16 December, 2007

A full house

My sister-in-law has been in town for the last couple of weeks. She's leaving this week. She seems to like it here, especially seeing that we Americans are not the blood-sucking, oil-drinking, Arab-hating vampires that certain media outlets portray. (That includes a few domestic media outlets and Persons of Note.)

My gratitude to the State Department for allowing my wife & sister-in-law to be together; my wife is immensely happy. My gratitude as well for treating her like a human being during the process this time; I was impressed to hear that the consular official at least made eye contact while speaking with her. (See item 4 on this entry.)

We aren't going anywhere this Christmas: not to visit friends or family, not to vacation anywhere. We have a larger family as of Friday: a new girl. :-) So now I am reponsible for three children, count them: three! This one at least seems to be less, ah, "spirited" than her older sister; she didn't cry much at birth, for example. If my memory is faulty, I have a big, unpleasant future in store...

My father is also in town to help out and, soon enough, my mother as well. She was delayed by illness, but is by now back in form and eager to get back at me for the entertainment I had at her expense. "How big was the baby?" she asked on the phone. "Why do you want to know?" I replied. Oh boy do I have it coming.

3 comments:

Clemens said...

I'm glad that you at least have had a good experience getting your sister-in-law in country with dignity.

As you may know, my beloved friend Maeraed has an adopted 6 month old Vietnamese brother that CIS refuses to let into the country - all because a poorly trained part-time night watchman didn't sign him into the registrar the night he was "dropped" at the ophange.

I really do not like it when my country's government gives me reasons to hate it.

Despite what you may have heard about liberals.

Clemens said...

As for the baby-sitting! Ha. Carmen and I took care of 5 yr old Maeraed last week while both her parents where in Vietnam (see last communication). She loves us and our pets and has stayed overnight several times.

So what could go wrong?

Well, school was canceled for snow and I had to take her to work with me. A good time was had by all.

The next day she threw up all over herself while getting ready for kindergarten. I stayed home with her and watched an entire season of Avatar cartoons as well as an entire DVD of Pixar shorts.

It was more fun than grading, which is what I should have been doing.

jack perry said...

I am sorry about your friend's continuing problems. That's a real shame.

Not sure what you mean about the "liberals" thing. I didn't mean to imply "liberals" by Persons of Note. I happen to respect a few liberals.

I want to watch those Pixar shorts, so I hope you don't feel too bad about not grading.

And "Maeraed" is a great name. I have to look that one up.