Monday, August 23, 2010

"We're like friends"

We were outside, she hanging on the gate, which was closed, and Cocoa, the dog, lying behind us, worrying her rawhide bone.

We had been talking. Mostly, she had been talking--about Alison, a girl at school with whom she is having trouble, about how I looked like my father but my brother didn't, about how she wanted to visit Kazakhstan and me to commit to a year when we would do that, about whether we might live in Kazakhstan someday, about where I was born, if they spoke English there, and how to tell the difference between States and countries.

I had explained that Tennessee is a State, and "they speak English in all of the States." Which had prompted the question about how to tell the difference between States and countries.

I tried to explain the idea of political subdivisions, but that was kind of boring to her.

"Is this where you live?" she wanted to know, gesturing out to the street and beyond.

"Well, yes," I said, thinking that I probably hadn't understood what she was getting at. "This is my home," I said.

"It's beautiful," she said, looking out over what we could see of Waikiki.

We live on a hillside overlooking downtown Honolulu and Waikiki.

It was then that she gave me her assessment of our relationship.

She's talked a number of times about how I look like my father.

I think she's wrapping herself around the realities of adoption and dealing with them in her own way. Things have changed a lot this year--in her, in what we do together. She's deepening.

John, Monday, August 22, 2010

ps Tonight (the 26th) we had to decorate a picture frame with comments about what made us proud about Maia. This was an assignment from her 3rd grade teacher. Struck me as a pretty silly exercise in "self-esteem", but we took it seriously. My addition to the frame was that she made me feel proud because she made a timeline, learned how to ride a dirt bike, and learned how to be a dog.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

We get a dog

On Monday, the Hawaiian Humane Society called. We had put our name in to foster dogs and cats, and they had a dog that needed a place to stay for 10 to 12 days. A stray that was underweight.

I picked Maia up at school, and then we went to pick up the dog. An earlier call from the Humane Society had been about puppies, and Maia had thought it was puppies that we were going to foster. She was disappointed at first, but had gotten over it by the time we were waiting to pick up the dog.

She didn't have a name.

When the attendant brought her out, he said,"She's rambunctious." She was very friendly, not aggressive, and very excited. She was wagging her tail so hard she hurt it on something, and it was bleeding a little.

Maia was excited.

She rode with her in the back of the GMC as we made our rounds to pick up pet food, a leash, and some other things.

She wanted to know how long she was going to be with us. Ten days, I told her.

She wanted to know what was going to happen to her after the 10 days.

"Well, she'll go back to the Humane Society, and someone will adopt her."

"Why can't we adopt her?" she asked. "I want to adopt her, Daddy."

So it looks like we have a dog.

She really is a good dog. But our lives are going to have to change.

Maia named her, Koko.

John, Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Maia gives me advice

This past Sunday, I took Maia with me to my office. I was planning on filing a complaint on Monday, and I had work to do to get the Complaint and its Exhibits in shape.

First, we did some errands for her (shopping for school things--she started 3rd grade on Monday), went to Fisher to get Exhibit dividers, and to McD's for lunch. Then we went to the office.

My office is a cramped little space. There were two lawyers' offices and a so-called conference room (together with reception space and some other space) when we moved in. But on the first day, as I stood in my office, I realized that we could use it for a real conference room. And so, instead of having the conference table from our old office moved up to our house, I changed my mind and had the movers move it into the space that I had intended to use. Instead, I moved into the so-called conference room. Later, when Tom, my partner joined us, I didn't have him or Will move into the small space I was in because it didn't seem fair. I didn't want to ask anyone to do a thing that I wasn't willing to do myself.

"Why didn't you want a window?" Maia wanted to know. She had left her drawing and come into my office.

I said that I had wanted a window and had started out in Uncle Tom's office.

"Why didn't you stay there?" she asked.

I explained all of the foregoing to her. I had thought that it would be a teaching moment--Daddy sacrificing for the sake of the office.

She thought about what I had said. "You don't always have to be so nice," she said. "It's okay to be a little bit not nice sometimes."

John, Tuesday, August 3, 2010

ps From a telephone conversation I had today with a lawyer on the other side, it looks as though the case (which I actually did file on Monday) may settle.