A day NOT to remember

I had it all planned, very organized. Yesterday I drove to the State capital, got their seal.  Today I took the 8:00 am train in, with the twins, because I didn't know if I would be home to get them off the bus, to the Chinese Consulate, (an hour and a half each way).  We got up early enough, breakfast, dressed, plenty of time, then...a very important email came in that I HAD to answer before catching the train.  I have been trying every which way to get registered with Baby Come Home.  It is a Chinese organization that tries to locate kidnapped & lost children.  Thousands are being kidnapped on a regular basis.  I kept trying to register my older daughter because her finding information was slightly pointing to being lost in a very busy shopping center but the site wouldn't accept my information, there was a technical glitch somewhere.  I googled and found a TV story about an adoptive Mom who adopted a 7 year old boy and 10 years later, through Baby Came Home, not only found the parents, but found out they've been looking for him for 10 YEARS!  He got separated from them and was assumed abandoned and sent to the orphanage.  Well they showed the Chinese family reunion, I went through a box of kleenex.  So I emailed the Mother hoping to find a way to register like she did, but I haven't received an answer yet.

On Baby Come Home site I learned some important information.  Children that are stolen are often used by 'beggars' on the street to look sympathetic to get more money.  Often the child, as young as 1 or 2, doesn't get enough to eat or isn't properly clothed.  So I clicked on their email and wrote in English that I was going to Beijing would they like me to try land take pictures of any of the children begging so they can put it on their web site for possible identification by a parent.  Frankly I didn't expect to get an answer, because it was in English, the address could be old, just a number of things.  One day, three days, 5 days went by.  Then this morning I get an email saying:
"I’m one volunteer of “baobeihuijia”, my name is Sara.

My colleague send me your email. I read the letter.

Yes, you can email your children ‘s  information  to us ,we will publish them on our website."

WAHOOO!  Yes!  I now have a connection with them.  So I wrote back asking specifics of what to look for with the street children.  Then I explained that I was trying to register my daughter, the reason why and a cut & paste from the Police report and sent it all.  

So all that took up time and I drove like a mad woman to the station catching the train by 30 seconds to spare.  The best laid plans...  Went to the Consulate, as my daughters waited in the line of 35 people or so I went to their copy machine, and there was a little old lady slooowly copying each page in her passport, and my girls were getting closer and closer to the front of the line.  Two people were ahead of me and they were getting upset.  I decided to reason with her to let me just pop in quickly and said in broken Chinese, " two copy, twins there, two copy."  She shook her head no. Then the two in front of me started yelling at her in Chinese, and she totally ignored them, still my girls moved forward on the line.  OK, now I'm getting anxious, she turns around and asks for a quarter because she only had dimes & nickels, all of us shook our heads, she walked away.  The two people jumped in did one copy, I did my two just as the girls reached the front of the line.  Angst.  Then we go to visit my husband who got a job for 3 weeks.   Then we left walked to the bus stop, couldn't find the bus passes, walked all the way back to the office, then back again to the bus stop.  Got to the Consulate,  closed.  They had said come back after 2:00, I tried to be close to two but the bus pass thing delayed me. Apparently  they close every day at 2:30 until the next day.  I was livid, infuriated, helpless, annihilated, I thought my head would explode.  I had everything ready, I filled out the Fed Ex form, got the envelope and paid huge fees for same day service.  Now my dossier will be delayed - again.  It won't go out now until Monday, possibly Friday.  If I was in a print cartoon you would have seen a black cloud over my head.

I silently walk back to the bus stop with the girls trailing behind knowing not to say a word to me.  We get on the bus, and there isn't enough money on the pass..  (Can you guess how that just ratcheted up my mood?) I said, "Well what am I supposed to do?"  (Because I didn't think they took cash), he said, "Just give me a buck seventy-five."  Fine, I take out a dollar bill and 75 cents.  "I can't take paper money."  "FINE, but if I don't have enough what are you going to DO?"  (I was a real scary person at that point.)

I start counting it out, I won't have enough, I am starting to boil at this point, a man walks up to me and holds out his hand and says "This is all the change I have, will it help?"  I said thank and took 50 cents and asked the bus driver again, how much?  He said "Just a buck fifty will be fine."  I thanked the man again, sat down and seethed about the whole situation.  Then my daughter said, "Don't worry Mommy, things happen in threes,  we forgot the bus pass, the Consulate was closed and you didn't have enough money for the bus.  So that's three, nothing else will happen now."  Out of the mouth of babes.

Still it was a "day".  OK now it's 12:25 am, and I am so tired that I fell asleep on the train coming home, woke up as the train stopped and realized it was our stop and I barely got me and the girls and their stuff off before the train took left.  I am emotionally pooped, and tomorrow night I have a 2 hour rehearsal for the Messiah, Friday I go caroling with the group as part of the towns weekend we are being paid, and one of the twins is playing in a band for Christmas carols at a large event. Shoot, I just realized, how am I going carol and be with my daughter performing?  AHHHHHHHHH.  Now what?  Forget it, I'm going bed and I'll figure it out tomorrow.

Good night.