I'm still here

I'm just insanely busy right now with yet another Fun! Huge! Project! at work.

Allegedly, funds have been set aside for me to get an assistant sometime in 2008. Please, God whom I don't believe in, please let it be soon.

Just to make things ever funner, I've got freaking jury duty. And New York is lolz nutz. There's a courthouse 20 minutes from me, where juror duty starts at 1:00 PM. And then there's a courthouse 1 hour from me, where juror duty starts at 9:30 AM. Guess which courthouse I got assigned to?

Now, according to the New York Juror rules, your employer cannot legally tell you that after doing a full day of jury duty, you then need to log on afterwards and still do your work.

Yeah, right. No, no one told me I have to do that, but when you're the only person who can do your job, and you've got deadlines, what else can you do?

I'm pissed though because I had wanted to take a day off in March to go to Albany, but now with this time off from work I won't be able to swing it.

So all this is working wonders for my mood. I've been crazy depressed lately, between the whole magic of adoption and the mourning my pets thing, people have been asking me, "Why are you grimacing?" when I didn't realize I was. Also I have this odd feeling that I get sometimes, like this cloak of stupidity has encased my brain and I can't coherently string words together.

Well I must run to go battle the LIE. I'll leave you with this - remember that guy who videotaped his first call to his mom? Here's a quick update:

Direct link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=2qTxgGWiUxY

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PostSecret pissed me off today

Well not PostSecret, but this one

I was lucky. 30-something (I’ve lost count) biopsies later I’m still lucky.

Why don’t they find him or her and tell them?

But a lot of times what makes me angry, are things I don’t like in myself.

Like wondering which side of the family my melanoma came from. Like wondering if it was from my mother’s side. Like wondering if my younger half siblings are at risk. Like being too fucking scared to pick up the phone and ask them.

This time last year, if anyone had said I'd be sitting on the phone numbers of my siblings and doing nothing, I'd have laughed in their face and called them a jackass.

I look at their phone numbers a lot. Sometimes I manage to dial 4 or 5 digits. But then I just put the phone down. Five months post denial, and I'm still as fragile as spun sugar. One more denial would crumble me.

So it's not the postcard that pisses me off.

It's my own cowardice.

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Could it get any worse?

Yeah, it did.

Honestly, I could not make this up if I tried.

She had a stroke a few months ago, and made a really remarkable recovery. We kept saying how lucky we were. They told us she was going to be blind. They were wrong. Her sight came back. She seemed happy.

Until this morning. She had a second stroke, much worse than the first, and there was no chance for recovery.

I'm going to see if I can't have the other cats put into some sort of suspended animation life support. I simply cannot deal with another pet loss anytime for at least the next 10 or 20 years. Or 30.

She was a very good girl. She had nothing but disdain for everyone except my son and the dog. Oddly enough this affection for the dog only started after her first stroke. Before that she wouldn't give her the time of day, but afterwards, I think maybe she found her size comforting. She would sleep curled up next to her.

I loved her because she had an ungrateful attitude, the way all good cats should be.

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The Surrender Survey Project

via my inbox...

There is a new survey out on the web, which I am proud to be a part of. It is for birth parents who have relinquished or had their rights terminated.

We believe that if we get the required numbers of birth parents to take this survey, that this can be the MOST comprehensive online birth parent survey to date.

We would like to see OVER 600 birth parents take this survey by December 1, 2008.

So if you are an adoptee, sibling or searcher on here and KNOW of a birth parent who can take this survey, please ask them to do so.

All questions which have a RED * by them are a REQUIRED question. YOU HAVE TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION.

Please go to the link below and take the survey and thank you in advance for your cooperation:

http://www.question pro.com/akira/TakeSurvey? id=844922

Roberta MacDonald -
Chairwoman NC Coalition for Adoption Reform
NC State Representative - American Adoption Congress

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The sweetest rottweiler in the world

passed away last night. She was only 9 years old. She had just had a checkup with x-rays for her arthritis and bladder issues at the end of October. On Friday night she didn't want dinner, but that wasn't such a surprise nor a new occurrence. She was on prescription dog food for bladder stones that was pretty vile, and had gone on hunger strikes in protest before. She'd eat doggie treats and crappy dog food, but none of the healthy stuff.

Monday morning she started vomiting. She had a full x-ray at the vets and was found to have tumors throughout her stomach, bladder, esophagus, lungs and liver. All in the space of three months these developed.

