp.

They didn't fix the roof until late in October, and didn't inspect our electronics boards until the weekend before the show opened. By then it was too late, and anybody who was at Sunday's matinee (naturally the show that was taped) will tell you, it was a disaster. Imagine watching a show with no sound except what you can hear through an underwater cellphone that cuts in and out every other word. Then add to that an ear-piercing explosion of feedback every 15-20 minutes.

Deedee had put in her notice when the set was destroyed, so she wasn't particularly motivated to spend a lot of extra effort striking the set, so I had to recruit some enthusiastic parents to help oversee things, and redo the storage of big items, which the kids had just been dumping into our small storage room.

After strike, one of our "trouble techies" was sitting backstage doing nothing. I started to storm over and demand to know why he wasn't helping with strike, when I noticed he was crying. Turns out his Dad had promised to come to the show, then didn't show up and wasn't answering his phone. In one heart wrenching moment I got a lot of insight into that kid's attitude problems.

I've never been so overwhelmed and shocked by the sheer numbers of parents who so publicly demonstrate that they don't care about their children enough to even pretend to put their best interests first. No wonder the kids don't know how to demonstrate responsibility or work ethics.

I can't remember ever having such an unpleasant experience working on a show, and it's truly a struggle to try to motivate myself to continue forward with this program. It costs more than what I get paid, and it so far has just made me stressed out and miserable.

On the up side, Mom and Dad made some buttons using the face of our Conrad Birdie, and the last two nights of the show, we sold them to the audience for $1 and had Conrad autograph them at intermission. We made an extra $50 for the new curtain fund. Thanks, Mom & Dad!

Prayers for Ben

On August 24, I wrote a tribute to my nephew, Ben.

I had to read it again tonight, after his mom, Jenny, made her most recent blog entry about Ben's trip to the neurosurgeon.

There is so little I can add to either entry, except a call for everyone to keep Ben and his entire family in their prayers: for healing, for peace, and for God's purpose to present itself soon.

Saluting McCain

Senator McCain was very presidential in his concession speech last night, and I couldn't help but wonder what shape our world would be in today if he'd been granted the opportunity to run for President eight (or even four) years earlier.

While I register as an independent voter, and back up that independence by voting all over the board - for the person rather than the party - I've always fancied myself a potential "McCain Republican". A McCain-Powell ticket would have been irresistible for me, even in the wake of the Bush administration.

Which is why I was saddened to watch this great patriot give his concession speech for an office I spent decades praying he would occupy. Only a man of John McCain's caliber could win so much support in the shadow of our current administration. Only John McCain could make this such a close race.

It was a melancholy moment when I cast my vote for Obama. Finally I had my chance to vote for McCain, but could not do so in good conscience. In voting for Obama, I voted for the man and not the party. But in deciding against McCain, I was voting away from a party/administration which I feel has treated our country and our planet with increasing contempt over the past 8 years.

I believe our country is blessed to have reached this moment in history, and to have had two such outstanding Americans for our candidates. And I believe John McCain will continue to make contributions to our country which will rival and exceed those of most who were successful in their bid for President.

As a McCain Republican who supported Obama, I can neither fully celebrate or mourn the election results of 2008. But I can fully celebrate the promise for our future that comes from having both of these fine men working on our behalf.

NO PARKING-GHOULS ONLY

As my brothers and I slowly outgrew the trick-or-treating process, our Halloween tradition became haunting our house for trick-or-treaters. After I left for college, the folks "handed off" our haunting gear to the High School, and they made $1500 charging $1 admission, so it was pretty successful.

When we moved back to the old "haunting grounds", it stood to reason that we should resume haunting. We started about 4 years ago, using Grammy & G-Boys' basement as our staging area, with daycare kids joining HD, Julio, the grands and me in making a "Haunted Daycare". Then when we bought our house, the huge garage opened a lot of possibilities.

Deedee helped me establish the first haunted garage about 3 years back - she scored us some huge cardboard boxes that we still use for walls. Last year we gathered more cardboard, and the daycare kids painted scary pictures on them. This year, with Halloween landing on Friday, Harrison invited some friends for an overnight party. We started out right after school, setting up the garage and having pizza, then Julio took the kids trick-or-treating while Grammy, G-boy and I took care of final touches.

When Julio & the kids got back, we haunted the garage for an hour and a half (we ended up "staying open" late to accommodate all our guests!).

After debriefing and some cold pizza, Grammy & G-boy headed home, and the boys went upstairs to watch "The Nightmare Before Christmas" while Julio & I watched "Sixth Sense".

All in all, we had a spooktacular evening (forgive me one pun)!