Almost Ready to Leave

My brother-in-law will be here any minute and then we'll drive the Massachusetts together. Four little boys and three adults in a mini-van. It's our first trip together, so I don't know what to expect. We hope the boys will be tired and will fall asleep soon, but we never know!

If we hit traffic on the George Washington bridge in NY and beyond it won't be pretty... (they won't be sleeping by then anyway, I think). Well, wish us luck, I'll let you know how it goes. And now I need to go finish packing. Sigh.

And... drum roll... tomorrow we're planning to have one of the greatest and most expected family blogger meet ups in the history of this blog! There is a handful of other bloggers (like 3 or 4, list on another day) whose children are exactly the same age as mine and whom I've always wanted to meet and have our children play together too! I hope it all works out tomorrow and I just can't wait!

OK, back to packing.

P.S. Hubby arrived well in Brazil. Tomorrow he starts the concurso (job selection process for a tenure track appointment). He saw our cute nephew (click -- super cute photo!), and I'm jealous, but we'll soon be able to see him too.

It's Actually Two Weeks

Just a quick correction -- in the previous post (already corrected) I wrongly stated we'd be in Brazil in a week, but it's actually two. I wanted to have come edit the post, but I just fell asleep in my clothes and contact lenses when I put the boys in bed and got up at 3:30 am to get changed and take the contacts off...

I'll try to post again later... we'll see. Off to piano and music lessons now.

Going to Bed/ Two Weeks from Now

After two humongous posts last night I think we all deserve a break, no?

K is on a flight to Brazil right now and I've had a really long and stressful day with the boys here, so we're going to bed (yes, they're still awake. bad mother). Tomorrow night we take a ride with brother- and sister-in-law to Massachusetts to spend the Thanksgiving holiday saying good-bye to Grandma's house in the U.S. Three years were not quite enough, but we're thankful for what we had. Oh, and regarding that incensed rant, it turns out FIL's visa was denied only verbally, there was no stamp on his passport, so it's a smaller, less serious problem. My husband will be back on Friday and we're very happy about that.

I can't believe that precisely [edited from one to two] two weeks from now the boys and I will be boarding our flight to Brazil (after six long hours stuck at Dulles Intl Airport in the D.C. area...). The boys can't wait. I'd be more excited if traveling weren't so stressful. :-(

OK, we're going to bed, good night!

Where the Wild Things Are -- A Review and... What's one to do when mommy feels like a "wild thing" at times too?

So last Sunday I finally went to see Where the Wild Things Are [site with sound -- I LOVE the soundtrack, BTW] with K and a family of friends (I finally caved in again and had my other friend watch the boys -- I've had her boys before many times, but only twice before asked her to help with mine). I loved it, but then, again, contrary to my blogger friend Caroline Grant, I think we're more of a Wild Things family than an In the Night Kitchen family like hers (our boys are the same age, BTW), but more on that later. Her review of the movie in Literary Mama is great, but and I'm glad I waited until I saw the movie to read it (since it has spoilers -- I actually waited until I wrote my own review below before I read it carefully -- you might not want to read this review if you don't want spoilers). You should also check out Caroline's fascinating and rare "insider take" on the book -- previous professional contact with Maurice Sendak himself!! (I'd already linked to it in my previous post about Where the Wild Things Are in the old PTM).

I had already been moved to tears just by watching the trailer, so it was no surprise that I cried through most of the movie again (in spite of K's constant teasing -- "Don't cry too much now!"). I think that perhaps this commenter (or spam person?) was almost right when he wrote in that this is mostly an "art film." More than that, though, as Caroline says in her review, it's a movie about childhood that is very moving for parents and, hopefully, for young folks who are just leaving childhood behind. It's definitely not a "children's movie" although it is based upon a beloved picture book.

As a mother of two boys, when I saw the movie I would constantly see my oldest boy in Max and that alone moved me. Max's need to be "babied" a little bit on the one hand and his fierce need for independence on the other mirror my son's needs and attitudes very closely. Moreover, I'm also the mom who types her boys' stories into the computer (that part just moved me beyond expression). Oh, and back to being a Where the Wild Things Are kind of family -- I think I'd qualify us like that because as most Brazilian folks, we're often very loud and exuberant, "wild rumpus" kind of folks. Not only the kids, at times, but everyone. The fact that I had previously taught the book several times also made it one of our favorites here at home. And, last, but not least, unfortunately, I've also inherited some "screaming genes" from my mom and sometimes I wildly "explode" like Max's mom did, more on that at the end.

