Four Court Dates and an Adoption

The wildly popular podcast Serial got into the issue of how well people remember things around the time of a major event in their lives - where they were when it happened, what they remember from the day, etc.

I'm amazed at how un-climactic a day of a recent major event was for me, and how uneventful the day was. The day was slightly over a week ago and I honestly do not remember much about the day.

The day in question was the day the adoption of our daughter was granted, who had been living with us for nearly 9 months.

I've thought about writing about the entire adoption process, but that would be a boring blog to read - to be honest, I'm not sure focusing on four court dates will be any more riveting, but at least it's a shorter read.

We weren't supposed to have 4 court dates, not the way it was presented to us by other adopters and social workers. '2 or 3 minutes' they said; all that would happen would be the Sheriff (Judge, for those in the US) would grant the adoption and we'd be done with it.

Court Date 1:

The day before our first court date, our Solicitor (Lawyer, for those in the US) emailed us to tell us that there would likely be a 2nd court date. Our solicitor couldn't locate the birth mother of our kid.

There are 2 steps to the legal process - relinquishing parental rights from the birth parents, then granting the adoption to the new parents. In some cases, the first step is done before adoptive parents are even found, but ours wasn't one of those cases. We technically were parenting the child whose legal guardian couldn't be found by our solicitor.

In court, our solicitor didn't seem like the brightest of the bunch. The Sheriff pointed out that there was a difference between the solicitor not locating the birth parent, and the birth parent being impossible to find. Our solicitor hadn't tried too hard to find the birth mother, so the Sheriff told our solicitor how to do their job, and gave a list of possible ways to locate the birth mother. We had a different solicitor (from the same agency) for the remainder of the process and I haven't seen this solicitor since.

A 2nd court date was set. We went home.

Court Date 2:

The Courthouse on Court Date 2

We went into Court Date 2 feeling pretty confident. The birth mother had been located and she had been served papers notifying her that she would lose the rights to the kid, and was told when and where the court date was going to be, should she want to oppose this. No one had heard from her, or a solicitor representing her, by the morning we took the taxi to court. 

We took the kid with us (as we did the first time), took pictures of us in the taxi, pictures of the kid walking around the courthouse, went into the courtroom feeling pretty good that this would be it.

It wasn't.

There was a letter that was sent directly to the Sheriff, that was received the afternoon before. The letter stated that the court time was too early for the birth mother to be there, her circumstances had changed, and that she wanted her baby back. 

We were floored. We didn't see this coming at all. The birth mother chose to gave up her kid before the kid was born, and had never been responsible for the child. Now, over two years later, she wanted her baby back?!?!

We had met the birth mother shortly before bringing the kid home with us. As the letter was read, the one thing that went through my mind was that the woman we met did not write that letter. The woman we met couldn't seem to speak in more than a couple-word sentences and here was this well-written letter. The letter never mentioned any names; not the kid, not the birth mother. To top it off, it was written on the back of the notice that was sent from the Sheriff notifying her about the court date.

I don't think the birth mother wrote that letter. No one can ever make me think otherwise.

Her circumstances had changed. She had a new partner now, and I think he wrote that letter, or they went to some sort of advice place and an advice person wrote down what such a letter should look like, and that written suggestion was sent to court. If you really wanted your kid back, why would you not say the kid's name in the letter? Why wouldn't you even sign off at the end of the letter.

In light of the letter, the Sheriff had to set a new court date. It was set at a later time of day, to give the birth mother a chance to get to court. We would have to wait 4 more weeks with our lives in limbo.

Between Court Date 2 and Court Date 3:

It's hard when you think that a kid, who you're raising as your own, could be taken away from you.

We read horror stories of kids taken away from their adoptive parents - reading stuff online is never good in times of stress.

Everyone said the birth mother had no case and everything would work out - it would be a question of when, and not if, it would happen. It's one thing to hear this, and even think it. It's another to live it. Hearing this didn't make me feel any better. 

I lost a lot of sleep after Court Date 2.

I felt like every conversation I had over those 4 weeks would, at some point, circle to the adoption court dates, and the possible outcomes.

It was hard to even play with the kid, with that in the back of my head all the time. Just the other day, I was talking to Lauren about it, and she said it was going from feeling like you are the kid's parent to be the kid's foster carer. Not that you love the kid any less, but thoughts of seeing your long-term future with the kid seem to fade. You focus more on the day-to-day.

As Court Date 3 approached, I was very nervous. It was this part of my Adoption Leave that I really wished I could be going to work everyday, as a distraction.

We decided that Lauren and the kid would not got to Court Date 3. I would meet our solicitor and go in with her. The thought of the birth mother being there, and the kid being there, was something we didn't really want to experience.

Court Date 3:

I don't remember much of what happened before court on Court Date 3, or after for that matter. I know that I was home alone that morning because Lauren had taken the kid to the weekly library singalong that I usually go to with the kid.

I was nervous; I didn't know what to expect.

I got to court and our solicitor found me. She said the birth mother was here, with her partner, but didn't have a solicitor. Our solicitor predicted that the Sheriff would set a continuation hearing date, so the birth mother could have a solicitor with her at that time.

It was odd to be sitting across the table from this woman who I had met months earlier, who I had taken a picture with, who seemed not particularly upset that we were adopting her kid then, but now wanted the kid back. I didn't make eye contact.

The Sheriff asked her some questions. Questions she couldn't really answer: 'What is your hope in doing this?' is the one that stuck out. Her answer was that her hope was to get a solicitor - clearly not understanding the question. The question was asked twice more, with some clarification, before she gave an answer basically saying she was hoping to have the chance to get the kid back (again, no mention of the kid's name). 

