the sticking point

Tuesday Dispatch (Late Edition)

Seoul, Korea. (Tuesday, 7:00 PM local time)

We got our comfy shoes on and took the subway trains up to Gyeongbokgung to visit the Genjeongjeon Palace.

"Closed Every Tuesday"

No sweat, it was our first time at an Asian palace and shrine, so we were (for now) satisfied with the photos we could take of the exterior. (Plus the gift and snack stand was open, so I gobbled two (2) sausage-on-a-sticks. Good eatin', that sausage.)

We headed off on foot to the artsy and craftsy shopping neighborhood surrounding Insadonggil. At the top of the road are high-end galleries, and as you wind down its length the products become less "art" and more "craft," until finally they are merely "wares." By the end of the Insadonggil the shops' signs actually read: "Tourist Gift Souvenirs." It's pretty much like Broadway and 47th Street in NYC by that point; though instead of "I [heart] NY" shirts and Statue of Liberty snowglobes, you find  everyday items like pens, magnets, and keychains with representations of Korean boys and girls in "traditional" dress affixed to them.

(And by "traditional," they mean: "I bet this is what you filthy Americans think we all walk around in all the time because you think you are so great and we are all backwards...but isn't it cute for the kids back home in Dubuque." You know? Some of it creeped me out in the way that seeing magnets depicting smiling, big-lipped black musicians for sale in New Orleans creeps me out.)

We stopped in for a Korean lunch in a 12-foot wide restaurant on a side street, where Mrs. Sticking Point enjoyed the hot bibimbop she's been craving for days.

(HEY! That's my fucking wife! That was not a dirty sentence you perv!)

After our excursion home -- the Seoul subway system is awesome, by the way, even easier to navigate than London's -- we came back to the guest house we're staying in to boil some bottles and nipples for the young'en who's coming tomorrow.

Tomorrow: Family of Two Becomes Family of Three.

Tuesday Dispatch

Seoul, Korea.

It's nearly 9 AM, Tuesday morning.

We spent about an hour to 75 minutes with our son yesterday, in his foster mother's home. We were accompanied by our case worker, Miss Lee. She is in her late 20s, and so sweet. On this occasion, she also acted as translator. We three walked in, took off our shoes and sat on the heated floor. F.M. handed the baby to S. and said, "Oma" (Mom). That was the moment like none other in my life, seeing my wife with our son for the very first time.

The f.m. is thoughtful and kind, but doesn't betray a lot of emotion. She smiles and laughs almost perfunctorily. One of the gifts we brought her, a framed picture of her with the baby photographed in August, seemed to please her a lot.

Little baby H. is incredible. He looks somehow different from the pictures we've gotten of him. The shock of hair sticking off the top of his head has mostly fallen off, and he's got more even coverage from his fine black hair.

He's quite a jumper. If you hold him under the arms, he will squat down then quickly extend his legs to try to jump, and he did this almost continuously during our visit. He almost seems ready to stand, though he's only 22 weeks old. He smiles quite a bit and sticks out his tongue. He's very curious about what's going on around him. So much so that he prefers to be held facing outward, rather than toward you. From this position he can get a better look at what's happening. He's attentive and recognizes objects around him. At one point, the f.m. was showing us the cans of formula from which she's been feeding him and telling us (through translation, of course) how many scoops of each powder her gets, until she had to take the cans off the floor because H. can recognize them. (It wasn't quite time to eat yet.)

For us, she had put together a nice wooden tray of Korean delicacies. I'm not the world's most famous "try-er" of new foods, so I stuck to the orange juice and orange slices and a few of these white, doughy dumpling things that were filled with granulated sugar and juice.

It was an overwhelming experience. So much so, that it's left me a bit numb and unable to process it all. It think I've taken in so much emotional stimuli that I am unable to gather and sort any of it. We visited with a baby...but it's my baby...but it's not my baby yet. It's a hard feeling to describe.