Now, whenever a film is adapted from a piece of literature, I, the "supposed" literary scholar, am always very very picky. And, of course, I always like the book more in the end. That's not the case necessarily here, since the film expands on the book in an unprecedented way, given that it's a very short picture book, so it's basically another work of art, simply based on a previous one. The details that surprised me the most were small but significant -- the fact that in the movie the words "Wild Thing" that are so central to the book are not used at all! (please correct me if I'm wrong Caroline) The mother screams that Max is "out of control" and there's no mention of going "to the land where the wild things are." I think that this small detail is more significant than the fact (which bothered my husband more) that he did not go back to his room but ran away, so a forest didn't grow there, leading him to sail away. My (poor, lay) interpretation is that Spike Jonze didn't want to use special effects here (the room turning into a forest) and wanted to make the voyage more literal.

The voyage in the book is poetically rendered thus: "he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are" whereas in the movie we just get the majestic images of him braving the sea in that small boat and the almost as equally poetic scribbling of his name on the side of the boat. The visuals of the island are beyond stunning. I was wondering about the film's locations and according to IMDb it was all filmed in Australia (when not in a studio) -- I'd thought that perhaps it might have been New Zealand, of Lord of the Rings fame (and where my brother now lives!).

I really enjoyed the fleshing out of the Wild Things (which are stunningly faithful to the book's drawings) and their varied personalities. I think this whole movie is a plateful for for any psychoanalyst or for a Freudian/Lacanian analysis (I'm not big on psychoanalysis, I have to confess). The conflict between Carol -- who is the Wild Thing most closely identified with Max -- and KW mirrors the conflict and longing in the relationship of Max with his sister, and so on and so forth. Oh, and KW's protective "eating" of the boy -- a plateful and such a profound/new way to see the "I love you I'll eat you up" line from Sendak (which is, obviously, uttered by who else but KW at the end!).

Now, the second departure from the book that I found quite significant was the fact that Max doesn't really tame the Wild Things with a magic trick (of looking into their yellow eyes and not blinking once -- I'm loosely quoting from memory here) -- they're just way too big and too wild for that. Therefore, they never unanimously declare him king. He is the one who introduces himself as one in a rambling and very weak and tentative "make-believe" re-creation of himself and the Wild Things end up convinced by all his arguments (which obviously crumble in the end, uncovering his fantasy and make believe). I think this fact makes him a much less authoritative king that the book would lead us to believe. In addition, he never sends the Wild Things "to bed without their suppers" -- "Freudian-ly" imitating his mother -- like in the book. He just brings a degree of confusion to their lives, given his inexperience and incipience as a leader (I particularly disliked the war scene, it just made me cringe and thing that I hope my children's games don't go wrong like that -- although I know some are bound to).

I didn't mind any of the other changes and additions, I think they just enriched the book and provided new layers and fascinating interpretations of such a short text (338 words). The one review I'd read prior to seeing the film is Mary Pols' Time magazine's and it's pretty good, although I think she exaggerated a bit Max's relationship with his sister (I didn't find it as heartbreaking as she did) and I don't think the movie stays for too long in the "Wild Things" land. This is a minor detail in Pols's analysis, but I didn't see Max in school as a "typical bored boy." I don't like it when reviews predispose me to interpret things a certain way (that's why one might not want to read them before seeing the work).

It is a sad movie, I must say, full of the angst and confusion involved in the serious business of growing up. I can totally see why Maurice Sendak would have loved it, given that many (if not most) of his works address dark subjects (just to cite two recent examples, Brundibar and We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy -- which uses two nursery rhymes to take on homelessness and poverty). I can't wait to see Jonze's documentary on Sendak, since I've long been fascinated by his work.
Back to the film... I really enjoyed it and was moved by it, but I also felt a bit disturbed and hence the long question I decided to include in the post's title. I could see my boy there in Max and the Wild Things, but I could see me too. And that is a clear deviation from the plot. The reviewer Mary Pols wants the film to go back to the security of Catherine Keener's superbly played mother, but what if sometimes the mother is there in the Wild Things land with her son?

I don't know if I can elaborate further on this, it would be too much of "cheap blog therapy" and I don't want to end the review in this tone. I'll just say that in the recent months, dealing with my son because of cyber-schooling has both brought us closer than ever, but also brought too often to surface a "Wild Thing" mother that I don't want to be. I want to be the nurturing one, but at times I just can't help but scold and nag and go all wild. :-( Is there room in the world/film/life for a at times transgressive "wild mother"? Or is that too dark and scary and also too dark for words?