The birth mother's partner was not allowed in the courtroom, and I would guess he would have done most of the talking, if he was in there. Our solicitor had talked to the both of them outside of the courtroom and described him as 'slick' - not really sure what she meant by that, but he did do all of the talking when she talked to them.

As predicted, the Sheriff set a continuation hearing date. Birth mother was told she would need to get legal advice, and was told by the Sheriff exactly where to go to find a solicitor who handled cases like this. Our solicitor again pointed out where they should go, once they were out of the building.

I left court feeling somewhat relieved. I won't go into much more detail of what happened in court but it was clear this was not a person who was able to take care of a child - she seemed to barely be able to take care of herself. 

I asked our solicitor what happened next. She said that, if birth mother and/or her solicitor showed up at the continuation hearing, there would a trial date set, where witnesses would be called and things would be settled then. That would be Court Date 5, but as the title of this post implies, that Court Date never happened….

Court Date 4:

The walk to court was awful. 

It wasn't raining when I left home, but I carried my rain jacket to be safe. Less than 5 minutes after leaving home, I was soaked. It was windy, the rain came at such an angle that no rain coat could have protected my face. 10 minutes after leaving home, I got under some cover and wrung rain water out of my trousers and watched it dribble onto the pavement beneath me. I thought about going back home, or calling Lauren and asking if she could go - as long as our solicitor was there, we didn't need to be.

I kept going.

When I got to court, 15 minutes early, I was completely rain-drenched. My torso was the only dry part of me. My sleeves got wet from rain going up my rain jacket sleeves, my face was wet, my legs were wet. I thought to myself, is this how I want to go into court? But what else could I do?

Our solicitor arrived 5 minutes later and said nothing of my soaked-ness. We talked about the rain, went through security, and went upstairs to where the courtrooms were.

Our solicitor had never heard anything from the birth mother's solicitor (if she had a solicitor). I asked her if this was normal. I'll never forget her response: 'Nothing in adoption cases is normal' 

We got to the outside of our courtroom. There was no one there. 

I was told I could go into the courtroom and wait. Our solicitor went to other courtrooms nearby to see if the birth mother and/or her solicitor where around somewhere.

She came back a couple of minutes later - she didn't see anyone. I started to get hopeful that things would be wrapped up.

The Sheriff came in, made mention that she picked this time so the birth mother could get here on time. She asked the court security guard (I would call him a bailiff, but I'm sure that's not the correct term) to go look for them in other courtrooms. 

He came back in a few minutes. He couldn't find them.

Adoption:

That was it. The Sheriff granted the adoption on the grounds that no one from the opposition came to court. 

She apologised to me for the delay, saying she wanted to cover all bases, should an appeal be lodged.

There was no grand moment, no tears of joy. It was done. We just had to wait a few weeks, because the birth mother had two weeks to appeal (as of this writing, we are still within those two weeks).

If no appeal is lodged, we'll be done with this in mid-January. If one is lodged, we will still likely be done with this very soon, because when you don't show up to court when you should, your appeal will almost certainly be dismissed.

Just after I left the court (of course the rain had stopped for my walk home), I called Lauren to tell her the news. She was happy.

I went to pick up our kid from nursery school - because of a bumped head at nursery that day, I had to sign a form acknowledging this. I gave the kid a big hug, and we walked home as we do every nursery day; kid eating the fruit snack I always bring for pick up. Kid walking very slowly, focusing on the snack instead of the walk home.

I don't remember anything of that afternoon. I was tired, as I usually am. Kid took a nap, as usual. We went to a grocery store, as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. 

That night, the kid got ice cream for adoption day. Kid didn't care much about Adoption Day, but was very excited for ice cream. Lauren recorded the ice cream excitement. We were all happy.

4 court dates and an adoption are done. We can now move on with our lives.

Scotland Decides

I want to start at the end - my prediction.

To the question: Should Scotland be an Independent Country?

I predict the vote will come out this way:

Yes - 46.4%

No - 53.6%

I want to preface the rest of this post by saying this is entirely based on my observations and thoughts, with no real sources to back up anything.

Scotland votes tomorrow to decide if it can break away from the UK. We should know the result early Friday morning.

As someone who likes following elections, I've loved this. I've loved the back and forth, I've loved looking at polls, I've loved the whole thing.

I can't vote, I have no say, and to be honest, if I could vote, I don't know how I would vote - I would probably make a decision in the final seconds before I cast my vote.

For me it's a heart vs head thing.

My 'go out on your own' heart says break away, venture out, and become independent; do your own thing. I've made this 'heart' decision several times in my life. I wouldn't be in Scotland now if not for the heart decision to leave De Anza College, and a very good job, with the idea of doing something new, being someone different, not knowing what would lay ahead of me.

My heart says this will be good for Scotland, but my head says it won't.

My 'analytical/business-minded' head says don't do it, don't take the economic risks that lay ahead of you, stay with what you know. I've made this 'head' decision several times in my life. I tell people that leaving Berkeley was one of the best life decisions I've ever made. It was made with my head. I didn't think (and still don't) that it was in my economic best interest to pursue a Ph D, when I was in a job that paid me more, and gave me a better lifestyle than I would have had, if I had gone through with getting the Ph D.

Again, I can't vote, so I listen and I analyze what I hear.

