My CPO

CPO Ezzelle in his dress blues.

WOW.

What else can I say?

Very nice, Chief.

Adoption Status Update

This past month (April) the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) appears to have matched babies with families whose applications were received March 9 through 14, 2006. Just to recap, for the past four months they have been working on matching March 2006 applications; the polls/estimates show there were a lot of applications logged in during March.

At this rate, one might estimate it will take at least another four months to finish referring for March. And then our eyes are on April, May, and June (our month) for which the polls/estimates show fewer applications.

Is it possible our wait will be less than a year and a half now?!?! I'll keep you posted every month.

Loving the green

Below is Lunch, Part II. Seaweed salad. And a bit spicy, I might add. I love green.

I only peeled back half of the plastic wrap so I would refrain from eating it all.

And if you are wondering what are those crumbs underneath the green on the plate, that would be remnants of the infamous Radish Sandwich.

Yes, we adopted (a dog)

If you haven't already heard, we adopted the last dog we were fostering. Her name is Daisy (she is just learning it), and she is a 6-year old, 44 pound Walker hound mix that was picked up in Southwest Virginia in January. Before we got her, she had 4 teeth pulled, a mastectomy, and was spayed -- even has a tattoo to indicate it! She's VERY quiet for a hound and mostly likes to sleep all day in a corner.

Here's a picture of her riding home from the vet today; the little bugger got into the front seat. And another picture of her as my office mate (smushed in between the filing cabinet and garbage can).

Maxine tolerates her, just like she did Sammy. As with Sammy, they really don't bother with each other.

"Favorable Determination" For the Third Time

Our Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition has been approved - for the third time in our nearly three year wait - resulting in our receipt of the I-171H document. The I-171H from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) indicates we are "able to furnish proper care to an orphan" and that we've been approved for one child up to 18 months old, either boy or girl (all that is exactly what we asked for), and the embassy in Guangzhou, China has been notified. The approval is only valid for 18 months, and the fingerprint checks that are also required are only valid for 15 months, and, as many of you know, we started this process many moons ago; i.e., nearly 36 months ago.

We are still waiting to hear how far the CCAA got this past month in matching applications with children. There was talk that the H1N1 virus may be holding up the release, but hopeful me awaits rumors next week.

In the Toilet

I just pulled a a dear coworker's ID badge out of the toilet at work. Is that SO bad? Of course the toilet had been flushed.

Should I have been a plumber instead of a psychometrician? Would that have helped me with my overwhelming fear of toilets overflowing?