Déjà Vu -- My Nightmarish Foray into the World of "Pseudo Education"

It wasn't really déjà vu, but almost. Yesterday K got a message on his phone from one of our friends in the Brazilian church who was inviting us for her birthday party. We weren't able to go (see yesterday's post), but the moment K told me about the party I felt all angry and almost sick inside.

Last year we "went" to her party, that is, K and the boys got to enjoy it, but me? I just went downstairs for a few minutes to eat (delicious food!!! a mix of Brazilian and traditional Thanksgiving, well, at least the turkey) and spent the rest of the time at my host's computer frantically answering emails and grading for my "pseudo educational"/"pseudo-work" with Axia college, part of the University of Phoenix "conglomerate." "Facilitator," is what my "job" was/is called. And if it's at an actual location (I've been contacted to go to an interview for this), it's called "practitioner faculty" -- what in the world is that supposed to mean? I have an actual degree and teaching experience, I don't need/want to be simply "facilitating" or being a mere "practitioner" using materials (which aren't that great to begin with) produced by a corporation which aims at profiting from other people's need to get an education, particularly from home, or part time.

I feel sick to my stomach just thinking of those two months. If I hadn't had a ten-day break for the holidays, I don't know how I'd have survived. How can one do it for straight nine weeks, I wonder? I know that after the first few weeks some of my colleagues only spent a couple of hours a day working and were able to manage the grading (we had around 60 students and strict deadlines to respond to assignments: 48h for the shorter ones -- at least per student per week, and 7 days for the weekly long assignment), but I just wasn't able to. I mean, I got nearly everything graded, working into the night (until 2 am) several nights a week and I still ended up overlooking a paper or two (typically one that had been turned in late or too early).

Of course I am to blame for the fact that I was working part time a few days a week and never did my "facilitating" first thing in the day or earlier in the week (not that this was exactly possible because I had to respond to students as they posted their contributions), but only after I'd worked, taken care of the kids and house and had a bare minimum of "me" time online. I just couldn't "have a life" and hold this pseudo job... as I ranted in the blog a few times.

There's another thing I am to blame. I just could not "pretend" to grade the students' work so I could do it faster. I gave them real feedback, individualized comments, I corrected their mistakes and advised them on how to get their work better next time. I don't know how I could have done that using less time, but apparently that didn't matter. The quality of my work didn't matter, only it's "automatism" -- fitting into their system seamlessly.

So, yeah... I know I could be earning some 900 around 600 bucks a month [after I wrote the post I realized it was less than I'd thought -- not enough for all the work], which would be helpful, and I'm making NOTHING, but at least I'm happy, right? RIGHT? As I wrote here before, this particular "work" had all the responsibilities of teaching with none of the fun and enriching parts. I felt enslaved to the computer and to being available to questions 24/7 and I knew I'd be penalized if I didn't answer a question or query within 24h. Big brother was watching.

Main regrets: I wish the students had been given the opportunity of evaluating my work, regardless of whether I was 10 minutes or an hour late posting a correction, and I also wish that I had been given a chance to evaluate my terrible, discouraging "mentor" -- she was all, but a mentor, that's for sure! She derailed me on week two with a frantic phone call and I never recovered from the utter nervousness and (momentary) despair caused by it.

Several students thanked me profusely for helping them, but I guess their voices will never be heard, I doubt that they had an opportunity to evaluate their "facilitator" -- I was just replaceable cheap labor, other people more desperate for home-based work were probably waiting and already trained to take my place.

Is there anything else you'd like to know from my (thankfully) brief "foray into the world of pseudo education?" I'm willing to speak up now. I should actually go check whether other people have blogged or written online about this or if they're just afraid to name the big corporation.

This is definitely not what I intended to post today, but I've wanted to write this for a long time. I'm just a little surprised by the way that I came about to writing this! How a simple recollection brought along all the feelings of entrapment and helplessness that I felt while trying this "line of work." It was enough. Working in the margins shouldn't come at such a high cost to someone's peace of mind. I didn't work for 10 years on a degree to submit to that. Hell, no (and I don't generally even use this kind of language).

Let's Pretend I Live in the West Coast...

... and it's 10:18 p.m. there now, instead of 1:18 am the next day.

