The Final Straw

With the fiasco of Colombian visas and FBI letters still in full-blown confusion, Carrie had made a recommendation that would ultimately save ourselves up to eleven weeks of wasted time. Give me a sister who can work the system; that’s Carrie. Instead of waiting fifteen weeks for our fingerprints to be processed via snail mail at FBI headquarters, it took a mere 15 minutes to douse my fingers in sugar water, have them printed electronically at Goin’ Postal and receive my “all clear” letter from the same headquarters. Fifteen minutes. Huge obstacle cleared.

Puck and I celebrated by driving over to T.J. Max to stock his summer wardrobe. He was in such an extraordinarily good and chatty mood; this is the eight year-old Puck coming out. Three pairs of Michael Jordan track shorts and two Michael Jordan t-shirts. He had no idea who Michael Jordan was, but he’s shown a little interest in the idea of basketball, so we’ll see where that goes.

After lunch, I spoke with the Colombian consulate in San Francisco, trying to wrangle some answers about our visas. It’s almost like a few weeks before you’re supposed to fly to South America, the adoption process suddenly becomes a great, unfathomable mystery to everyone involved. I felt like some progress had been made by the end of the conversation, however, listening hard past the accent and wishing I was already fluent in Spanish.

Rose walked in for a late dinner of fish tacos and a plate of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. And the game, of course. She’s not a huge baseball fan, but she makes an admirable effort.

Then Matt Holliday came to the plate in the 7th. He hadn’t been on base yet, a 45-game streak I had been watching since the beginning of the season, but I was confident he could at least draw a walk. Passing Derek Jeter’s record of 53 was only a short week away. Unfortunately, the baboon behind the plate had other ideas. Maybe the Yankees paid him off. He called Matt out on strikes on a final pitch that was clearly a ball, and then felt the need to exhibit his mall-cop authority and bloated ego by tossing both Matt Holliday and Mike Matheny from the game for arguing with him about his ridiculous strike zone.

Granted, I was already in a testy mood with the lack of information and competence provided the last month regarding travel visas and FBI clearance checks after six years of waiting, but that was the final straw. I blame Joseph West for everything.

Carrie-Bri, Rose, Joe, and I texted angry texts back and forth for the next hour or two.

Some days are just like that.