She was a rescue, like all of the animals in this house. Being unwanted, I have a great affinity for animals that other people don't want. She was originally purchased from a breeder as a puppy, but once she got past that cuddly puppy stage she wasn't so cute anymore, and she was dumped with a rottweiler rescue group. Her first family thought she was a danger. They wanted to protect their family from the big mean vicious rottweiler.



She will be greatly missed.

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Liar Liar Adoption Records on Fire!!!

This is just too much fun.

Yeah, this.

This came into my inbox last week. I wanted to wait until next week to try it out, I wanted to wait until I had lots of results before I blogged about it, I wanted to download some screen video software so I could give you this really slick post about it…

…but I have no self control. And anyway, it’s too much fun, so I’m blogging about it now.

A while back I wrote about SpoofCard, a nifty little service that lets you change the number that shows up on caller ID. I liked it so much I signed up for an account. I also set up an affiliate link for it in an attempt to raise funds for travel to New Orleans.

As an affiliate, I received an email on the new service they are offering – LiarCard.


In a nutshell, here’s a summary from their website:

LiarCard is the most advanced voice analysis technology for personal use available today, giving you an indication if your subject is being truthful. You can now have a competitive edge to negotiate a sweeter deal, hire better personnel, choose a more reliable supplier, and even just to let you know if the person talking with you is not being honest on a specific issue.

In simple terms, LiarCard's patented technology detects the emotional content of speech patterns revealing the mental state and emotional makeup of the speaker.

How Do I Use LiarCard?
• Dial the toll-free number from any phone and input the PIN provided upon signup.

• Enter the destination number and wait for the call to be connected.

• During your conversation, the voice of the person of whom you called is analyzed in real-time, during which a heartbeat pulse is played in the background which only you will hear. A buzz is also played when the called party is suspected of not telling the truth or is in an extreme state of mind.

• After the call, login to the web control panel to replay calls, view the graphs and read the analysis.

Oh, the fun to be had.

As an affiliate, I got a test 30 minute account. But there were so many options! Do I

• Call my natural mother again with it?
• Call my adoptive mother and ask her questions about my adoption with it?
• Call the county and ask for the status of my non-id?

No! Even better – try to get my hospital records!

Now, as has been reported previously, birth records of adoptees are subject to natural disasters the likes of which have not been seen since that Moses and Pharaoh scuffle, floods and fires being the most prevalent.

Here’s the catch though – I don’t know what hospital I was born at. All I know is that I was born at ‘one of the Bucks County Hospitals’.

Yeah, that really narrows it down. But nevertheless, I started calling hospitals with LiarCard with a generic request on how long hospital records were kept, and how I would go about getting a copy.

Isn’t it odd that on my very first call, there had been a fire:

No lie.

I made a few phone calls with some less than spectacular results. One hospital told me that in Pennsylvania, they are only required to keep records for 7 years. Another hospital only kept records for 30 years. One hospital keeps records forever, unfortunately, I wasn’t born there. The woman was a bit iffy about the whole thing as she stated to take my information (“You’re not adopted, are you?”) but I think it left her in a bit of a quandary. If I knew the name and date of birth of my natural mother, then what reason would they have for not giving me my hospital records? She was kind enough to pull the microfiche, but unfortunately I hadn’t been born there.

There are lots more hospitals in Bucks County than I have minutes for on my LiarCard, and lots of clues point me to believe that I was born at the hospital with the 30 year limit. I’m actually going to continue to call the hospitals next week as a service to any other Bucks Bastards to compile a list of how long records are kept, but I wanted to throw this out there:

I’ve got 21 minutes left on my card. If anyone would like to try it to sniff out an adoption related lie, send me an email or a message at MySpace and I’ll let you have my PIN. It’ll be first come, first serve. I’m heading out for the weekend but I should be back online by Tuesday night.

Think of the fun you could have. With so many liars when it comes to adoption, the phone call opportunities are endless.


Here are a few things you should keep in mind. As the call takes place, there is a heartbeat going on in the background that only you can hear. I found this a bit distracting and hard to hear the other person talking. You can press zero on your phone to turn it off, however on my third phone call, as I was pressing zero the heartbeat continued. I don’t know if that was a glitch with the site or a problem with my phone.

The second is when a call is transferred: the ringing from one extension to another is detected as a lie by the site, so you’ll hear this shrill alarm sound during the ring. If, when the other person is talking, a lie is detected, that alarm goes off too. I personally found the alarm to be too loud, so I’d suggest you hit zero to turn off all indicators during the call itself, and then log into the website afterwards to get the results. Unless you want to call the liar on the spot.

