Welcome!

My niece joined the family on July 12th, 2010. This special young lady's mother is my younger sister, which in classic Chinese culture makes me her Jiu Jiu (舅舅) -- thus the title of this blog. Here I intend to semi-regularly post reflections, thoughts, stories, and assorted whathaveyous pertaining to our trip to China, adoption in general, and (mostly) watching my niece grow up. Since the web is a very public place, I will attempt to maintain my family's privacy while telling the story... but I invite you to follow the blog and come along for the adventure!

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

It's a Conspiracy!

I'm beginning to get the feeling that someone out there doesn't want my family to eat out.

Take your WABAC machine to 2005, to the Cheesecake Factory restaurant in White Flint Mall.  That's where AJ let me and Cousin E in on the little secret of her filing adoption papers.  I remember thinking it would be pretty darn cool to take the Pipsqueak there for dinner once she was old enough to "get it," sort of closing the circle that began with the first notice that she would be joining the family.

Well... it ain't gonna happen. As I mentioned in an earlier post, that Cheesecake Factory location is now closed. In fact, not only did the restaurant close, but the entire mall closed and (except for one standalone department store) has since been totally erased from the face of the planet.

"But wait, there's more!"

Back before we began The Wait, going back to a time when AJ really wasn't even thinking about adopting, one of the nicer places we would go for good seafood was on Greenbelt Road, somewhere between the cities of College Park and Greenbelt. I (obviously) don't remember the name, but I still fondly remember their flounder fillet stuffed with crabmeat.  We hadn't gone for a while because they were a bit on the expensive side, but the last time we decided it would be a good place for dinner... they'd gone out of business.

Going back at least the same number of years, if we wanted really good prime rib or steaks, we'd head up into the Gaithersburg area to the Golden Bull.  Good food, decent prices, nice salad bar, plenty of seating... and around mid-2017 they suddenly and permanently closed their doors.

Also going back a few years before The Wait began, we "discovered" the Old Country Buffet just a stone's throw up the road from the Golden Bull.  It wasn't the greatest food in the world, but it was better than some we'd paid a lot more for in other restaurants -- with the added benefits of there being something for everyone (have I mentioned the Miri is an incredibly picky eater?), and as much of it as we could shovel into our faces before we burst like overfilled balloons. Even better, because there was always a selection of dishes, no one had to decide what they were (or were not) in the mood to eat; whatever you wanted was likely to be somewhere on the hot tables regardless of what anyone else in the family wanted to eat.  It was a favorite place for us all, and Dad informally renamed it the Slop Chute (a name that Miri loved using). I even made a deal with the Pipsqueak: once she was old enough to sit at a restaurant table by herself for a couple of minutes, she and I would have a dinner date there, and she spent almost a year reminding me of that promise.

Ain't never gonna happen; the place closed down last year.  (Turns out there's a long, sordid, and unhappy story behind the chain's demise; look it up online for a good cautionary tale about how to NOT buy or run a business.)

Another family staple, one of the first places we ever ate out after bringing Miri home, was the Cheeburger Cheeburger location about five minutes from AJ's house.  As I wrote waaaay back in the earliest days of this blog, it was where we heard, "Is she adopted?" for the first time, followed by a high-speed data dump from our young waitress who was thrilled to have a chance to talk about her own adoption (from Madagascar) with someone who'd understand. This was a location where we took friends and family visiting from out of town, a place where parties were held, a place where we knew we would always find food the Pipsqueak was happy to eat.

You guessed it... Back around August/September last year,  the five of us arranged to meet there for dinner. I was the first to arrive, and found a big ol' "this location is now CLOSED" sign in the window directing us to other locations -- not one of which is more than vaguely convenient for us.

Two or three weeks later, I was on a shopping run with our folks and despite not being able to agree on which store to go to first, we all agreed that a meal was necessary ASAP.   Mom directed me to a pancake place that she & Dad had enjoyed several times in the past few months. We had a little trouble finding it because none of us could see the sign. Finally figuring out where to go, the mystery of the invisible sign was solved as I turned into the parking lot and noticed a big "FOR LEASE" banner hiding it from view.

Yep, another one gone.

That really left us with a short list of places to go for dinner (remember, Miri is a very picky eater), with another buffet at the top of the list: the Teppanyaki Grill & Buffet, offering mainly hot Chinese food and a good selection of Japanese sushi.  It had originally opened as the Tyson's Chinese Buffet, but that closed down after the quality & selection of foods began to drop; we were thrilled when it re-opened (with new fixtures, etc.) as part of the Teppanyaki chain and were regulars there for years.

Yep, that last statement is in past tense.  Late last year we were trying to figure out if they would have regular prices or holiday prices one evening, and when I checked Yelp there was a "now closed" note by their name. I checked a bunch of other online sources and sure enough, it was gone, with the next closest location in the chain being more than twice the distance.

Oh, and did I mention the local Five Guys burger joint, or the Japanese restaurant in the shopping center next to the Cheeburger location...?  Gone with the wind, both of 'em.

