Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
-Mary Oliver

21 January, 2011

Welcome to Minnesota.

It was a big week, folks. A very big week.

There are two new additions in my family, Yenenesh and Melese. I met them tonight at the airport. We have known about their continued existence in Ethiopia for months and months, but now, having seen their sweet little faces in person, I finally believe that they are real actual people.

The craziness started at about 5:30 PM last Friday, the 14th. That was when my sister left me a...strained...sounding voice mail saying that she and her husband were supposed to be at the embassy in Addis Ababa on Tuesday, the 18th to get their new kids' visas and could they stay at my place tonight and could I give them a ride to the airport in the morning. I said OK, and they got to my place at 2:30 AM. Because my sister and I don't sleep, we stayed up for the rest of the night repacking and weighing suitcases on my Wii Fit board. On a side note, the Wii is concerned that the suitcases are all terribly underweight.

Cut to today, Friday, January 21, when I rush out of work 20 minutes later than I'm supposed to and zoom, as fast as one can during rush hour, to the airport. I gather four winter coats, the two little ones with the tags still on, and speed walk down Level One, Row E of the parking ramp to the terminal. Three escalators, one dropped mitten, and two wrong turns later, there they were.





Welcome to the family. We'll try not to fuck it up too much.