Torry Hansen: Worst F&*%ing Mother of the Year (& my hope that this means stricter screenings for prospective adoptive parents)

Of course I'd have something to say about this.

Am I outraged? Hell yes. Am I pissed off? Effin' yeah I am pissed off. Do I want to write massive amounts of hate mail to Torry Hansen? Do I ever....

This story is just devastatingly maddening, sad, and utterly effing ridiculous - down to each minute detail and play-by-play of this horrible monstrosity of a situation. From a 7-year old boy spending 6 months in a NEW country with a NEW language and a NEW mother, the failure of the adoption agency that facilitated the adoption to properly screen their prospective families, the idiocy of the agency to allow this little boy to enter the United States into this family's home, the idiocy of the ADOPTIVE parent(s) to fully educate themselves on what they were getting themselves into prior to having the child brought into their home...Not to mention the fact that this poor little 7-year old boy now has to deal with the effects of being abandoned not once, but TWICE??

I have read a lot of articles about this in the past week or so that the story broke. Have I read them ALL? To be honest, no, I haven't. But the majority of the articles that I have read state the same thing - the effects that this one grandmother's ludicrous actions now have on the rest of the prospective parents waiting for their Russian adopted children and also the fate of the many Russian orphans waiting to be adopted in the orphanages currently. CNN has also expressed many people's displeasure (among them mostly the Russian people) at the fact that this Ms. Hansen (the grandmother of Torry Hansen) will NOT be punished for her inhumane deed.

Let me just tell you what I think... First of all, I think there is foul play afoot with this grandmother business being involved altogether. Torry Hansen, let me reason with you for a second, you dumb b*^ch... I am going to make the astute assumption that you're more than of legal age. Obviously, you had some ounce of compassion in your bones to even initiate the adoption process which can be long and arduous, I understand. And you wait for this beautiful, innocent child to come from a world of abandonment and suffering that you might not ever have the capacity to comprehend and things just don't turn out the way you thought they would. But why on earth would you have your MOTHER take care of the "dirty work" for you?!?!!?!?! Are we not a grown woman enough to adopt the child but we can't be "grown" enough to take responsibility for that same child's life???? WTF WOMAN?!?!?!!?!

They haven't released any photos of your mother, this illustrious Ms. Hansen, but I can only imagine that due to your geographical location of Tennessee that she is a spineless fat f&$k that weighs 200 lbs and has missing teeth...basically, an ignorant piece of trash.

I could tell you what I would hope would be the outcome from this outrageous story. But I am afraid to even waste my breath because as sad as this story is, it isn't the first time that something like this has happened. And not just to Russian adoptees but any and ALL international adoptee children.

All I know is that I am googling the sh*t out of this woman Torry Hansen and writing as many letters as I possibly can to any and everyone that will want to listen to try to get her and her grandmother some type of sentence. That child, regardless of his behavior, has been through more tumultuous heartache than anyone will ever know and despite this "shipping him back", he is STILL a US citizen and has RIGHTS that they decided to ignore because "they couldn't handle it anymore".

My question to all of you is...if you have a biological child and they turn out to be psychopaths or violent - can you take them somewhere to have them shoved back into your uterus to "bake" a little longer?

You cannot treat adopted children any different than biological children in that respect. You wanted that child, you now have to deal with the consequences, Torry Hansen. And I hope you go to hell.

Kimchi Weekend #2 2008 (In order to fulfill my curiousity in how men go to the bathroom)

Okay, so the hose is nowhere near my crotch...but somewhere in my deranged, off-center thought process, I could envision while standing there for about 30-45 minutes holding that hose in my hand in a slightly downward position that this would be, in fact, the closest thing to being a man standing at a urinal. That is, if that said man were 300 lbs and had a bladder the size of the Lochness monster. Ahh, a girl can wonder, can't she?

The past weekend marked the 2nd "Kimchi Weekend" at Laura unni's house and proved to be just as fun, and even more rewarding than the first time I went. There is definitely something to be said about cooking collectively that brings a group of people together in an amazing and surreal way. It seems so subtle and sort of ridiculous - the idea of standing in a kitchen together, slaving over the stove, peeling and cutting vegetables, filling big tubs of cabbage up with water - but I have never felt more connected with four women in my entire life, almost as close as the first time that I ever learned how to cook any Korean dish in a Korean kitchen.

