Good Ol’ American Run Around

On Monday, we drove to Memphis, TN for an appointment with the homeland security office.

On October 17th, our adoption agency reminded us that our US criminal clearance was going to expire on December 13th. Can you believe it has already been 15 months since we went to Beijing to get fingerprinted? It was time to make plans to get fingerprinted again.

NOTE: The hardest part of waiting for Little Sister is the obvious void we feel in our family. The second hardest part is keeping up with paperwork as it expires.

If we were in China, we would zip back to Beijing to give another set of fingerprints. The Beijing Embassy would then send those fingerprints to the Guangzhou Consulate where our US-side-of-the-adoption file sits. Dust free, I’m sure.

But we are not in China at the moment. So we are very complicated.

We made our appointment with the homeland security office only to learn that we had not made an official appointment. In fact no actual appointments can be made on-line. We had only received permission to enter the building where they would give us an appointment.

We told them in a very happy see-how-easy-this-can-be voice that we live in China, but are currently home for the holidays. So we need some fingerprints taken and then mailed to the Guangzhou Consulate.

First reaction:
There’s no way to do that. We can not send documents from our office to a Consulate!

We explained that we needed to get these fingerprints done and we lived quite a ways from Memphis so we’d like to do them today. All in that see-how-easy-this-can-be voice, of course.

Next reaction:
You have no appointment.

And that’s where they seemed to get off the hook. They suggested we write a letter requesting an appointment and they would submit our request to a homeland security office in Ft. Smith, Arkansas who would then call us back with an appointment. Otherwise, they seemed at a loss as to how to help us. We assured them that Ft. Smith was very far away, but that was the solution offered.

So we wrote the letter and hoped for the best.

Feeling a big overwhelmed and out of ideas, Hubs solution was Germantown Commissary for hickory smoked slow cooked bbq. The Commissary is a small shack beside the railroad tracks, it’s easy to miss. We just spotted it on the other side of the Methodist Church parking lot. “So good yull slap yo mama!”

I’m sad to say, but this food did make me feel better!

Hubs loves Memphis BBQ.

To further improve my spirits, we stopped by Target. I could only look for about 40 minutes before I was just tired of rows and rows of stuff. And I didn’t buy a single thing.

We munched on some Ben & Jerry’s while we drove home. OK, ice cream has become WAY too sweet! Or maybe I’m just not accustomed to it anymore?

This is the cheapest gas we’ve seen in a long time! $1.78 people!

We made it home in time to give Schäfer his bath, milk, bedtime stories and goodnight kisses. We also wrote our adoption agents to see if they have any tips on how to get our fingerprints done.

If there was any one word to describe families who adopt – resilient – would be at the top of the list.

Print Friendly