I was going to title this "my nephews ate my homework, erm, time to post on time" but thought it was a little bit too silly!!

We were out of the house all day and arrived here late, followed by brother-in-law and his wife. We'd picked up the nephews while they went here with their church. The boys are now asleep and the older boys are talking and I... who should also be there talking, am blogging while I wait for a load of laundry to wash so I can go hang in the basement. Very boring stuff...

I'll try to blog more tomorrow, but that's it for today, folks!

Oh, and I picked up our holiday on Thursday cards and they look fantastic! I'll be sharing them in about a month, OK? Please be patient ;-).

P.S. After I posted this an went upstairs I discovered that they were going to bed already. I talked a bit to K and came back to check on blogs and wait for the laundry. The washing is not done yet, but it's going to be sunny tomorrow, so I can go to bed and hang it out to dry (and not go hang it in the basement tonight)! YAY! 2:22 am.

Some (Good) News and Assorted Odds & Ends

I forgot to mention something a while back (around a month, I think). You may remember that my first despondent thoughts about this house and the possible need to sell it earlier this year were prompted by the fact that German big pharma purchased American big pharma. We feared that if the local company were to shut down, house values in this area might irrecoverably plummet.

The good news is that the merger has happened, the name of the company has been changed, but it is still there. This area is safe for a while longer.

Last week K stayed home for a day and a half to work on the yard and twice that day a man stopped by to talk to him. It turns out he was one of the people who were really interested in buying this house (in his case even before we bought it back in 07) and the only reason why he didn't make an offer was that he hadn't been able to sell his own house or get a "bridge" loan. He's still interested and if his house sells we could "sell by owner" to him! We think that this is a very good sign!

Some other quick things: I have a few edits to do in previous posts and I'll do them soon.

I just had this idea to get things moving a bit again at the 365 project blog -- I want to post photos of foods that I took throughout the year on those days. I'll keep you posted.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

A Preliminary Answer/ Clarification

I just wanted to let my SIL know that I haven't been purposefully avoiding answering her question, it's just that this is such a complicated issue -- going back to Brazil or not -- that could take several posts to address.

First, I just wanted to say that I don't think that we're "vehemently discarding" going back to Brazil, it's just that we want to be able to approach all employment possibilities for K on the same footing. If there are no job offers here and he has one there we will most certainly go. The problem with next week's concurso is that they need three professors to begin in February and that K cannot possibly do. If they want him to go later (in August) then it might work out.

In addition, we want him to wait until any possible interviews and offers that might take place here to make a decision. This would probably be around April or even May. So, I guess the short answer is that we don't want to go back before making sure there are no jobs available for K here. Does that help?

A Hole in the Underpants

From the drafts folder.

I love doing laundry (not so much putting it away), but I don't do it that often because I like to save energy (and work) by washing a lot of clothes at once (I can't recall who is the other blogger I read who does the same, I don't know anyone in real life like this -- please shout out if it's you!).* I separate the dark clothes (which take at least 2-3 weeks accumulation in summer to make a load and about a week to a week and a half in winter, we wear more dark clothing then), but that's it, I hardly ever do loads of whites. I wash towels and sheets together with our clothes and... once in a long while, I do a load of hand washables or "delicate" clothes. This "concentrated washing" of big loads is the main reason why last year I broke my clothesline one warm January day when the temperature went up to the 60s (check out photos here).

I guess I mentioned briefly before that we haven't used our drier since last December, when we were forced to buy a new washer. We decided to upgrade the washer and didn't go with the cheapest and simplest front loading Kenmore model, so the old drier won't fit on top of the new one, so it can't be installed in our hallway "closet" laundry, unless we build a wooden "podium" for it to perch on top of the washer. The problem is the exhaust duct that is too big for the lower part of the "closet-style" laundry and if we install the drier, we cannot close the folding doors...

This sporadic laundering is only possible because we do have lots of clothes, particularly underwear. Late this summer I had a really good laugh with my mom because I hadn't done laundry for some weeks and my husband had already complained he was running out of underwear, so as we were hanging the clothes outside I set out to count how many pairs of his boxer shorts I could find in the wash. It turns out there were 22!! So, I hadn't done laundry for twenty-two days!