The polling has bothered me because the percentage of undecided voters are more often left off the polling numbers than left on. The numbers exist somewhere, but I think those are the most important numbers of the polls. There is also little mention of margin of error on the polls - again, one of the more important factors in polling data.

According to a lot of polls, things stand at about 51-52% No and 48-49% Yes (of course, there is no mention of undecided voters in most of these polls).

Here's why I think the votes will go slightly more with the No votes.

First, I think undecided voters who do vote (some may decide not to) will vote more with No than Yes. My gut feeling is, if you're unsure about something, you tend to stay with the status quo. Maybe I'm wrong; again I have no facts to back this up.

Second, historically, older people vote in greater percentages than younger people. Some polling data have shown that younger people are more likely to vote Yes than older people. Even though there is expected to be a very high turnout, I still expect a higher percentage of older people to vote, tipping in favor of the No side.

Lastly, and this is sort of out-there thinking, I think there are a group of people who want to vote No but have some irrational fear that by saying No, they will be unpatriotic, so they may have lied to pollsters. It has been far cooler to say you're voting Yes than voting No - it's a lot easier to advertise a brand new world, than saying 'let's go status quo, just say No to something new'.

As a foreigner, I don't think I'm in the position to say which side I prefer, and I'm not even sure I have a side I prefer. I'm happy that I've been allowed to live here and have been made welcome, regardless of how different I may sound and look, so I'll be happy with whatever Scotland decides. I just hope the losing side is able to accept the outcome.

21

In early February 1992, I had a dream. I woke up remembering nothing about the dream except that the 21st of the month meant something - I didn't know what.

I'm not one to think dreams mean very much, but I still wondered if anything would happen on the 21st of February that year. Nothing did. I vaguely thought about it for a couple more months, then the thought of something happening on the 21st just faded, but was never forgotten.

As day broke on 21st March 2010, I was taken back to 1992. I had seen my mother take her last breath a few hours before, in the very early morning of the 21st. I remember thinking, in the midst of my mourning of my mother, 'was that what the dream meant?'

On the 21st of April 2010, I happened to be driving by a McDonald's and decided to stop by. I never have been a person who eats at McDonald's, but my mother worked there for a couple of decades, so I decided to go in, get something, in honor of my mother. Since then, on the 21st of every month, I go to McDonald's. Being that I can't eat almost everything on the menu, I always order one of the same 2 or 3 things, and I'm fine with that. I'm not there for the food, I'm there for my mother.

On the 21st of August 2012, a kid was born. I didn't know about this kid, and it was just another 21st of the month for me - I went to work and went to McDonald's. I've looked at my calendar many times in the past few months, to try and figure out if the day had any importance to me - it didn't.

On the 21st of March 2014, it was four years since my mother died. It was also the first day the kid born on the 21st of August 2012 came into our flat for the first time.

In the five months since then, the kid has run around our flat endlessly, bounding from one room to another, jumped on our bed, fallen off our sofa more times that I like, stomped feet on the floor in the midst of a tantrum as well as in the middle of 'If you're happy and you know it'. The kid has laughed and cried and made me do both. The kid has eaten more food than I thought was possible for someone that size. The kid has made me feel very old at times and very young at others.

On the 21st of August, almost exactly two years to the minute of when the kid was born, we headed to McDonald's. We had a birthday lunch and I thought about my mother. 

We spoke to my sister on the kid's 2nd birthday; my sister, whose face reminds me of my mother. We spoke to my father on the kid's 2nd birthday; my dad, who often says things that remind me of my mother. We watched a video made by my niece on the kid's 2nd birthday; my niece, who makes faces at times that I see my mother in.

As the kid and I sat there, watching the video of my niece, saying 'again' every time it ended and us watching it again, the kid would look up and smile at me. It wasn't a smile of my mother, not in the way it looked, not at all. But it was a smile like my mother's in the quickness of how it would flash on and then off. I thought about my mother then, feeling sad that she never got to meet this kid, but also felt happy that the kid got the chance to meet my mother, in a way, through the father that carried his mother with him.

My mom and I on a sofa

The kid and I on a sofa

In the end, the 21st dream was probably nothing. Just a dream, but the 21st of the month has so much meaning to me now that's it's day I look forward to most every month.

Drinking in the morning

Every morning at breakfast, my daughter asks to drink the watered down juice I'm drinking from my cup instead of the non-juice she has in her sippy-cup. When I'm down to one swig, I give my glass to her. She drinks this over several sips, saying 'ahhhh' after each sip and about 1/3 of the juice ends up not going into her mouth. I look as her with the giant cup in her tiny hands, covering her entire face, with it dribbling down her chin and I think she looks like a drunk.

I've very rarely been drunk and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not much of a drinker.

Before I went on Adoption Leave, a co-worker jokingly suggested that instead of going out for drinks to send me off, we go out for tea. I'm a one-drink type of guy; I have my one drink, and I don't really want anymore. The one drink doesn't make me drunk, and I never have the desire to drink any more than than. This may stem from my family never having alcohol in the house, so I was so rarely ever around it growing up, or that Lauren has Asian Red, or who knows what? I'm just not much of a drinker.

With that in mind, I don't know much about liquor laws, so none of the laws I state in this post are necessarily actual laws, they are just what I have guessed the laws to be....

In Maryland, where I spent my teen years, you couldn't get alcohol in a grocery store. It's my understanding that only places that hold a liquor license can sell the stuff and due to zoning rules, it seems that alcohol can only be bought in bars or liquor stores - I'm not sure if 2-buck (or 3-buck, due to inflation) Chuck is sold in Trader Joe's in Maryland - someone who lives in the state can let me know.

