A Simple Life

OK so I tried to do that password-protect blogger post thingy, but I couldn't get the line breaks to work so I had just one big chunk of text. And I hate that. So I threw it over here instead. Hit me up at any of the familiar places if you want the password. Alternately, if you know how to do that password-protect blogger post thingy and still get multiple paragraphs to display properly, lemme know.

In other news, I had briefly considered playing hooky from XMas to stay home and start Joan's book Forbidden Family, but then I actually did get a sore throat and fever. So I spent XMas reading, drinking tons of tea, and watching horror movies. It was blissful.

Cheer up, holiday-hating bastids. We got two down and only one left before the trifecta of terror otherwise known as Thanksgiving/XMas/New Years is over and we can breathe a sigh of relief.  Me personally, I always have a mid-blip in mid-January for the Feast of the Inaccurate Conception, but still once January 2nd rolls around, I know I've successfully survived another one.

Hey, speaking of January 2nd, just a quick reminder that if you're up north, I really hope you'll drop by OBCforME's little shindig they've got going in Portland for the anniversary of Maine adoptee rights.  I really wanted to go, but you know, I still have that whole unemployed thing going on. Bloody economy.

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Sunshine the Movie

And even more adoption on TV...

Coming this spring on PBS's INDEPENDENT LENS:

An unplanned pregnancy for an unplanned girl sets off SUNSHINE, a playful, yet ultimately stirring self-portrait of an adopted woman driven to search for answers through reconnection with her biological mother. Young, pregnant, single and unprepared, the daughter/director struggles with the incredible ironies of the family—that history somehow repeated itself—as she struggles to raise her own daughter and understand the plight of her biological mother, a small town Texas mayors daughter who gave birth to her secretly, in a home for unwed mothers.

Mother and daughter wrestle with tough questions and raw emotions over a fading social landscape that nevertheless continues to haunt them. Woven together from over 10 years of super 8 and video home movies, intimate family interviews, shimmering dance sequences and stylized reenactments, SUNSHINE offers a refreshingly rare glimpse on the current day transformations taking place within our most sacred of institutions, family.

www.sunshinethemovie.com

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But wait! There's more!

As if, between The Locator and Find My Family and last week's 'Lost Children' on 20/20, you haven't had enough adoption on TV, check out this snip of adoptodrama in today's NY Post about a new show on Investigation Discovery premiering tomorrow night - "The Will - Family Secrets Revealed":

First up: the battle over the estate left by 73-year-old Kitty Tipton-Oakes, widow of a famous jazz musician.

In 2006, Kitty, who suffered from dementia, died without a will, leaving an estate worth 300 Gs, which was to be sorted out among three missing adopted sons (two of whom hadn't spoken to her in 25 years), after paying fees to a guardian and a lawyer who happened to also represent a paranoid schizophrenic patient who may have been Kitty's only actual birth child who no one knew about.

Read the rest at the NY Post

I remember reading about this story in the news last year.

You so know I'll be watching...

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Upcoming TV shows of interest

Besides all the attention 'Find My Family' on ABC is getting, there are other shows highlighting adoption this week you may be interested in.

Carla Moquin will be appearing on the Dr. Phil show tomorrow. From the Dr. Phil website:

What would you do if someone said you no longer had the right to see your child? Dr. Phil's guests say they feel helpless and hopeless because they've been shut out of their children's lives and are facing lengthy court battles to get their kids back. Carla says she placed her daughter for what she thought was going to be an open adoption. It's been six years, and she says the adoptive parents reneged on their promise and won't let her communicate with the child. Legal analyst Lisa Bloom and an adoption attorney weigh in on the case. Then, John says he was looking forward to raising his baby with his childhood girlfriend, but when he got to the hospital to visit his daughter, he never got to meet her and nine months later still hasn't. Learn about the law that is keeping him from being a dad. And, a woman paid more than $20,000 and was given an ultrasound of the baby she was supposed to adopt, but motherhood didn't happen as planned. Find out how not to get scammed and the precautions to take when adopting a child.

And on 48 Hours -

CBS News will present, "The Lost Children," a "48 Hours" special, on Saturday, Dec. 12 at 10 p.m. ET/PT - the clmination of a two-year investigation by "48 Hours" into one of the largest foreign adoption scams in U.S. history.

Anchored by "48 Hours" correspondent Maureen Maher, who herself was adopted, "The Lost Children" profiles three families - Patti Sawyer, Mike and Kari Nyberg, and Elizabeth and Gary Muenzler - who adopted children from the South Pacific island of Samoa through the Utah-based Focus On Children adoption agency, only to face a heartbreaking decision years later.

"There exists a common goal for me as an adoptee and as a journalist, which is to find the truth,” says Maher. "I know from my own personal experience the challenge adopted children face in learning where they came from and determining their own identity."

Also just a note, this weekend (hopefully) this blog will temporarily go offline for a long overdue template upgrade. I'm seriously tired of the drowned girl.

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Invitation to a free half day adoption film festival for Maine's 1st Anniversary

Expanding a bit on a previous post....

Host:          OBC for ME     

Location:  The Maine Studios
                     235 Presumpscot Street
                     Portland, ME 04103


When:        Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 12:00 Noon – 6:30 PM   
                      Snow Date will be Sunday, January 3, 2010. Same time.


RSVP:        To Cathy Robishaw at tmc3910@yahoo. com

Come celebrate one year of Original Birth Certificates for Maine! We have lots to celebrate!  Over 700 people have applied to get Original Birth Certificates, allowed in the great state of Maine by the passing of LD 1084 in 2007.  We have come so far since January 2, 2009, when Original Birth Certificates were once again accessible to all Maine-born citizens!

We will have a welcome reception at Noon, with documentary films showing throughout the afternoon. 

This is a free event, though donations will be accepted.

Our Schedule:

Noon - Welcome Reception
12:30pm - Showing of "The Triumvirate", by Jean Strauss
1:00pm - Showing of "Vital Records", by Jean Strauss
1:30pm - Showing of "Adoptee Rights: Philadelphia 2009", by Scott Hancock

Intermission and Light Fare

3:00pm - Maine debut of "Roots: Unknown", by Zara Phillips
3:45pm - Showing of Reunion Stories from Maine 2009
5:00pm - Maine debut of "For the Life of Me", by Jean Strauss

Hope to see you there!!

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Off and Running - Screening again in NYC Jan-Feb 2010

I missed this when it was playing at the Tribeca Film Festival, and was really happy to get an email about it today. I really really want to see this one --- If anyone in the NYC area is up for a movie date, send me an email. It will be at the IFC Center January 29 - February 4, 2010. If you're out of the NYC area, check the distributor's website for other cities and dates.

Here's the film description:

With white Jewish lesbians for parents and two adopted brothers — one mixed-race and one Korean—Brooklyn teen Avery grew up in a unique and loving Jewish household. But when her curiosity about her African-American roots grows, she decides to contact her birth mother. This choice propels Avery into her own complicated exploration of race, identity, and family that threatens to distance her from the parents she’s always known. She begins staying away from home, starts skipping school, and risks losing her shot at the college track career she had always dreamed of. But when Avery decides to pick up the pieces of her life and make sense of her identity, the results are inspiring. OFF AND RUNNING follows Avery to the brink of adulthood, exploring the strength of family bonds and the lengths people must go to become themselves.

The trailer....





... and the official site:

http://www.offandrunningthefilm.com/index.html

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