Then, the weather turned bad and I didn't have enough room in my basement to hang everything. The next day my dad installed more lines, but first, he tried a new experiment in space saving clothes hanging:(It didn't really work that well, even with the dehumidifier turned on high -- there were just too many clothes to dry without that musty smell)

Well, now I have to get to the title of the post and into how it is related to laundry, right? I don't know exactly why, but one day this summer I showed Kelvin what that convenient "hole" in his underpants was for and he became an enthusiastic user of the strategic opening. Meanwhile, his little brother, who always has to do whatever his older brother does, realized that most of his underwear, including many pairs that came from Brazil and some of these handy "training pants," did not have the hole, only a sewn detail pretending to be an opening. He was very upset by this because he also wanted to use the opening! All of a sudden, his three Bob the Builder underpants became his favorites and he began to ask for them everyday, so I soon had to go out and buy him more underwear, in spite of the fact that he already had tons! (and I went ahead and donated the training pants to someone who would need them more than us)

Then some weeks later, when I was doing laundry I realized something strange -- there was a significantly higher number of pairs of underwear for Linton than for Kelvin (18 against 12, I think). And then I remembered the holes, and the fact that some days when he realized that he was wearing one of the "hole-less" pairs, Linton would go change into another pair. In other occasions he would need a new pair of underpants because using the opening had caused some accidental leaking... So, yeah, that's my (rather lame, I now realize) story, and I can't believe I'm writing a post about boys' underpants in the blog! :-) I thought I would be able to make it into a more humorous story, but I have to apologize for my lack of comic skills. Well, I guess the next and more natural step will be to go ahead and purchase some Captain Underpants books for the boys, what d'ya think?

* (I do have more to say about this ;-) As a matter of fact, I always feel a little bad when I see my sister-in-law or MIL doing countless small loads of laundry -- I sometimes think that their clothes are much cleaner than mine (and SIL really are, she swears by old top loaders, which is what she has). Now, MIL has a front-loader too, and I do feel bad at times knowing that it could hold way more clothes in each load. I guess it's just a habit that people have -- doing small loads. My first ever washer, back in 1994 when I got married, was a front-loader (something very rare in Brazil at the time) that I received as a wedding gift from my best friends' parents (it was in my gift list -- I could/should blog about that sometime, the gifts I got for my wedding, tons and tons of stuff!). I read the manual carefully and it said I could wash 4kg (around 8.8 lbs) of clothes in it, so sometimes I would actually use a kitchen scale and weight my laundry! I know, geeky me. So, I've always done big mixed loads.

What He Truly Misses

And here's one from the seven-year-old.

But first, the news ('cause we're an NPR listening family): Grandma arrived safely in the U.S. this morning and is getting everything ready for the big move South. We'll see her next week and enjoy as much as we can of the pool in her apartment complex.

So, as we were driving to the Philadelphia Zoo this morning for a school trip (more on that later, if I find the time), we were discussing grandma's arrival and how sad that grandpa wasn't here as well. Then I asked Kelvin "So, you miss (paternal) grandpa a lot, right?"

"No, I miss the airplane and Brazil."

Yeah, I'd forgotten that flying on a jet plane is way more exciting than one's grandpa. And of course I'm glad to know that Brazil is pretty cool too! :-)

"I'm not cute, I'm awesome!"

The wisdom of a five year old boy with a very healthy self-esteem.

Cute is becoming a girly thing, I guess, and he wants to be a man like daddy. So, my option of being cute and awesome didn't work out for him.

Finally! The Possibility of a Girl in K's Family!!

Great news! Our family (on K's side) has another niece of nephew on the way, due in late July next year. And now all the bets are on to whether it's going to be a boy or girl!! Remember: my mother-in-law has four sons and five grandsons already. The pressure is on.

If my sister-in-law decides to find out the sex of the baby only at the birth we're all going to explode! She alluded to this possibility when we visited them in Montreal two weeks ago -- I don't know if she said that seriously or jokingly. I guess she must have been joking, though... It's her decision, I know, so... well, I'll just try to contain myself.

While we were visiting I found it a little strange that SIL slept most of Friday afternoon and I made a comment to K that maybe she wasn't pregnant, but, given her already normal need for lots of sleep, that in all likelihood she would spend most of her pregnancy sleeping. :-) See, I kind of suspected already!