With that background in mind, imagine my shock when I moved to Michigan, went to Meijer and saw alcohol for sale at a place that also sold groceries, clothing and tires (I should really write a blog about my MSU experiences with Meijer one day, but today is not that day). I think I actually said to whoever I was with "wait, is that beer for sale with the groceries?" - I probably sounded like an idiot, but people who had only lived in Michigan were equally dumbfounded when I told them that you just can't get alcohol in a grocery store in Maryland.

Of course, I now live in Scotland, and I think the law for buying alcohol is more bizarre to me than the difference between Maryland and Michigan. 

In Scotland, you can buy alcohol in grocery stores - in fact, stores are well stocked with the stuff - but you can't buy it before 10 am. I find this law ridiculous, and have yet to figure out the reason for it.

Who would be buying alcohol before 10? 

The drunk - My guess is, if someone was so hard up for alcohol, all the time, they may not be awake before 10, or they would be so drunk they couldn't make into the store, so I don't see this being a person who the law is designed for.

The all-night partier - The person who's been partying all night and wants to continue the party. The problem with this is, many grocery stores don't even open until 8 am, so I don't see that person saying 'maybe Sainsbury's is the place for me to go at 8:15 to pick up some alcohol'. I also think the all-nighter would probably have some stashed away at home.

The planner - The person who is planning a social event for later the day/night, who wants to make sure they have everything beforehand. Why isn't this person allowed to buy alcohol before 10? Surely this person is not going to be menace after buying alcohol at 9 am.

My guess is that this law is some sort of show that drinking too much is a bad thing (which I don't disagree with in principle), but if you want to really show that, go with the Maryland law, and make it that much harder to get alcohol.

Telling shoppers who shop before 10 that they aren't allowed to buy alcohol is preaching to the wrong choir. The people who are shopping before 10 are probably people who wouldn't want to be drinking before 10 anyhow - I go to the store before 10 and I see other parents with toddlers and retired people, and and it is us that see signs like the one below; signs probably never seen by people who actually consume alcohol before 10 in the morning....

Attachment and Disorder

Before we began the adoption process, I don't think I'd ever heard the phrase Attachment Disorder, and if I did, I surely didn't pay any attention to it. In the adoption/fostering context, Attachment Disorder is the inability for a child to have a normal bond (attachment) with a caretaker. 

I may be exaggerating, but I feel like the phrase came up in every single adoption meeting, interview, and prep class we attended. It was drilled into us that we would likely be adopting a child who suffered from the disorder, since we'd be adopting domestically, through the social work system. Between this, being told we'd probably be adopting a kid with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and my being talked to in a way that made me feel I would not be a capable parent, there were many a day that I wasn't sure this was something I wanted to go through with.

Add to this, my sense of order in how things work in my world, and I didn't come off as the most enthusiastic potential adopter. 

When you're an adult who's not around kids much, you kind of do things a certain way - you don't notice that you have a bottle sitting at the edge of a table, you keep things where you want, you can listen to podcasts without being interrupted. You have a certain order to your life that a kid doesn't really fit into. Whenever we would have a kid visit, I would worry that they would break something, or do something to our walls, or floors, or carpet. I like my things orderly.

The thought of attachment issues and losing order in our flat scared the hell out of me when it looked like we were going to be matched up with a child. It scared me even more when we were matched with the child, and even more when we met one of the child's foster parents, and even more when we met the child, and even more with each day of the transition process of moving the child from the foster carers to us. 

We were told we were lucky. The kid we were matched with had lived with one foster family since birth and had a birth mother who didn't drink alcohol. This was very good, everyone said, but it didn't make me feel much better.

The night before we moved the kid into our place for good, I barely slept. On the 1.5 hour drive to the foster carers, I kept thinking it would be kind of nice if the roads got so blocked so that we'd have to turn around and go back home. Of course, this didn't happen and we were at the foster carers at the set time and brought the kid home.

At some point during the transition process I was talking to a social worker. I said I didn't see how this kid, who had lived with one foster family since birth, would possibly attach to us, random strangers who just showed up a few days earlier. The social worker said she was sure everything would be fine and I would be amazed at how well, and quickly, a kid who is attached to one family can attach to another. I smiled, acted like I believed her (I didn't) and didn't push any further on the issue.

I was very wrong.

The kid follows Lauren around like a puppy dog (me, not so much), plays with us like we've been around forever, and didn't just appear a couple of weeks ago. It's unbelievable, and almost a little scary how well the kid has attached to us, and how quickly we've become a family.

Last night, as I was cleaning up rice off the table (plates mean nothing to this kid), and the floor, and the chair the kid was sitting in, and finding random grains of rice all over the rest of the kitchen, I had to admit that I had lost my battle with the order of things in our flat, and my life. Things are now out of reach of toddler-sized hands, I'm waking up at times I only used to when I had an early morning flight, and all my pens have gone missing.

While we still have a way to go, I have to say that it's impressive how in less than one week, we have gone from where we were to where we are. We are well on our way to reaching a strong sense of attachment, which is an amazing thing. Our flat is starting to have a strong sense of disorder, which I'm not so amazed by, but will learn to live with.

Say 'ta'

I'm still very much American in the way I talk. 

Unless I take the time to think about what I'm saying, I still use phrases like 'parking lot' and 'trash can'; I tend to say 'thank you' instead of 'cheers' or 'ta'; I catch myself pronouncing tomatoes and basil the way an American would (tow-may-tow and bay-sil, instead of tow-maa-tow and baa-sil). I pronounce strawberry with the 'e' and almost never say 'hiya' or 'wee'.

