Ring, phone, ring.

At 9:30 this morning, Ian and I signed our final paperwork as officially certified foster parents. I had lunch with my bosses to talk to them about taking paternity leave whenever I get the phone call, be it tomorrow or months from now, and what is funny is, they had no official policy towards maternity or paternity leave, despite the company being around for over ten years now. The reason is easy to understand: I’m in the video game industry, and it is largely dominated by men, and most of those men are single and straight. It’s pretty unusual for them to reproduce, and it’s still fairly unusual for men to take paternity leave, even in this day. So I’m the test case.

I have to say, they’ve been awfully supportive about this, particularly since I can’t tell them when I’m going to suddenly take off for a couple weeks to bond with my baby. We could be in the middle of a busy time at work – in fact, we are always in the middle of a busy time, so that’s guaranteed to be the case. I volunteered to have SVN file-sharing software installed on my home computer and all the editors so I could do work from home, but my boss stopped me and said, “No, if you’re going to take paternity leave off, you shouldn’t be working. You should be spending time with your baby.”

This coming from a straight non-breeding breeder, by the way. Pretty incredible.

Now, ring, phone. Ring.

Safety Last

At 10:30 this morning, an inspector from our foster adoption agency came over to our house to see whether we had a safe environment for a child. We had diligently built a fence around the pool and a screen in front of the filter; we put plastic catches to make it hard to open a dozen cabinets, and magnetic locks to make it impossible to open another six without the right key; we put chains over our liquor cabinet and one across the door to the office cunningly fashioned so the cat could get in to his box but a toddler couldn’t get in or get stuck; we put plastic cushions on every corner of every hard bit of furniture; we put plugs into all electric outlets, and locking devices over the toilets; we put a rubber cushion around the bath faucets; we got a crib and changing table and linens.

The guy took about ten minutes to check it all off and say, “Looks good. Safer than my house.”

So we passed as “suitable for placement.”

We’re not quite there yet. They have to finish a report on us, and we have to go in and sign some papers. But there’s nothing we have to do now.

Ditto the novel. I have it in a dozen different people’s hands, and all I have to do is wait while they read it.

So what do you do when there’s nothing to do?

I’m going to work on the nursery. Get it painted and organized. Since I don’t know whether we’re getting a boy or girl or a set of siblings, and what their ages will be, I can’t finish the job, but I can get pretty far.

I can read books about how to care for a child between the ages of 0 and 3.

I can keep looking for babysitters and daycare centers.

I can go to the Pop Luck Club meeting on Sunday, and find out about all the things I’m too ignorant to be worried about.

I can look for more people in publishing who could look at the novel, and gently nudge the people who have had months to read it so far.

Considering I have absolutely nothing to do but wait, I’ve got a pretty long To Do List.

Pedia Tricks

From time to time, we get to see how the other halves live. Going to Hollywood premieres and parties in gorgeous houses on the beach on one hand, riding public transportation and seeing how medical care works, or doesn’t, for the poor on the other. I’ve been spending the last couple of days trying to get a pediatrician for my imaginary child. While he or she is in foster care before adoption, we will be using Medi-Cal, which is normally what the poorest people use.

Now, most people when they’re having a baby, talk to their friends and family to get pediatrician recommendations: who is the nicest, most experienced, most convenient, most comforting. We go to the website for our insurance carrier, and since we have a PPO, chances are this spectacular doctor is listed. Or we call him or her up, and they say, “You have Blue Shield PPO? Of course, come on in.” If you go to Medi-Cal website, you don’t see a listing of doctors who take Medi-Cal. You are told to click on a couple acronyms – CMC, NDC, NPI, etc. It turns out none of them include listing of doctors. If you call up the pediatricians your friends recommend, I assure you none of these excellent doctors takes Medi-Cal. Nor can they give a reference, because no one they knows takes Medi-Cal. Eventually, it comes down to doing endless google searches to come up with a list of pediatricians who say they take Medi-Cal, but God knows if they are any good.

Through a gay dad’s organization Ian signed us up for, I found one pediatrician who alerted to me to the fact that the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, only the biggest and best children’s hospital in America … takes Medi-Cal! The problem is that it’s some distance away, and I would really like a pediatrician who is closer in case of emergencies. Still, I feel I’m getting closer.

Speaking of getting closer, the novel is finished and in various people’s hands, some friends and family members, a couple people who might be in the position to help me get it published. They call this kind of thing a waiting game, as if there’s any game aspect to it. Speaking as a professional game designer, I can say with authority that there is no such thing as a waiting game.

Trolling The Ancient Yule-Tide Carol

“Deck The Halls” must be my favorite Christmas carol. There are a lot of funny old words that come out during this time of year (honestly, “manger” is only used in conversation to describe one particular barn, and it always make me think of "A Clear and Present Manger"), but “Deck The Halls” not only have Fa-la-la-la-las, (which are much better than Little Drummer Boy’s morose Pa Rum Pum Pum Pums) and donning we now our gay apparel, but the rather peculiarly worded tradition of trolling the ancient yule-tide carol. But ‘tis the season to troll.

We’re coming up towards the end of the year which began by me deciding to write the novel I had been mulling over. Midway through the year, another project began, taking the home study courses for foster/adoption. And along the way, there was a video game to get out and another one to begin designing, trips to the Derby and the Bahamas, quitting smoking, some political matters to get involved in, and lots of not newsworthy but hilarious and wonderful time spent with family and friends to distract me from these projects.