How exciting!!! Another baby!! I've already packed these two books (which I got to review here, courtesy of Mother Talk) and put them in the car to go to MA, where we'll see BIL and SIL in only 10 days. And I'm already dreaming of buying cute girl clothes. Now... if it's a boy, D, my oldest SIL, already has several boxes of the cutest baby and toddler boy clothes saved for M (who requested it years ago). This past June the three of us actually opened all the boxes and went through the clothes and M was quite happy with them. D has already said, though, that if it's a girl, she's going to buy our niece a pink carseat and stroller and I support that idea wholeheartedly! D and I always wanted daughters and if we have a niece we'll just go CRAZEEEE!

This new development makes us want to remain here in the North so we can enjoy this newest member of the family more, given that right now we're the closest family members to K4 and M, his wife. See, I'm quite sad that I have only seen my youngest nephew once, when he was 1 month old :-(, but what can we do... Hmmm, maybe those two positions that K is applying to in Montreal are not such a bad idea after all... :-D

On the other hand, the news makes me feel sad because my brother and his wife have been trying to conceive for over a year now, and nothing so far... My SIL is actually undergoing the first stages of fertility treatment. I'm sure they're going to feel a pang of sadness when they hear the news about K4 and M's pregnancy. It seems that everything in our lives lately has a tinge of sadness to it. Perhaps this is what it's going to be from now on, we're really "grown ups" now and we have to deal with our aunts and uncle's illnesses (my uncle's condition remains the same) and begin to think about caring for our parents in the years to come. Sigh. That's life... births and deaths, happiness and sadness.

I'm truly glad for K4 and M, though. He started his new job only two weeks ago and that's why they had just started trying -- lucky fellows, got it on the very first try! Now of course we need to hope it's a healthy pregnancy and that everything continues on as planned. My first nephew/niece never came to be because my SIL D, K2's wife, miscarried at 8 weeks, right after our Christmas together in 2002, on New Year's Eve. This child would have been only around 18 months younger than Kelvin. I pray that everything goes well for M. And this is going to be one cute kid, I'm sure!

Possible Future Places of Residences -- because you're dying to know!

I'm trying to escape another depressing subject (my mom's depression & K's trip to Brazil next week for the job selection process for the job we don't want him to get, but which my parents desperately want him to so that we'll move there), by posting about this more hopeful subject. And of course several of my blog readers are anxious to know whether I might be moving close(r) to them next year! (just kidding)

OK, so these are the places we might move to if my husband gets a job there, not that we'd be willing to move to all of them, mind you. I'm listing them more or less in the order of preference, not of best university/college or more advantageous job for K, but of place we'd like to live for whatever reason (reason for yes/no in parenthesis, if easy to explain):

1. Orlando, FL (warmer and a constant stream of guests ;-).
   
2. Atlanta, GA (warmer)
   
3. Virginia -- 3 places: 2 on the coast and 1 in the Western part of the state. (pleasant places to live)
4. Tennessee
   
5. Rhode Island (Impossible, though)
6. Boston, MA
7. Connecticut (good school, but I'd probably put after #6)
   
8. Central MA (I have mixed feelings about going back to MA, but I love MA, it's my adopted home state in this country)
9. Indiana
   
10. Texas - 2 positions. (warmer, but... hmmm, Bushland?)
    
11. Central NY State
    
12. Western Pennsylvania-- two different places
13. West Virginia
14. New Hampshire
    
15. Wisconsin
16. Colorado - 2 places
17. Michigan - 2 places
    
18. NJ (Greater NY area -- we don't want to live there)
    
19. Oregon (too far away)
20. San Francisco (impossible)
21. Chicago (impossible)
22. Detroit (well, we could have a super cheap house, at least, with no neighbors, though...)

OK, I'm not including Montreal, for two reasons: it's way too cold and because we might lose our residency. K is still applying, though, and my sister-in-law is thrilled.

Angry, Sad, Upset (Rant about U.S. visas included)

This was not the post planned for today (OK, I have to confess I didn't have anything planned per se, but I always have tons of things to blog about), but I just have to write about this. It's not even "new news" since it happened last week, but we only talked to my in-laws this evening (at 1 am in Brazil... poor them, in fact I feel bad that we didn't know earlier, our fault).

It turns out that my father-in-law's "fate" was finally decided. He ended up being laid off from his job as a pastor here in the U.S. in a very obscure and somewhat dishonest way. It took his employer almost six months to finally contact him -- he got the letter from them only last week, after trying to contact them every week (and nearly every day, more recently) for months. And we learned just minutes ago...