My world is about to change.

We are in the process of adopting a toddler (it won't be legal for many months to come, but that's another story). This kid has spent 19 months with a Scottish foster family and just moved in with us. At that age, growing up in a Scottish home, phrases like 'trash can' might as well be 'schloog fleig' as far as the kid is concerned. 

As American as I may sound, I want to keep the kid up with Scottish terms, so I'm finding myself telling the kid to put rubbish in the bin, asking if the kid wants any 'bluebries' and when I give the kid a grape and say 'what do you say?', I don't want to hear 'thank you', I want to hear 'ta'.

This wee child is going to change my world in ways I hadn't really thought much about.

Toes, Socks, and Genes

In terms of our physical build, I don't think my dad and I have a lot in common. I have broader shoulders than he does, he has thicker calves than I do. I'm about 1 cm taller than him but he can reach a good 3-4cm higher than I can - I don't know if this means I have stumpy limbs, or he's built like a gorilla (I jokingly say the latter).

In 2005, Lauren and I were in Ghana (you can read about our entire trip here). At one point on the trip, we were with my mother, in her hometown, the town where my parents got married. While there, we visited the guy who was the best man at my parents' wedding. One of the the first things he said to me was 'Ah, Kodwo, I can see you have your father's toes'. Needless to say, this was quite the odd comment to hear so soon into conversation.

It was an impressive thing to say right off for several reasons.

1. How in the world did he remember what my dad's toes looked like? Who pays attention to that sort of thing?

2. Why would my toes be one of the first things he noticed? Who pays attention to that sort of thing?

3. He was exactly right.

I do have my dad's toes and they're kind of annoying.

My toes point up. This is hard to explain, but the base of my big toenail is about 1/2 cm closer to the ground than the tip of the toenail, and I keep my toenails pretty short. I think my dad's toes point up even more than mine do (though I'm not sure) and his toenails are definitely not shorter than mine. This causes problems.

For me, every pair of socks I own will get a hole formed by my left or right big toenail long before any other holes form in the sock - I don't think I've ever had a pair of socks get a hole in the heel, for example. I then swap socks, and soon enough, there are holes on both sides of the top of the sock. 

The worst case is like the socks I noticed today that both had a hole in the exact same place (the top right of both socks), which means I have a hole that the big left toe pokes out of, regardless of which sock I put on which foot. 

I decided to just wear the socks today, with plans to toss them out. I like to wear flip flops around the house and at some point during the evening I looked down and saw this...

As I looked down, thinking about the sock I was about to throw out, my dad, my genes, I thought about the kid we're about to adopt. I've always wanted to adopt a kid, and we're in the final stages of the process now. I looked down at my toe sticking out of my sock and thought two things. First, this kid will never be able to write a blog like this; about the odd gene their dad may have given them. Then I also thought, this kid will never have to write a blog about the odd gene their dad gave them. 

I've never liked the phrase 'blood is thicker than water'. Last time I checked, water has nothing to do with family or friends, but love does. Love is more powerful than blood, people have spilt blood for love. And so even though a blog like this will never have to be written in this child's future, hopefully there will be other blogs; better blogs than this one; about the odd father that loved this child.

The Oscars

I realize I've been ranking the Best Picture Oscars since 2006 (I think I skipped a year or two though).

I thought 2013 was a good year for movies. It wasn't 1939 or 1994 by any means, but it was a good year.

For the first time since the Oscars expanded the number of Best Pictures from 5 to whatever it is now (I think it's now between 5 and 10), I genuinely liked all the nominees. This made it a bit difficult to rank them, but I'll give it a go.

I've found in recent years, maybe from listening to more film criticism podcasts than I used to, or maybe with age, story seems to mean more to me that it did in the past. While I can admire spectacle, the story carries more weight for me this year than it has in the past, and that will be seen in my rankings below. I'll go from worst to first here, and should note this is not how I think things will pan out (I actually think my #2 film will win best picture), but how I feel about the movies after seeing them and having some time to reflect.

9. Dallas Buyers Club - There was something about this film that just didn't click with me. I thought the performances by Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto were both amazing (I think Leto should win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar) but I don't know what it was. Pacing, possibly? Or maybe I wasn't sucked in the story as much as I would have thought? Who knows. One thing that did bother me during the movie was the time stamps. There were time stamps through out. 'Day 1', 'Day 27', etc. then it would say something like '6 months later' then at the end went back to using days. That's a minor thing, but the lack of consistency bothered me (and Lauren, who also brought it up). Also, when they say '6 months later' is that 6 months from Day 1 or 6 months from what ever Day we were on? Again, a minor thing, but it did bug me. Lauren mentioned after seeing the film, that it was good but she didn't think she would remember it in a year. Ultimately, that's why it's my number 9; I'm not going to remember this film as a film, only for the performances.

8. The Wolf of Wall Street - Long movies (over 2.5 hours) bother me. There have been many a film that I would have liked better if they were only a bit shorter. This film squarely falls in that category. I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was great (I don't think he'll ever be able to give as good as a performance as he did in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, but this was pretty damn good). The story was good, but there were some sequences that just went on for way to long for my taste. I was listening to a podcast where a guy who loved the movie was talking about the over 20-minute long sequence where two of the characters get high. He thought that amount of time was needed to get the point across; I remember looking at my watch during that sequence for the first time, wondering how much more of this we were going to see. It was the only film on the list where I checked the time during the film. I thought it was a great story, I thought the performances were really good, I just kind of wished that Martin Scorsese could have chopped off 30-45 minutes off the film. It would have been higher on my list if he had done that.

