Preparing for takeoff...

So, today we cleared two more hurdles on our road to our Flynn/QiuQiu. We spent the first half of the day finishing our spring cleaning and preparing for our first face-to-face meeting with our new social worker.
Oh! Look at that. There's my star again. Hunh. Wonder how that happened.


Tubs of flowers on our stoop. Gosh, I really love springtime.

Our first full-blown allium. Oh, the satisfaction!

Just beginning to bloom.

Lucky Luciano, smelling the roses.

Oh, geesh! How did this slip in here? I swear, I had nothing to do with it.

CUPCAKES!!!!
Mike stopped off at Happy Cakes after his meeting with his business school counselor (planning his final year of school). Ostensibly, the cupcakes were intended as a welcome for our new social worker. But she was far too polite to actually eat one (although she did admire them). So I guess now they're all for me!!!!
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Oh, sorry there. Had to take a quick break from posting because my husband just called my cell phone...from the other side of the house.
I mean, we don't live in any sort of a mansion here. The other side of the house is two rooms away. At most, 800 sq ft separate my office from his. And yet, he called me...to ask me to come look at something funny on his computer.
Yah. That's married life in the M&M household.
Anyway.
Back to our story:

After putting the last bit of spit and polish on our housecleaning endeavor, we drove uptown to Passport Health for $800-plus worth of immunizations. Here, you can see the colorful bandaids they used to cover the numerous puncture wounds. After nearly an hour's worth of educational talks on everything from dengue fever to Japanese encephalitis, we ended up opting to be injected with vaccines against Hep A&B, tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (the dreaded and re-emerging whooping cough), as well as a new booster for measles, mumps and rubella. Oh, and we're getting typhoid. But we were over the shots, so we opted for the pills instead. They last longer.

I had an odd experience with the immunization clinic. I mean, not that it's fun to pay close to a grand for shots, and then walk around with a very sore arm for a couple of days. But somehow, it empowered me. I like the idea of being immunized. It was like a big dose of superpower in the arm. Also, mentally, it somehow gave me back my status as a world traveler. For much of my life, travel was the norm. Even dangerous travel. I was cool with it - any and all of it. I knew the ropes and I had all my badges. But in the past couple of years, travel has taken a backseat to the other essential parts of life - career, house ownership, marriage, the long, arduous process of adoption. And honestly, I was starting to feel soft - unaccustomed to the hardships of the road. Don't get me wrong, I have come to love the many joys of conjugal bliss and home ownership. It's been a wonderful learning process. But I miss the carefree, devil-may-care joys of life out in the world. Another thing that the process of adoption has taught me is fear. I've experienced uncertainty, tenuousness, even panic during the course of this process, and it has made me timid in a strange way...always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the rug to be snatched out from under me. This is not a normal state of being for me, and I've missed my own bravery, my toughness, my independence.
The immunization clinic gave me back my courage. It made me feel like the world traveler again. It helped me to remember my strengths, my fearless nature. And for that, I've been walking on air all day.

"OK. OK, you can stop taking pictures now!"

Along with the shots, the travel clinic gave us a 50-s0me page long pamphlet on diseases that exist in the area to which we'll be traveling, and its surroundings. We also purchased a travelers' diarrhea emergency kit. OK, not the most fun thing to think about - but definitely nice to have as a backup. I lived on an off in central Mexico for a few years in my teens, so I'm well attuned to the habits of living in a country with questionable water. Still always better safe than sorry. And my husband is what is called an "adventurous eater". He's the Anthony Bourdain of travelers. Under the circumstances, we want to be prepared.

And, of course, at the end of the housecleaning, social worker visit, and immunization marathon, Sam was there to ask, "WHAT...IS...GOING...ON...HERE?????"