The day after he received the letter he went to the American Consulate to ask for a tourist visa to come with my mother-in-law to the U.S. to sell their cars, pack their things, shop for some appliances and furniture, and ship it all to Brazil. He also wanted to spend Thanksgiving with us because he hasn't seen his two older sons and his four older grandsons for six months. The youngest son is also coming on the weekend from Canada to see us, so it would be a nice family get-together.

It turns out that the lady who was assigned to talk to him at the Consulate was the same one who had received their request for a visa back in June (when they lacked a key document -- the one they were waiting his employer to send all this while) and she was very rude and picky with him. She was actually upset with my 64 year old father-in-law for not having learned to speak English in the three years he lived here -- working with Portuguese speaking people, BTW (Doesn't she know that it's not easy for older people to learn other languages? For some of them nearly impossible?). So, unfortunately, she denied his visa.

If you've never depended on a U.S. visa to travel here and/or visit loved ones, you don't know what that feels like. In fact, asking for a U.S. visa is a really unpleasant experience (for most people, at least for me, who did it over 10 times, it was). And this was just so... I don't know... mean of the consulate worker. My FIL is NOT going to stay here!! Prior to working in the U.S. for three years he had already visited the country eight times since 1990!! And been granted several tourist visas previously. Did she really thing he was coming to become an illegal immigrant? When all he needed was to come and pack his things to return to Brazil? They haven't been to their home in months, all their documents (such as the deed to an apartment they purchased last year) were here, so that was a problem too... And then comes the terrible fear that even though he'll get all the documents he needs and try to get another visa in another state (closer to the Northeastern city where he owns the apartment -- oh, and they're building a house, BTW in the state of Sao Paulo), he might be denied a visa again. And thus, he wouldn't be able to visit us here anymore EVER AGAIN, you hear me? Or until K or his brother "K2" get citizenship and then apply for his residency (apparently, my U.S. citizen BIL, "K3" cannot apply because he's living in Brazil right now). This is just outrageously sad.

OK, rant over.

There's another side to this already complex story, however. One that has to do with the decisions that my FIL (and MIL, but mostly him) made in the past years. They were eligible to have applied for residency with the job he had, but decided against it mostly because they didn't want to be stuck here in the U.S. while waiting for the greencard (in most cases you cannot leave the country after you've started the residency process). My MIL owns a small tourism agency and keeps traveling back and forth to Brazil and back to organize trips, etc. She could have taken a break for a while, but FIL would hear none of it, he just couldn't bear to think of not going to Brazil several times a year. He didn't really like living here that much. The seasons affected him terribly -- last year he was depressed for most of Fall and Winter, I think he had Seasonal Affective Disorder -- but he didn't tell anyone how he felt until later, I mean, it was actually MIL who told us. So, it was not easy for him, even though it was convenient for us and great for the grandsons to live relatively close to the grandparents.

We all (meaning us and my BIL and his family who live here) understand this, but we still wanted them to have applied for residency so it would be easier for them to come visit us several times a year after they returned to Brazil for good (the plan was to return this winter anyway!). We also thought that it would be great for my MIL to work with tourism here as well (K and I fantasized wildly about the future possibilities of this business on our drive from Florida up to here on New Year's day last January and we tried to convince the in-laws to buy a house in Florida -- no dice on that either). In the end, however, we couldn't effectively convince them to apply for the greencard, and thus, they kept depending on the visa to come and go. And come and go they did, several times a year (good for them!).

Then, came the fateful mistake. With new immigration laws and regulations being passed all the time -- this country has become terribly xenophobic since 9/11, I'm sorry to say! -- it so happened that on the day(s) before their scheduled two week trip to Brazil at the end of May, they found out that rules had changed for the religious work visa and that now they needed a new document from the immigration department (that would take from 2 weeks to 3 months to arrive) in order to renew their visa. They traveled anyway, against their better judgment and the exhortations of my brother-in-law (they didn't talk to K, but they knew he was going to urge them to not travel). That's how this whole "soap opera" started.

On the one hand I'm angry at my FIL's disloyal employers and his even more disloyal and dishonest parishioners (some of whom actually lied to him on the phone repeatedly), and on the other hand I know that he could have avoided this.

And then I'm sad on behalf of my sons, who everytime we mention that a grandparent is coming (we saw my parents sporadically after they went to Maryland), ask anxiously, "Is it Grandpa A, or Grandma D?" They were used to seeing them often, visiting them in MA, getting together with them at their uncle's house, spending holidays together, etc. So they missed them a lot (and still do). That's why we wanted them to continue living here a while longer and why this whole ordeal is just so frustrating and depressing.