7. American Hustle - This is a fun movie. It's a performers' movie and the performances were great. A little over the top but not so much that they got annoying. What bothered me about this movie was I felt like it was giving off the air of being bigger, or more important, than it actually is. I felt like it was trying to be Goodfellas lite, and it just wasn't. I think it might a David O. Russell (the director) thing because I kind of had similar feelings about Silver Linings Playbook (a movie I liked significantly less than American Hustle). I feel like I'm putting down the film, but like I said, story has become more important to me as of late and what makes this movie good is not the story, but the characters. In the end, what they're saying didn't really matter to me but the way they said it, did.

6. Philomena - This movie caught me off guard. It opened months before the Oscar nominations were announced and I never even considered seeing it. It looked like a small, British, movie that wouldn't get much respect in the US, and therefore not get a nomination. I guess I was wrong. I was also caught off guard by how much I would like it. Going in, I was sure it was a movie I would not think much of, and I know there are a group of people who think it's a good movie, but not Best Picture worthy. I can't say I disagree with that statement; except for Judi Dench, it doesn't have the components that typically make up a Best Picture nominee. I think it also suffered from its advertising. From the trailers I saw, it looked more like a comedy than it actually is. It is a very touching movie, and that it's based on a true story makes it that much more touching. I liked it a lot more than than I thought I would and I'm hoping that the nomination will give more people (like me) the chance to see it.

5. Gravity - There is talk that this might win best picture. Gravity is possibly the most visually stunning movie I've ever seen, but the story is what brought it down a few notches for me. It gets a lot of points for being as short as it is (like I said earlier, I don't like long movies), but I felt like the characters were too simple, and that stuff was added that felt like it was being added for the sake of being added. There is a story line of the main character having gone through a serious loss back on earth but that didn't really add anything for me. It didn't make the story more compelling so it felt like it was added to pull the heartstrings, which I don't think need pulling in a movie about people lost in space - that's pulling the heartstrings enough. I also didn't like the George Clooney character. No one would be that calm in the situation they were in. I felt like it was George being George, calm, cool, and always under control. That being said, I do think Alfonso Cuarón should win Best Director. If Ang Lee can win for Life of Pie, Cuarón better win for Gravity.

4. Nebraska - I heard someone say that if some no-name director had directed Nebraska, and not Alexander Payne, there is no way it would have been nominated for an Oscar. I don't doubt that. The thing is, there was a no-name director who directed a movie that didn't get a Best Picture Oscar nomination back in 1999, when he directed Election. That director was this director, who has now made a name for himself. Election is my favorite Alexander Payne movie, and if you haven't seen it, you should. Nebraska, is my second favorite movie from him. I wasn't a fan of The Descendants at all, and didn't like Sideways as much as everyone else did. What I liked about this movie is what I liked about Election - the characters. Even though I've talked about story in this post, for me, it doesn't matter so much what the story is in Nebraska, but the people involved in it. I liked the side characters more so than the two main characters. The extreme side characters I liked even more. This movie grew on me the more I thought about it and I like it more now much more than I did when I walked out of it in December. I don't think this movie will win any major Oscars, but I do think it's the kind of movie, like Election, that I will remember scenes from, 15 years after it was released.

3. Captain Phillips - This was the first of the Best Picture nominees that I saw, and it really struck a chord with me. I don't know what it was, but it just really stuck with me. I was shocked - shocked - that Tom Hanks did not get a best actor nomination (even if he did have a bad New England accent). Last year, I posted my favorite scene from a movie. This year, my scene of the year is from this film. Alas, I can't post it because it's the very last scene in the movie, and I don't want to be a spoiler. One performance that I very much thought was impressive, but I'm hearing no critics talk about, is that of the 2nd hijacker. Barkhad Abdi, who plays the lead hijacker is nominated for Best Supporting Actor, rightfully so, but no one seems to be talking about the performance of Barkhad Abdirahman, who plays 2nd hijacker. The 2nd hijacker was the scarier of the two, in my opinion, and required a great deal more rage from the actor, which I thought he did a great job with. Yes, the lead hijacker needed to be more subtle, but I just kept waiting for the 2nd guy to go off (and he did a few times). I wish his performance was more recognized. I also thought Paul Greengrass was the perfect director for this movie. The unsteady camerawork he likes to use fit so well with the situation and the story, both of which were constantly in an unsteady state. I know this is not getting much love as a frontrunner, but I thought it was a great movie.

2. 12 Years a Slave - This film lost point for something that was entirely my doing; I read the book shortly before seeing it, so there was no element of surprise or suspense for me. This film does a great job of putting the viewer in the place of the main character, so it's best seen not knowing what is about to happen, because then you can relate to the actor much more. I didn't have that luxury, so I was a bit disappointed in myself for reading the book beforehand. That being said, it is a remarkable story and a remarkable film. I thought the performances were all great, but I think that of Sarah Paulson has somehow got lost in the nomination season. Her character comes off as loving and kind but also extremely evil. Like Barkhand Abdirahman, I do wish her performance would have gotten a bit more attention. This is a difficult film to watch and not one I would want to watch again because of this. But sometimes, the films you can't watch again are the ones that stay with you and stand the test of time.