This time of year is particularly filled with distractions. We’re not going anywhere, but we’ve got all the other activities with cards and presents and decorations and parties and dinners. Last night though I still managed to get twenty pages of rewriting on the latest draft of the novel done. There’s still a bit of paperwork to do for the home study, but the references are done (and, I hope, glowing). We’ll get bids on fencing the pool over the holiday, and the nice thing is that I got a little bonus at work to cover it. All the news today is about turmoil and recession, but my life continues on its lucky streak which has lasted nearly forty years now.

Maybe that’s the story. A cheery guy named Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet To Come to show him that life is actually pretty shitty. I like it. Next book.

Merry Christmas

Beach Reading

In 1620, a group of Pilgrims landed in Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, prompting the first Thanksgiving in America. In 1648, another group of dissidents had an equally rough first couple of years of privation some distance south, as they founded the nation of the Bahamas on an island they called Eleuthera, meaning “freedom.” Since Plymouth, Massachusetts is frankly cold in November, my family decided to go to Eleuthera instead to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Eleuthera itself is ingénue actress shaped, three miles wide by one hundred miles long, but we spent the first five days of the trip on an island off the “main” island called Harbour Island, which is three miles long by a half miles wide. Fortunately it has a number of good hotels and restaurants filling up that limited space, and my parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law joined Ian and me there. And if the famous pink sand of the island wasn’t enough of a draw, there was the beach reading as I passed around pages of my novel, fresh off the press.

It would be a cold-hearted author who didn’t dream of reducing his sweet mother to tears, so that goal achieved, I mark the vacation a complete success. I have returned with great editorial notes from my family, who are obviously supportive enough to be kind in their criticism, but very good editors with different specialties, noting when I reference the wrong fish to be in a lake, when my pronouns get mangled, and when I make huge leaps in logic to confound the most patient of readers. They’re so fiercely loyal, though, I’ve begun referring to them as my bulldogs.

On the last couple of days, Ian and I explored the main island of Eleutheria, which while much more beautiful than my fictional Midwestern city of Athelstan, Ohio, had in common with it that the best years had gone by decades ago. From a visitor’s point of view, that isn’t necessarily bad: you have the beautiful pink powdery beaches which used to attract royalty not to mention hundreds of visitors every week to the three airports on the island basically all to yourself. The people of Eleutheria and Harbour Island are unfailingly friendly, but there’s no doubt they’re suffering as resort after resort shuts down in the wake of economic woes and the more dramatic effects of several bad hurricane seasons. There’s very little to do. It’s like arriving at a party in time to see the caterers taking down the buffet.

I am generally a very relaxed person, and after a week of enforced relaxation, it’s all I can do to keep from slipping into a coma.

So Near, So Far, So Good

Monday was a pretty eventful day on the two big projects. We met with our adoption/foster social worker for our first visit of our Home Study, and I finished the third draft of the novel. In both cases, it’s a little like being a skyscraper climber looking down, impressed with yourself on how far he’s come and perfectly aware how far there is to go. And then you plod on.

The social worker was very nice, and gave us great compliments about the house, which was squeaky clean. Our cat Floyd was well-behaved, though after she played with him for a little bit, he got a bit of the “crazy eyes” and we knew he was ready to up the game to the thing he does where he closes his entire body on your hand like a bear trap. After we diffused that, I think we came off as the right mix between serious and easy-going, structured but not set in our ways. At any rate, she returned our Thank You email afterwards, which is something.

We have to finish our paperwork outlining out budget, doing maps our house with “fire safety routes,” getting references plus employer references, DMV records, proof of income (two paystubs), evidence of home owner’s and car insurance, our domestic partnership contract, and get the pool fenced. Hard to believe it, but the list used to be much longer, and most of the stuff on there is easily done. I mean, I need to show proof of car insurance at a moment’s notice, don’t I?

On the novel front, I finally finished the agonizing Chapter 3, and am rereading the book as a whole as quickly as I can to see how it all works as a whole. One of the things I’ve found tricky about doing a long piece of work like a novel is staying with a consistent voice. The tone I know can shift – there are funny scenes, there are sad scenes – but I’m watching out for changes in style.

So far, though so good. Ian’s reading it now, and I’ve sent a copy (with lots of admonitions that this is a rough, rough copy I haven’t even checked for spelling yet) to a friend who is in the medical / elder caregiving field to get her insight into the subject, since that’s pretty important to get right in the book.

This is the part where I talk about the enjoyment being in the journey not the destination. Is that the truest cliche or what?

Being The Perfect Parent In Eight Words Or Less

On Monday, we’re meeting with our social worker from the Foster/Adoption Agency to begin our home study even though not quite all of our paperwork is done. It’s a lot of thoughtful work to fill in some of the forms. One question, for example, is “How would you react to bedwetting?”. You want to say you wouldn’t shame the child and make a big deal about an occasional bedwetting. You want to say that if it were chronic or you suspected it was a psychological reaction to abuse, you’d seek out a therapist. You want to say that you would definitely clean the sheets and have some spare sheets, because even though that sort of answer seems overly obvious, there’s probably no such thing as being overly obvious when filling out a form that will be sent to a government agency . But you have four inches of black line to do this in, so you have to find just a few words to answer all that.

We’re nervous, and of course planning on spending Sunday scrubbing our house down and hiding our liquor and pornography.

And I’m finally, after two months of being waylaid by it, finishing Chapter 3 of the novel. It’s turned out to be quite a good one, but a bugger to write, with a sermon and two flashbacks, balancing action with exposition. There’s nothing like the feeling for a writer when your characters surprise you. Must be a bit like being a dad.