Well, I guess very few people were able to read to the end, thanks if you did.

One last thing -- my mother-in-law is flying to the U.S. on Tuesday evening so she can take care of everything. I'm really fearful of how the immigration officers will deal with her when she enters the country. If they want, they have the grounds to deport her -- although they shouldn't since she still has a tourist visa (her R visa is no longer valid) and has very good reasons to be entering the country. So, I'm really, really anxious about this. If you pray, please pray that she can enter the U.S. I'll keep you posted.

(I have to post another rant sometime, about my diminished status as a resident when entering the country, BTW... but I'll leave that for another day)

Yeah, it looks like today was the day of talking about the in-laws in my corner of the Blogosphere, first, American Family, then Jody at Raising WEG, now me. Such an uncanny coincidence! :-)

My Favorite Thing About NaPloPoMo...

... is having posts to read on the weekends!! Oh, how I enjoy that! Often people write in their blogs the most during the week when I'm busy and can't enjoy the reading calmly as I wish I could (I just squeeze blog reading in with the tons of other things I need to do).

Other favorite things: hearing almost as much from my SIL as I do in one whole year (after all, except for November, she's The Sporadic Post blogger :-) ). Since our blogs are one of our main forms of communication since we see each other so sparingly (once a year at most), I really enjoy reading her daily.

P.S. This shouldn't be my daily post for today, in fact, there might be a couple more.

Five Glorious Years!!

(laughing)
Right... five years of blogging. It's been wonderful, though, it truly has. I haven't really made a "mark" in the Blogosphere, or Blogland, or, should it be Blogville? I'm just a drop in an ocean, but blogging has made a huge difference in my life. The friendships I made are priceless and the things I learned cannot be measured. So, yeah, I'm glad to be celebrating this "milestone." :-p

And to continue a recent tradition (I guess this will be the third year) I'm supposed to post a nice recent photo of myself, only it's very hard to find one! I forgot to have my official photographer (Kelvin) take one. In fact, there are no photos of me -- except in the Christmas family photos -- to be found in the past two months, so I'll have to use one from September. I'm not crazy about it, but it'll have to do. Can you guess where I was?

P.S. I really have a good reason to be late today. We went out for dinner, K and I -- big "milestone" right there (we never do this, but today we left our sons with friends) -- then to our friends' house and only left around 11:30 and didn't get home past midnight. So, it wasn't really my fault that I couldn't blog earlier ;-).

I Can't Believe It!

1. I can hardly believe it, but I've had not one, but three or four Christmas cards ready (designed and saved at the photo site) for a week now. I just need to go and order my favorite. And it's November! No, that can't be true! And we had not one, but two "photo sessions"* since the first one turned out really bad. I may scan it and post it here if it turns out cute.

2. I am relieved to acknowledge that the leaf removal (only two thirds done so far) has been nearly painless and quick. In the past two years I had to take care of it all by my sorry self, but my dearest K took time from his busy days and nights sending out applications while trying to teach a class and work a tiny bit on his research to help me. I spent a day blowing the leaves last week (before we went to Canada) and K took the day off on Tuesday to bag them all. You know.. I think he needed a break from the applications. And besides, we were really ashamed to compare our yard with all the neighbors' -- our lawn hadn't been mowed in over a month and we had to get rid of the leaves and do it -- and K did! Oh, I love him.

3. This post was going to have only two items, but a third random one presented itself unexpectedly this evening. We're planning to start a singing group in church and while looking for a song online I found this site that sells old out of print music as well as tons of accompaniment tracks!! I couldn't find all songs I wanted, but many favorites, and I was thrilled, singing away with the demos. Now I can stop translating songs from Portuguese to sing with my Brazilian tracks. Phew!
Note: I'm not a great singer by any means, but I do OK. My range is tiny (lower F to the C above middle C -- it's not that great beyond that, it's not even two octaves), so it's really hard to find songs for me. I'm an alto/mezzo soprano. I'm great at singing bossa nova songs, I did so once at one of our department parties back in grad school.

So, yeah, one more random fact about me that perhaps you didn't know. I like to sing, in spite of not being really good at it. (and a rather lame post, but I really have to get ready to sing tomorrow and it' getting late -- I'm super happy about items #1 and 2, though, and I wanted to share).

* Asking a friend to take a few photos of our family, who's dressed with slightly matching outfits (same color schemes), right after church.