Get Things Done
Yali and I stashed the Fit in the parking garage across from the Old Post Office building downtown a little after nine o’clock that morning. The same place I had been parking since about September 2009 when the adoption paperwork first started stacking up. I’m not sure how many notarized papers I’ve had apostilled in that place, but it’s enough to make them ask why I’m still coming there.
“You’re still on the same adoption?”
“Yes, ma’am, we are.”
Anyway, for the first time Yali came with me, toting his little St. Louis Cardinals backpack. We waited in the small room for about ten minutes before they handed me a small stack of sheets pressed with a gold seal, ready to be shipped straight down to Colombia. Post Adoption Report #2 done and done. Only two more reports and one more year to go.
One o’clock.
Yali was snoozing soundly on pillows and heated blankets in Mom’s room. Irish had a day off work and no class so I heard a lot of giggling between herself and a friend in the back room. Later, paint, glitter, and canvas on the front porch. Carrie-Bri was busy organizing medical paperwork at the coffee table. I drew the short straw and led the Acculift guy on a tour of the basement and all its major cracks.
“You know I grew up just down the street from you all,” he said as I presented Exhibit A in the storage room. “I remember when this house was built.”
“No kidding?”
Everyone’s connected around here somehow.
After the tour, he set up some equipment in the basement to take measurements. It must have been about fifteen minutes later and he came back up the stairs.
“What’s the name of your brother who has the room downstairs?”
“Francis.”
“Well, you can tell Francis he got me good. He left a rubber cobra on the chair in the corner. Made me jump.” He laughed. Fortunately.
At dinner, Puck felt the spontaneous need to add baloney and yams to the grocery list on the white board. I’m not sure he’s had baloney in years, although he naturally spelled it “bioneye” instead, so I had to ask for clarification.
Meanwhile, Oxbear’s story of the day was running into our doctor at Five Star Burgers.
“Should have hidden my burger before he came over to say hi,” Oxbear grinned.