Getting Reading to Go

Burl's playing pantsless peek-a-boo. Ivo's been moving so fast, it's hard to get pics.

Ohh, we are sooo getting ready to go.
In sooo many ways.

Getting ready to move away from our house of 3 years, our city of 6 years and our country and continent of ten.

Exciting!
Busy...

Everyday we do a little or a lot, but always some. There is a lot of paperwork, packing, thinking, prepping, investigating, running-around, emailing, sorting, garbaging...

It's all going well - but Ryan says not to say that cuz it'll jinx us. And here's why:

Monday and Tuesday were delightful and surprising, great strides were made in the bureaucratic headway dept; the frustrating intransigence on the part of the Canadian and American pseudo-embassies notwithstanding, we were feeling good about where we were and where things were going - you know, that feeling that this all might just go off without a major hitch. The Taiwanese authorities have been a dream to deal with, providing criminal records and cheap (100nt) fingerprinting. Even the drawling support staff at the FBI have been HELPFUL under questioning.

Much was accomplished Tuesday. Our mood - which in general has been upbeat, if weary and tinged with a touch of the anxiety-of-anticipation, was... giddy. Then Wednesday. On Wednesday I woke up unable to move any part of my body closely attached to my spine and OWWWWWW! Spirits were flustered, but quickly regrouped and headed out for an old school xiao bing, ro bo gao and do jiang Taiwanese brekkie on Da Ye near the acupuncturist (pics). As the boys and I approached the dr's office, optimism began to wane as the gate was down, the dr was not in. Closed, Mon-Fri Mornings Xiou Xi/on break.

We Frankensteined it over to Heather's, where she applied several mentholated patches and the kids played and we all admired sweet little Baby Maya.

Then we all went to school. I stopped at a nearby pharmacy and got a muscle relaxant (Solaxin) and 600mg ibuprofen tablets. We made it through the rest of the day. Thursday, the boys and I spent the morning at the park, took a bath and had rest time for Ivo, nap for Burl, then we went to the acupuncturist. Excellent.

The boys patiently waited for almost an hour, eating chalky Chinese-medicine herbal candy and making friends. They were sooo good when the dr was cracking my spine and putting needles in my neck. Ivo said, "Oh no! He breaking you?!" I told him no, he's fixing me. On our way our out, a hugely relieved, excited and as-ever-given-to-exaggeration Ivo said, "I can't believe he didn't break you! I can't believe he fixed you! I can't believe yr not dead!"

The boys and I walked over to the beautiful park by Soho street to play for an hour.

Now it's Friday, and I've been to the acupuncturist again, I've only taken muscle relaxants first thing this morning. I/we feel pretty good - I mean, eh, things are ok.

Knock on wood.