1. Her - I loved Her. It hit all the right notes for me - the story, the directing, the music, the setting, the costumes, and Joaquin Phoenix. I think it must be very difficult to act against no one, especially when you're supposed to be showing tenderness, and I thought he did a great job. I'm also a Spike Jonze fan, back to when he directed this Weezer music video (although, I have to admit, I didn't really like Where the Wild Things Are). I just thought it was a very well put-together movie. On the surface, it's a very simple movie, but there was so many small details (like that none of the men wear belts) that may go unnoticed, but that add so much to the sense that we aren't quite in the normal universe of today, but some slightly fictional universe of the not-too-distant future. I've heard people say it reminded them of (500) Days of Summer, and I don't disagree with that. I liked that movie a great deal too, so maybe it's just that I like that type of movie, or I like Joaquin Phoenix, or I like Spike Jonze. Whatever it is, as soon as the credits started, I leaned over to Lauren and whispered 'Best movie of the year'. Several weeks after seeing it, I still feel the same way.

So that's my summary of the Best Picture nominees. This is the first time in a while where I saw all movies in a theater, and saw them with time to reflect, so I'm happy with my ranking, though I don't see any way that Her will win best picture.

airbnb n me

Our airbnb room as it was

A few weeks ago I ‘unlisted’ our airbnb page.  

I first heard about airbnb in Spring 2012. We had just bought our flat and my uncle and aunt were planning on coming to Edinburgh. They asked if they could stay with us and we told them they could, but that we had no furniture. They were welcome to sleep on air beds, but they wisely passed. Instead they decided to stay at an airbnb. I had no idea what this airbnb thing was, but I soon fell in love with it.

If you don’t know what airbnb is, go here; this is not a blog describing it but my experience as an airbnb host.

After doing a bit of research, which mainly involved looking at my uncle and aunt’s two airbnbs in Edinburgh and talking Kristina Wong during the 2012 Fringe Festival, who runs/ran one in LA, we got to planning. We had a room we weren't using and a futon that was missing parts. After being able to fix the futon in early 2013, we created our airbnb host page - I would post the link to our page, but it’s now unlisted.

We offered a room, for up to two people, use of our living room, kitchen, and cold breakfast items. I also baked something for each guest.

Last March, our first guests arrived. In November our last guest left. In the months in between we learned what it was like to run a kind-of hotel, how to deal with living with people we had just met, and that you simply can’t satisfy every guest.

The good guests were great. They would tell us when they were expecting to arrive, would arrive in that time window; they would eat the food we had gone to the trouble to buy/make, and would leave the place relatively clean. Sadly, there’s no fun in writing about a good guest because what more can I say; they were good guests.

I wouldn’t describe any of our guests as being bad guests - that would be way too harsh so instead, I’ll say we had some odd guests. We actually had a couple of guests that were good guests and odd guests, so odd is not code for not good.

We had guests that bought practically the exact same fruit we had bought for them to eat (after we had told them that the fruit we bought was for their consumption). They ended up eating very little fruit at all and we ended up having twice as much fruit as we had before they got here. I don’t mind fruit, but there’s only so much one can do with 15 apples.

We had guests who wanted to go to the grocery store with me. I offered to pay for the coffee they they wanted but they refused. They did however want me to get the 'points' on my grocery store membership that they got from buying said coffee. This involved us going to the customer service desk and taking several minutes to 2 points on my membership card that has no real value until it reaches something like 1000 points. I was at the grocery store at least 3 times longer as I would have been if I had gone by myself - I don't think the 2 Sainsbury's points were worth it.

There, of course, were the late/non-communicative guests; guests that would give us an arrival time then show up 4 hours later; guests that didn’t respond to any of our messages asking them when they would arrive then were surprised when we were not home when they showed up before we were home from work.

We also discovered there are three types of social guests - the anti-social (lock themselves in the room whenever we were home and would wait until we were not home before they would do anything in the flat); the semi-social (would ask questions about where to go, what to do, didn’t hide, but didn’t want to be our best friends either), and the too-social (see the grocery store paragraph above - the type of guest who is nice, but you also kind of would like them to give you a little space). I should note that I would be an anti-social guest category, though I wouldn’t book a room with our kind of set-up.

I actually liked the semi-social and too-social guests. I felt like I always learned something in talking to them.

I liked it when we would come home and a guest was watching ‘Good Will Hunting’ on our TV. Not only did they feel comfortable enough to watch our TV, they also had good taste. 

I liked it when a guest would feel comfortable enough to sit in our rocking chair while watching TV, with us at our computers in another room.

I liked it when the baked goods I made were gone a day and half into guests’ stay. 

I liked when people would eat our yogurt or our eggs (almost no guests ate our yogurt or eggs), or use our stove top to cook anything (two guests did this).

There was very little I didn't like about our airbnb experience. I guess I didn’t like it so much when guests would want to use our washing machine the day before they were leaving (mainly because we don’t have a dryer so their clothes would be wet, so I guess that’s their problem).

I enjoyed the experience. We met people from all over the world (mostly from Germany, really) and there is a part of me that would have liked to keep it going. But alas, the guest room has been turned into an office and I wouldn’t want to charge people to sleep in a room that I would like to use whenever I want.

Maybe one day we’ll live in a bigger place, but for now, our airbnb hosting experience has ended.

Our former airbnb room as it is now

My Sucky Relationship with Air Travel

above Phoenix as we flew in

I am blessed because of my mixed-ness. I'm bi-racial, multicultural in the truest form, having lived in three countries, on three continents, with family from at least 5 distinct cultures. I've experienced more culture than probably 99% of the world, and I love experiencing different cultures.

What I don't like is what is involved in getting to the places where these different cultures are. I don't like traveling. I especially don't like air travel.