See all those bottle tops there? Awww yeah, you're not seeing things - that is all alcohol, baby. Let's just say the first night was our attempt at making mandu that ended in four or five drinks later, a girl pow-wow outside on the porch curled up together chattering until 6 AM and absolutely no mandu made at all.

Every time I go to Laura's house, I feel like I get closer to a part of myself that I had never exposed before. Sometimes a part of myself that I didn't even know existed. It's a comforting and blessed thing to be able to have a place to go with nothing holding you back from being completely yourself and to be surrounded by people who only encourage and facilitate your inner soul to grow and emerge as a stronger person.

As horribly stereotypical as this is going to sound, I felt like I was in a scene of the Joy Luck Club. Or Soul Food. Or The Ice Storm. Five women in a kitchen until 5 AM, talking of life, love, loss, pain, perseverance, courage, bravery and being scared shitless sometimes. It was like the scene of a movie where you know this is the pivotal point, this is where the epitome of the movie is coming from. This wholly collective togetherness that is encasing around these five individuals.

I was left with a lot of wonderful, somewhat scary, and yet poignant thoughts to ponder when leaving Laura's house. And I also took away with me some amazing new friendships.

If I take my heart's advice, you can be sure, I'm still unsteady...

This past weekend's events have become an entire blur with only bits and pieces electrifying through the nerves in my brain to communicate that yes, you did do things this weekend.

For starters on Friday, I was reunited, if only for one night, with my friend Y, who was on her way to Staten Island where she will reside indefinitely (hopefully, for her sake). It was a nice reunion, filled with a night of endless driving, (If anyone were to ever ask me how to get anywhere in the state of Virginia, please do not be offended when I laugh maniacally in your face. Short Code: Virginia's roads are definitely not for lovers, and more explicitly, not for me) girl-talk until the wee hours, several hours of partying and dancing to the sounds of Noel Sanger (who I coincidentally had an impromptu "heart-to-heart" talk with at the end of the night that was pretty cool) and then a very near-crazy 58-mile drive home for myself, alone.

I spent most of the beautiful weather on Saturday inside the confines of my room. Not because I was broke or because there were no plans (And here is where I input yet another apology to K.Hyon for missing out on hanging out in the rays of daylight!), but because my partied-out, old-fart ass was complacently passed out in the thrawls of slumber for several hours - hours only intermittently disturbed by my addiction to YouTube videos and watching reruns of Clean House on the Style Network (Don't deny the powers of Ms. Niecy...seriously).

I was abruptly pulled from this spell by numerous phone calls, one of which was Darren (aka Bathroom Boy) which went as follows:

Me: (sleepily) He...hello?

Bathroom Boy: Dude, what happened to you last night? What are you doing?

Me: (pulling a potato chip out of the bag lying in front of me on top of my comforter) Nothing, I was just lying around, catching up on sleep from last night. And what do you mean what happened to me last night? I was at Snatch. Where were you?

Bathroom Boy: I looked for you - everywhere.
(Note: I hardly believe that he looked EVERYWHERE. Because if he had, in fact, looked EVERYWHERE then he would have inevitably found ME.)

Last night was Christian's birthday, and I stopped by to say hi before heading to Buzz.

Me: Ohh...was that you? I saw some tall black dude with glasses on walking out the door but I figured you'd be at Buzz, so I knew it wouldn't be you.

Bathroom Boy: Well it was, and you missed out. Anyway, so I'll see you tonight.
(Note: That was not a question.)

Me: Wait - what do you mean? See me tonight? Who said I was going anywhere?

Bathroom Boy: No one did. But you're on the guestlist, and it's free before 11...so be there.

Me: Wow, that's very direct and bossy of you. What if I don't want to go?

Bathroom Boy: You don't have to want to go - but you must be there.

Me: Peer pressure, much?

Bathroom Boy: Peer pressure all the way. See you tonight. [Click.]

Five hours later, a trip to downtown Baltimore's Sutton Place to pick up three tag-a-longs and off on 295 I went. I wrangled up enough energy to drive myself to DC, yet again and parked the car.

Ten minutes later, after meeting J.Lo and Ciconte and Dane at the door - we were inside, and down to the main room.

