Máeráed and her entire family are all together ...

... under the same roof for the first time in five months. Saner heads in the Federal Government finally told the #$@5 cretins in the American embassy in Hanoi to back down, accept the rulings in Máeráed's family's favor, and let the little 9 month old go.

So last night I drove over to Charlotte Airport. found myself driving right beside Máeráed and Marty, her dad, and pulled into the parking lot at the airport right next to them. Máire's plane was right on time so soon they were all reunited.

Yes, Mickey is just as cute in person as he is on the videos and pictures (and more videos and pictures).

My younger brother Jesse, the Confederate nut ...

... is right here in this picture, the one riding a horse, looking a bit like Robert E. Lee. I didn't even know brother Jesse knew which end of a horse to face.

Learn something new every day.

I am going to the airport tomorrow night ...

... to meet Máire and Mickey. Mickey finally got his approval for a visa to come to the United States. A very frustrating and infuriating process, but it is done now. Marty and Máeráed are happy, in fact are almost beside themselves. I went over to see them this afternoon after school. Carmen was helping Marty clean up the house for their arrival.

I'll update when we get back from the airport. I suppose with Homeland Security and CIS there is always a chance that they will be held up at the airport.

Máeráed's mother and brother, ...

... the little Vietnamese boy that so terrified both the US CIS and the State Department, have been given permission to come home. So they will be back with us on Saturday.

It seems that having Sen Barbara Boxer, a Democrat, and a few other Senators, also Democrats, ream them out in public hearings, as well as having the New York Times making them look like idiots, may have convinced the State Dept and CIS folks in Washington that perhaps the games that the American embassy was playing with 26 American families and their adopted children was not the best way to go.

Lo and behold.



These clowns have to go.

I should update about my incurable sleep apnea...

... especially since we got the report wrong because we were sent the wrong report. The neurologist figured this out - when she finally got the right report. I am not waking up 7.5 times an hour - that is how many times I am waking up with the CPAP machine. No - I'm waking up about 30 times an hour without the machine. Which explains a lot. There are also some other problems disturbing my sleep patterns that are not going to be helped by the machine.

So she put me on yet another pill - Rozerem. It's a new drug that is spending billions (partly paid for now by Clemens) on advertising. You've probably seen them. The ones with Abe Lincoln and a beaver.

It's almost 3 am, so to bed, perchance to dream.


If I can get any REM sleep anyway.


.

Máeráed and her dad went with us to see Chinese New Years ...


... celebrations at Wake Forest today. It was fun. It was in Reynolds Gym so there was plenty of room. After we grabed some Chinese food to eat outside (it wasn't too cold, Jen) we went in for the dances. First they started out with a lion dance, with three lions adancing and one guy aleaping. The smallest, least mean of the lions came over and spit lettuce on us - a sign of good luck. I think. He also tried to whisker all the little girls setting in front of us.

Then there was a Tae Kwan Do exhibition. More leaping and kicking. Then Tai Chi, followed by lots of little Asian girls, and one pale blond girl, dancing. Máeráed loved all the dancing and the costumes. She herself was dressed in a beautiful Vietnamese costume like my sister-in-law Judy used to wear. Every time a dance would start she would dance along, mimicing their movements. She loves to dance.

We came home to the foothills and while Carmen and Máeráed took the little lummox out for his walk her dad and I were able to sit and talk. He probably needed some adult conversation that didn't involve work.

It was a good day all in all.


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I could have been wrong about that Plott Hound stuff ...

... and the lummox. Sure, he's tough when he is outside in the cold, attacking a horde of hounds, but when you get him home ...

Last night right after dinner I look out in the dog room (formerly known as the family room) and there he was, laying on a special fluffy blanket on the sofa with his head resting on his special fluffy pillow made just for dogs, snoozing contentedly.

Two hours later I checked out there again and he had not moved a millimeter. The little beast likes his creature comforts.


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The Clemens totem has been the humble hedgehog ...

... ever since I bought a little toy one with a metal clip in its ear in a wonderful little shop in Leesburg about 47 years ago. It cost what was a lot of money at the time. Since then I have acquired several others. It's a cuter critter than you might think.

Here's one eating a carrot.



personally I think he is looking around for a beer to wash it down with at the end.


.

We always thought the little lummox was part Jack Russell....

.... as well as Corgi. We were definitely right about the Corgi, but now I am not so sure about the Jack Russell.

Down here in North Carolina we have been breeding a peculiar dog, just now being recognized by the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, known as the Plott Hound. It has been named the state dog of North Carolina. It's one homely high strung beast. Well, if that's what Tar Heels want. Anyway, you can read all about it in Slate. com.

But here is the part that interests me and got me thinking about our little dogs antecedants.