We've also noticed that one of the local sit-down restaurants we go to a few times a year has raised their prices & shortened their menu, another has basically become the meeting place for a large local community of singles & swingers (and raised their prices),  the Chinese place closest to my house has noticeably raised their prices and lowered their quality, and the local Italian place has begun leaving us all feeling queasy and/or suffering from heartburn after every meal (and we stopped eating there mid-2017 as a result, with reports from friends letting us know the situation hasn't improved).

There's just one Chinese buffet left within a 20-minute drive now, and it's one that we stopped going to sometime in 2008; the nearest non-"ethnic" buffet is a good 45 minute drive.  I'm just hoping that McDonald's, CalTort, and Panera don't change anything anytime soon.

So please... don't ask me to recommend a good local restaurant. We're running out of places to eat!


Thursday, January 4, 2018

Adoption News: An Important Advocacy, Research and Resource Center is Closing

Ever since  sometime during The Wait -- probably around mid-2007 (educated guesstimate)  -- I've been on the mailing list for the Donaldson Adoption Institute.  DAI isn't an adoption agency, per se; they are an organization devoted to researching multiple aspects of the Gordian knot of issues surrounding adoption (in particular trans-national, trans-racial, and trans-cultural), providing information & insight, and trying to help... well, just figure things out.

Make that, "...WAS an organization devoted to..."  because their latest email contains the surprising news that they are closing.

You can click on either the link above (their name) or here: www.adoptioninstitute.org to get the word straight from the horse's mouth.

 This may not have a direct impact on individual families (although the loss of any half-decent, independent resource is bad news), but it certainly seems to reflect a change in priorities among ADI's primary source of funding... the adoption community.

Time alone will tell what's been lost... and what other changes may begin bubbling to the surface in the U.S. adoption community as a whole.

PS - No "signature chop" because Blogger keeps apologizing for not being able to upload the exact same graphic from the exact same source that I've literally used in EVERY other blog entry to date.



Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Happy New Year!

Just a quickie -- I wanted to wish y'all a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2018 (and beyond).

We celebrated the new year by joining two of our MIT families at a timeshare condo in Williamsburg, VA. We all drove down from our respective homes on Saturday, each family having its share of (mis)adventures in getting ready and getting there. (Case in point: AJ had said we were planning to meet at our folks' at 11am so that "hopefully we'll be on the road by Noon" -- but we didn't even get to the house 'til after Noon and finally got on the road at 1:30.) With the last foursome's morning plans being changed without their consent, we all eventually met up in the Williamsburg area at a CiCi's buffet for dinner (hey, they serve one of the few foods all the kids will eat unconditionally, and don't really mind the noise they generate while doing so).

The condo was basically a pair of nicely-equipped apartments laid out like a townhouse, so the kids had a grand old time while all us olders just did our thing and complained about the cold.  Sunday  saw another family's planned morning timing changed unilaterally by outside parties, but by lunchtime we all had our day passes and were happily chowing down in the King's Arms Taven in Colonial Williamsburg. The rest of the increasingly cold day was spent exploring some of the colonial-era businesses until the increasingly frigid temperatures drove us back to the shuttle bus. (More than one person told us it was the coldest winter recorded in Williamsburg since 1917.) We had planned to spend an hour or so at one of the museums but as soon as the bus stopped the people getting on all told us that the museum had closed early for New Year's, despite all the reassurances from the Visitor Center staff (and the iOS app) that they would not.

We did a little shopping at some of the most crowded small shops I've ever been in (especially the candy store) but had fun doing so, then made our way to a nearby Golden Corral to stuff our faces before heading back to the condo for our own new year's eve celebration. The kids all(!) fell asleep in the van by the time we got back to the townhouse, but that proved to simply be a quick recharge because at midnight they took full advantage of all the party hats & noisemakers we'd brought and were all going strong long after Ryan Seacrest & Jenny McCarthy had closed up shop.

Monday morning was marked by a neighborhood-wide power failure just as we were all getting out of bed, so we cleaned up as best we could, had a thoroughly chaotic but tasty breakfast at Mama Steve's, and spent a few hours (and more money) at the big Yankee Candle store before the group began to split up for home. Based on the southbound backups we'd seen on I-95 at the beginning of the trip, a decision was made to ignore the info on Inrix and Wayz in favor of a "faster" route, so we got back to Mom & Dad's around 10:30pm. After a quick bite and a partial unpacking, AJ dropped me at my house and was finally able to tuck her tired self and the Pipsqueak into bed close to midnight. (Both Miri and Mommy ignored the fact that today was a "regular" day and stayed home to get a little more rest.)

And that  was how we closed out 2017 and began 2018. I'll have another (short) post about it with some of the 2GB of photos I took once I've had a chance to go through them on my laptop, but right now I have to go see why my refrigerator stopped running & check Wednesday's crazy weather forecast for updates again... Nope, 2018 ain't gonna be boring!

Here's hoping you and yours had a great New Year's Eve and have a wonderful new year!