Tomorrow (Wednesday), at 2 PM, we will receive our little boy. Today is our final day as a family of two.

Sunday Dispatch

Seoul, Korea

It's just after three in the afternoon, Sunday.

S. is taking a nap, and I'm looking for ways to entertain myself in our 2-room mini-apartment.

They've supplied us with a baby bath, crib, and high chair.

We haven't got H. yet, but when I allow myself to think blatantly positive, I imagine that the foster mother will be ready to let us have him tomorrow when we meet her. This is probably unrealistic, but then again, it was surprising to learn that our meeting is Monday and not later in the week. (We found out last night when we checked in. Our Korean case worker had left a note for us at the front desk. It was warm and sweet and supplied the surprising info about Monday. Reading it when we did, after exactly 25 straight hours of travel, door-to-door, it triggered an incredible...let's call it outpouring of emotion.)

There is also a kitchenette in here, with a stove-top and a pot ready for bottle-and-nipple boiling. (Insert "painful nipple" joke here.)

This morning we walked to Starbucks for coffees. I got something called "sausage croissant" which is a croissant with a hot dog baked inside. Scrumptious, but possible deadly. To top it off I ate a "Volcano." It's a chocolate shortbread muffin thing with a shot of espresso inside and whipped cream on top. When you bite into it the espresso oozes down the side like lava. So it's fun to eat AND watch! (Don't worry, I got a picture of both taste treats.)

We're pretty beat, so we're limiting today's endeavors to the few blocks surrounding our homestead. We expect to do the full-on sight-seeing jihad in the upcoming days. Now, we're resting up, and downing plenty of water and Gatorade. Tomorrow's a big day for the Sticking Point fam. At 1:30 (Sunday night at 11:30 your time), our case worker will take us to the foster family's house to meet our boy.


Folks here are very nice. They seem friendly, and don't let the fact that we speak different languages prevent them from providing their side of a conversation. Our taxi driver had plenty to say last night. He was smiling and very animated, so I guess it was nice stuff. We smiled and nodded. "Yup...definitely," I said once, just to change things up a bit. This morning S. and I wondered if he thought it was weird that she -- a woman -- sat in the front seat while I rode in the back. Maybe.

I'm listening to John Cale's "Leaving It Up To You" from the audio stream of the Henry Rollins 11/08/04 radio show from Indie 103.1

Sakura Dispatch

No, not Sakura, Japan. I mean Sakura - the business class lounge of Japan Airlines at JFK Airport. S had some Udon, I had a chocolate croissant and hot green tea. Then we amused ourselves by using the free internet and trying to find the @ symbol on the Japanese keyboard. (It's not where you left it.)

I slept for about seventeen minutes last night, from about 4:13 - 4:30. Then I waited for the alarm to go off at 4:57, while I wondered if the pants I chose to wear could actually be comfortable for 26 hours.

So far, parenting is fun!

[Posted with ecto]

Current conditions and 5-day weather

Current conditions and 5-day weather forecast for Seoul, South Korea.

Good To Go

It's on.

We fly to Seoul, via Tokyo, on Friday morning.

My head is in a whirl. Bedtime and work-time mean nothing right now, and neither does day or night. I've become a forward-moving robot of purchasing, gathering, planning.

Seoul Call

It's Day One, I suppose. This morning, we got "The Call" from the adoption agency.

Alright, the truth is, we made the call. After a little deliberation, my wife ("S."), decided to call the agency to see what's going on - could we expect to travel to Korea to bring home our son anytime soon? Our case worker told her that the fax from Korea arrived this morning, and she was just about to call us.

So, just like that, my world changed.

Little change of plans. Instead of splitting the long weekend between Cape Cod and Brooklyn, we will probably be flying off to Asia on Friday morning. Direct to Tokyo (or Anchorage or Juneau), and then on to Seoul. We have reservations with at least three airlines right now, and we're trying to decide which provides the best date/time/cost/class combination.