Outdoorsmen from as far away as Africa and Japan hold the Plott in near-mystical esteem as perhaps the world's toughest dog. Bred to track, run down, tree, and, if necessary, grapple with a baying 500-pound bear eight times its size, it is often overmatched but rarely chastened by that fact. Inspect the coat of one that has worked in the woods for a year or more, and you will likely find slash marks from a bear's claws or a hog's tusks. Plotts routinely will stay on game, alone or in packs, for days at a time. Willing to sacrifice themselves before they'll run from a showdown, they are the ninja warriors of dogdom.

Sounds like our boy. Especially that ninja warrior part.

Not the mention the dumb enough to attack 500 pound bears eight times its size part.

And we are not too fond of Senator Dole, either ...

... for her non role in helping with the Vietnamese Adoption Scandal. Her office, when contacted by Máeráed's family for some help with negotiating the complexities of the Citizenship and Immigration system, apparently realized that this was something the Bush State Dept was behind and would not even return their phone calls.

Here is the unsolicited opinion of one of my friends about Madame Senator in comparison with Sen Boxer of California:

Apparently California's Senators have been much more active and effective on behalf of their constituents than has Elizabeth Dole, that resident of Kansas and D. C. posing as North Carolina's Senator. One almost never sees her on the news, local or national, or reads where she is doing anything for this state, or the country, other than saying she wants people to "buy ouah fine Nawth Cahrlina products."

That about sums it up.

And Carmen was wondering just this morning what Sen Dole had ever done as Senator. Now we know. Thanks Mike!

The Vietnam Adoption Scandal ...

.... has even reached the New York Times. This is the case that Máeráed's family is caught up in, as I have mentioned several times before. Here is the core of the article:

“Everything we know now says the State Department is, frankly, using these babies as a tool in a battle that has nothing to do with these families or the children themselves,” Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, told the three families who met in her office last week.

The State Department says it is making sure babies are legitimately available for adoption.

“It would be unforgivable for us to look at a case and think something is wrong, then to let it go,” said Michele T. Bond, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for overseas services. Ms. Bond said Vietnam had never posted a schedule of adoption fees, as required in the bilateral agreement, and said documentation on how some babies came to be orphaned “is unreliable.”

As has been the case too often with the Bush admin virtually everything Ms Bond has to say about the case is... well, wrong. To be polite about it. The French family has already been allowed to bring their family home for the simple fact that there was nothing wrong with the adoption in the first place. Their case is exactly like Máeráed's case. There never was any need for the embassy to turn down the request in the first place. Once the proper documentation was secured, and CIS in Washington ruled in both families favor, what was the reason for the embassy once again to hold it up by fighting the decision in Washington? Ms Bond's explanation is 'inoperative' and Barbara Boxer is absolutely correct.

One little additional problem with Máeráed's case. The embassy in Hanoi simply pigionholed the application for reconsideration and when this was discovered came up with the lame excuse that they had been told that since Mickey, the little boy being adopted, had gone to Ireland, he was an Irish citizen and the embassy could wash his hands of the case. When pressed, however, they couldn't exactly say who had told them that. It's just a mystery.

All in all it is a pretty sorry commentary on how our State Dept., and the Hanoi embassy, and the Bush admin in general works. Not quite as bad as starting a war for no good reason, or watching New Orleans get blown away, but infuriating just the same.

Perhaps I should explain why I haven't been blogging ...

... on Not Mayberry for awhile. That would be because ... uh .... because .... well, no reason in particular. Life is either too boring or too exciting sometimes.

We did have little Máeráed over to stay four nights with us back before Christmas. That was when both her folks were in Vietnam for a few days. We had a good time with her, which I will write about in more detail. Then her dad came back from Vietnam for a few weeks while her mom stayed over their with her new brother Mickey, the one the CIS won't allow to come to America. That is a long story that I will write about in more detail soon. The tone I take will depend on how it turns out, but for the moment I have nothing good to say about the people in our government who are doing this to about 20 different families. BTW, Senator Dole's office will not even return phone calls from Máeráed's family in their effort to get the problem resolved. Next time she runs for office I will remember this.

We have had lots of snow and freezing rain. More of the freezing rain than the snow. Even the big university closed for the day. I enjoyed that but had to go up the mountain anyway, partly for a doctor's appointment and partly for a meeting of the history department. We are hiring lots of new people and I am on the committee that has to meet with every candidate and then meet yet again to discuss the candidate, and then meet again to ... well, you get the idea.

But I will try to keep posting more regularly on the blogs, both of them. Really.

OK ... this is a test of your resolve....

.... to see just how grumpy you are today.

I know nothing of the young lady in this post, know nothing of what she is taking a picture of, know nothing of the context of the photos beyond the fact that it seems to be in Hawaii.

So click on this post and I dare you not to smile. At least a little.