Several hours of dancing, partying, laughing and [will insert another story at a later date here], I was ready to go home, and so were my tag-a-longs. However, my friends had a different plan in mind and within 20 minutes of coersive speech on their part - I found myself in the car, with R and the tag-a-longs driving back to Baltimore to do a drop-off and head my ass as well as R's back to Virginia for a further partying fiasco.

In the end, this weekend was altogether fun, and I am ultimately proud of myself for the way that I held myself this weekend, with all things considered.

This weekend is going to bring lots more pictures, I promise - as I take on the road again towards Pennsylvania to stay with L unni and the Korean sistas for our now monthly "Kimchi Weekend". I can't wait. It'll be really relaxing, and peaceful to just be around people who completely and utterly get you. Plus, throwing a few martinis and a shitload of delicious kimchi and mandu in the mix doesn't hurt either.

Undecided

I met up with a friend last night that I hadn't seen in a while. I had promised her a long time ago that I would have dinner with her, and see her new apartment but I just had never gotten around to it (partly due to the transportation issues).

So at around 6:40pm I headed out to meet her and a few of her friends at XS on N. Charles Street for dinner.

It was fun finally being able to get to where I wanted to go, and be able to leave the house when I wanted - except when it came time to find a parking spot. I ended up paying $10.00 (yes, 10 whole dollars) to park in a garage over on Cathedral Street and walk the two blocks up Preston to where it met Charles. I conjured up the reasoning that I needed the exercise anyways.

I walked into the familiar sights and sounds of XS. The bustle of the girls and guys dressed in black from head to toe, scrambling down the three flights of long stairs to get to the kitchen in time for the food not to be cold for the patrons. (That part always amazed me.)

I found a seat on the second floor and waited for the others to arrive.

Once they did, I found out that my friend's best friend/roommate was celebrating her early birthday. We ordered, and had pleasant conversation and then decided that we would go back to my friend's apartment where she had baked a cake for the occasion in an attempt to emulate "Ace of Cakes". It was actually an awesome attempt and I am going to have to steal some photos from her later on.

As we dove into the four tiered cake and gathered around her dining room table, the conversation suddenly took a turn towards attending to finding birthparents.

I don't know how we got on it - I think it started out as an arbitrary topic and ended up with the birthday girl telling a story about how she never wanted to ever find her birthfather - that she knew who he was, but that he never gave a damn about her so why should she try to find him? She ended with, "Nothing ever comes good of that - I am totally against the whole search thing, nothing ever comes good so it's not even worth bothering to try."

And it got me thinking - am I, too, against the whole search thing? Is that the subconscious thought in my head that has really stopped me from taking all of the many chances that I have had to go back to Korea and find my birthparents?

I just got another offer last week from a program that helps adoptees take their first journey back home. I could easily take that trip and then head over to the G.O.A'L. office and ask Dae-won to help me find them. Put in the search application.

And even though I kept the email in my inbox, I know that I probably won't take the offer. In fact, I know for a fact that I won't take the offer. And it's starting to bug me as to what my real reasoning behind it is. I keep telling myself that I would never be able to get the time off from work to go on that two week trip like that. I tell myself that I wouldn't want to go alone if I did take that trip - so if I had to go alone, I would skip out.

But jobs come a dime a dozen (if you're not too picky), and I only have one pair of birthparents. Two people that aren't going to be immortal forever and ever. So why am I not rushing?

The answer? I don't know. I think that it is something there that digs a lot deeper into the surface that I am not yet ready to uncover just yet. I thought I had this all figured out - and that I would go back and find them - and we'd live partially a f&cked-up life of twists and turns between my adoptive parents and my birthparents. And I was okay with that. But in recent times, I have found that my answer to that age old question of: "Have you ever thought about looking for your birthparents?" has gone from a "oh yeah, totally. I really want to." to a "Uhhh, I'm not sure, I am kinda taking it easy right now."

It's like asking a person whether they've decided to take the Low Carbs diet or not. And it's killing me that I am still so undecided.

Perhaps...a trip back to the Homeland?

Thanks to Amanda (the Imported Megami) for the heads-up on this link:

Journey 2007

Does the Arirang have a possible outlet to go visit the Homeland?

Hmm, this could be quite interesting...