In January 2003, I was flying from London to San Francisco and the turbulence on that flight was insane; when you hear fear in the flight attendant's voice as she's telling everyone to go to their seat and sit down, it's a bit scary. For the rest of the time I lived in the Bay Area, I was scared to fly (although I flew at least twice a year). Just driving by SFO on the 101 made my heart race, even if I wasn't flying anywhere.

The fear stopped in March 2010. I was flying from London to Baltimore, to see my mother for the last time. I didn't think about the flight, I thought about how my mother must have been feeling as I was flying and my fear was gone. To this day, when I have any fear of flying, I think about how this fear is nothing compared to the thought that I will never see or hear my mother again, and the fear is gone. 

But this blog isn't about that odd way to prevent fear of flying. It's about why I don't like to travel.

I've jokingly told Lauren that we have bad luck when we travel together. 

On the way to Costa Rica for our honeymoon we had to spend a night in the Dallas airport because of a tornado (we were married in December, not what people think of as tornado season). This delay had a domino effect on the rest of our trip, missing busses we had paid for, and a night's hotel stay. It sucked.

When we've taken trips around the UK, we are sure to be welcomed with heavy rain, wind, or both. I don't think we've taken a successful trip anywhere in the UK, without other people going with us. It sucks.

In the past year, I've been on 4 trips and 2 of them had really bad delays (on a third, my bags were delayed by a couple of days, but I won't get into that). Coincidentally, those were the only two trips where Lauren and I travelled together. Hmmm....

In June, for my birthday, we went to Southern Spain (I should note that we flew on my birthday, which is not ideal for me, but we were going to Spain!). The trip was great. We spent time with Lauren's parents, saw some cool stuff, got back to the airport in Malaga, to find out our flight was delayed for a couple of hours. No big deal, really. We boarded the plane, got buckled in, then the captain comes on. The flight would be delayed by 7 hours and we couldn't get off. There was an air traffic control strike in France (which we had to fly over) and so he would need to take off on short notice, if they allowed him. They didn't. We sat on the plane for 7 hours. I saw one of the flight attendants crying when I went to the bathroom. People were irate. It sucked.

This last trip, to the US, wasn't much better. I was on 4 legs on this trip (Edinburgh -San Francisco - Phoenix - Baltimore - Edinburgh). Three of the four had problems. 

First, my flight out of Edinburgh was cancelled (snow in my connecting city of Newark). I stood in line at the Edinburgh airport for a couple of hours and was re-routed and actually got to San Francisco 2 hours earlier than I would have. Mind you, I got a crappy seat on a 10-hour flight and couldn't get a vegetarian meal on the 10-hour flight, but it actually ended up for the best. It didn't suck. I should note that Lauren wasn't with me on this leg of the trip.

Flying from San Francisco to Phoenix was fine. After hearing of my travel woes, my co-worker said that's why the West Coast is the Best Coast. Based on this trip, it was. Clearly.

Flying from Phoenix to Baltimore was fine until about 20 minutes before we were scheduled to land. We were flying low, but not low enough and it seemed rocky and we were circling but not getting lower. After about 15 min of this, the captain came on and told us the wing flaps weren't opening. That's not exactly what you want to hear as you're in a plane that is about to land. He ended by saying "but it shouldn't affect the landing". What?!?! I tend to think wing flaps are pretty important to landing a plane and the issue was already affecting the landing. We should have landed by the time he made the announcement.

We had to continue on this very slow, rocky, circling descent to land at BWI. Lauren got really bad motion sickness; I thought we might crash; but we (eventually) made it back to land. It was scary, and it sucked.

Getting from Baltimore to Edinburgh was an ordeal. Looking ahead a few days, I saw that we would be in a window between a snow storm that had hit the east coast and the 'Polar Vortex' (I should say I hate the phrase 'polar vortex' more than I hate flying). We would be fine, I thought. 

We got to the airport, checked in. There was a slight delay, we were told. No big deal. Then the delay got longer, and longer. There was talk that it was because Newark (where we had to connect) was overwhelmed with air traffic so the delay was for our benefit, so we wouldn't be circling forever. There was talk that the 'polar vortex' was the cause of the delay, even though neither city would be feeling it for the next couple of days. The plane was ready to go, the crew was there, then the truth came out. There was no pilot. It sucked.

I think the pilot was in a city that was affected by the 'polar vortex' and so our plane was a no-go. 

You would think a stranded pilot would be enough to cancel the flight with enough notice so people could use other means to get from Baltimore to Newark (it's a 3-hour train ride), but United Airlines waited until 2 1/2 hours after we were supposed to take off. If we had known the pilot was not around a lot of us with international connecting flights could have made it to Newark early enough to make our connections. As it was though, very few were able to make their connections. The earliest they could get us to Edinburgh was 4 days later. This really sucked.

The customer service we received in Baltimore compared to when my flight was cancelled in Edinburgh was markedly different. Baltimore United Airlines staff should take note from their Edinburgh counterparts, where things were dealt with in a much calmer and efficient manner. 

There was no evidence that they would pay for a hotel (luckily we were staying with my dad), or give us any kind of food voucher (we were at the airport for over 6 hours without any kind of information). For this last leg of our trip, I completely blame United Airlines. 

When I posted about this 4-day delay on Facebook, someone said I was lucky that I got to travel the world. I definitely realize just how lucky I am and I  and I don't want to take that luck for granted. But I can't wait until the teleportation stations start to open. Although, knowing my luck, I'd have to take a plane to get to one.