Anyway, think it over, and if you know a good liar you want to record and analyze, hit me up and I’ll get back to you next week.

Have a good weekend!

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Adoptee Dump Bonanza!!

Is it just me, or is this on the increase?

From the diplomat you love to hate, to the African-theme-bedroom designing disposer, to the Yippie-i-o-ki-ay ranch for kids with 'screwed up brains', to missing Jaliek Rainwalker (who according to this article was pending a return prior to his disappearance), and now this one who, unbelievably, claims the state 'forced her' to adopt her son. This is a new one on me, I've got to hand it to her. The crime her son committed is horrific, but claiming she was forced into a relationship, that takes the cake.

Are throwaway adoptees with boo-hoo-hooing adoptive parents on the increase? Is it being reported more? Or am I just more sensitive to it? I'm not sure.

Edit: Policy on Adoptee Returns came up in my reader after I made this post. Check it out. I gotta get back to work.

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Become Part of Adoptee Rights History... For Ten Bucks!!!

via BB Church's Funhouse:

Become Part of Adoptee Rights History... For Ten Bucks!!!

What better way to greet the politicians attending the National Conference of State Legislatures this July than with a full page ad in the print version of the New Orleans Times-Picayune listing adult adoptees and their friends and family who support adoptee rights? Our goal is one thousand names, one thousand adult adoptees, representing all fifty states.

You can be part of history by simply donating ten dollars to the Day for Adoptee Rights. Donations are easy, just click on the link to our donations page, fill out the short form and you’re all set. Your donation will help defray the cost of the ad and help guarantee maximum impact on the very people who hold the power to open our records. All who have donated so far can automatically be assured a spot in the ad. Join us today!

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Good Morning, here's the news. And all of it is good.

Quick! Who remembers this fine gentleman ---





I heard that catchy tune last night in my car, and seriously - I pulled over to the side of the road to write a snippet of lyrics down so I could google it later. I wanted to find out who this cool 'new' band was.

When the search results came up, I just about fell over. How cool is that?

I don't know why, it sounds like a good new year type of song to me. Probably because I'm feeling SO EXCITED ABOUT NEW ORLEANS I JUST CAN'T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT!!

I'd say it prompted me to have a resolution to be more positive, but that wouldn't last long. I'm not really a new year's resolution type of gal. But - I do have one for this year, and that's reducing the clutter in my house. We have a tiny house. We have too much stuff. These two things combined make me cranky and irritable.

I'm working on reducing my book load first. It's a good thing that we're a house full of readers, but it's a bad thing that we're a house full of book buyers. We all seem to have criminal records when it comes to returning library books, therefore we buy rather than borrow. So I'm having a big book sweep first.

Oh and PS - the weather's good too.

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Maine: Access to OBC Support Group

Received this via my inbox

OBCforME will be facilitating a meeting on February 2, 2008 at 10am, at the Community Room at Norway Savings Bank, Route One, Falmouth, Maine. We will be discussing the birth parent contact preference form, the form for adoptees to receive their original birth certificates, and the emotions surrounding this process.

To RSVP, or for more information, please contact cmrcmr@verizon.net or call 207-671-1375.

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2007

was, hands down, my favorite year to be an adoptee.

In spite of:

• ongoing battles for my non-id
• the general suckage of being adopted
• the lolz of contact denial

this has been the most authentic year of my life.

Look to the links to the left and the right for the reason why.

Thank you.

I'm so excited for 2008. The Adoptee Rights Demonstration is just growing in my heart, I'm almost tempted to get one of those ghoulish fetus countdown thingies that some domestically waiting adoptive parents have adorning their myspace pages. But I'll abstain.

Close on the heels of my digg post, via google alerts I see the the announcement of the Adoptee Rights News Blog, which will focus on articles specific to adoptee identity rights. So please subscribe!

I have learned so much this past year, having emerged from years of private journaling because I thought no one else felt the same way I did, after all, that's what I was told so many times. But surprise surprise surprise. I can't remember the exact date I came over to blogger.... when I opened this blog I pulled over some of my older posts from my journals, so my archive dates are as much a lie as my amended birth certificate.

Also growing in my heart for 2008 is a little chosen side project of mine that's making me feel pretty special, I hope to get details posted later this week. It's been keeping me busy but busy is good. Stay tuned.

But for now I have to go to work. Yes, I am working New Year's Day. Yes, it sucks, but so far I've yet to receive one single job offer with a mid-range salary plus benefits and pension for venting about adoption, I simply cannot comprehend why.

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