Two fly out, three fly back. This is quite different from the common dad experience of strapping the car seat in for the ride home from the hospital. We'll be heading over there with all sorts of baby gear we've never even used before, plus a bag full of goodies for the foster family and baby supplies we are donating to the agency there.

And, oh yeah...we don't even have our stroller yet! S.'s baby shower is scheduled for December 5th, which is now going to be about 24 hours after we get little H home. We've been prepping the nursery and the apartment and our stock of supplies for several weeks, but now that the call to travel has come... could we be scarily ill-prepared?

I have a slip of paper next to my computer here at work and I'm jotting things down. Its items are as random and scattered as my thoughts; everything from canceling our Thanksgiving motel reservations to buying extra food for the dog to stocking up on Powerbars for my finicky stomach. Which luggage are we taking? What the hell do I pack?

And, oh man. Wherever we bring beagle Jackson, we'll have to drop him off on Thanksgiving. Are our friends (and doggy-sitters) T. & M. cool with that?

I've been walking around the halls here, sharing the good news with people, because that seems to slow things down a bit. It's so much easier to amble around, getting congrats and the proverbial pats on the back, than it is to sit at the phone, trying to crack airline schedules. I expected things to pick up speed once we got the phone call, but I never imagined it would feel like I've been shot out of a gun.

This past weekend, S. rolled over in bed and (ever so hopefully) pronounced it to be our last weekend home alone. And the chick turned out to be right!

Bib 2004, Psychotherapy 2029

I took this photo at Target yesterday. Maybe I'm reading too much into things here, but, who, exactly, wears this bib? That is, who would be thanking heaven for little boys? It's blue, so one would think it's intended to grace the neck of a hungry baby boy, but... that's awfully progressive for a mass market bib sold at Target, no? Or is it for a girl? Either way, questions arise.

On iTunes right now: "Ambulance (L)" from Unfiltered (Air America Radio) 10.15.04 by TV On The Radio

[Posted with ecto]

Don't fiddle with the Middle, yo.

Marla Middle Way has, as usual, hit it out of the park. Here, she shares another couple's story, then exposes its inherent flaws with surgical precision.

Listening: "Listen" from Night at the Hip Hopera, by Kleptones, The.

Desperate Hausfraus

Man, I got all bent out of shape last week after the announcement of the Scott Peterson verdict. It wasn't the verdict itself that bothered me; with the evidence that I've read about or heard, it seemed likely that he was the murderer. That's my gut feeling, an under-educated guess.

(That was me, in those last two sentences, admitting that I don't know everything about the case. Only those who investigated it or sat in the courtroom every day know enough to state an educated opinion on guilt or innocence.)

What brought my blood to a boil was the scene outside the courthouse. Who were those people, those outsiders, who stood there cheering when the verdict was broadcast? What's their fucking story? And who do they think they are? They gathered in such numbers that police set up barricades to fence them in.

The idiots, the fucking narcissistic assclowns, just had to be a part of some kind of happening. I kept seeing the same huddle of overweight fraus, pumping their fists in the air as they got word from the transistor radio one of them was holding.

"Woooooooo!" "Yesssssss!"

This huddle of half-wits took a coffee break from their unfulfilling and unexamined half-lives, to drive to the courthouse and cheer a murder verdict. Disgusting. Pumping their fists and hooting. Like it was some game. A reality TV show. American Fucking Idol. My stomach turned every time I saw them. I know in my heart they thought they were part of some reality TV shoot, where their team won. Their superficial interest in the case inspired them to be a part of this moment in American Law, so they showed up at the courthouse to behave like it's third grade field day. (The mob even booed the Peterson family as they left the building! Did they deserve that?)

**               **               **

At the moment of the verdict, I sat at my desk as my eyes welled up with tears. (I'm a wuss, though.) The brutality of the cold act hit me at once: The guy killed his pregnant wife.