Oh, Such a Day!

Life has begun settling down a bit, now that the girls have returned to school and we have decided to stay put in our hotel.  But abnormal is still the normal within our family.  Dave doesn't really need to go into work until Monday, and we have an amazing amount of shopping to do to make our hotel room feel more like an apartment.

Lilly and Sophia enjoyed their first day of school yesterday with very little drama.  I get the impression that Lilly is already happier than she ever was in Caracas, which may reflect as sad but certainly speaks well to the coming year.

But today's story isn't just about where we are.  We've had some crazy days lately, but Monday takes the cake and I simply had to record that story.

We spent the weekend shopping and churching and trying to settle in a bit to the new place.  And with the start of business again on Monday, we scheduled the day.
10:00 - register for school
11:30 - TB tests from our family practitioner
12:30 - drop the girls with a friend and buy a car
5:00 - back home for a nutritious dinner

As always happens with our family, we began late.  We walked out the door at 10:30 and headed straight to the school.  Columbus Day was a perfect day for registration because the staff were at their desks but the students were at home enjoying the holiday with their parents.  We brought all of the appropriate paperwork and all of our completed forms.  I walked in nervous that they would change their minds and not actually allow my kids to register, but we breezed through, fully prepared.  We peeked at class lists and chatted with the nurse and sent the kids out to play on the playground while I filled out some extra paperwork.  And then the registrar says to me, I got in a fight about you last week.

I figured she was joking and took it lightly.  She wasn't joking.  Apparently the school social worker doesn't think that we're homeless and wants to call us to get to the bottom of this.  I was floored, and could physically feel my tension level soar through the roof.  Of all people - the social worker is the one who wants to put a stop to this?

Allow me to step on my soapbox for a minute.  I've been joking about homelessness and how I feel like we're sliding into school on a loophole.  Here's the honest truth - we are absolutely homeless, and not being poor does not change that fact.  We are absolutely living in a hotel without the immediate means to live somewhere else.  And our children absolutely need the stability of returning to their home school as soon as possible. That our bank account is not empty does not change any of those truths.

We left the school under instructions to call the social worker.  I clipped her phone number neatly inside a packet of papers and went out to gather the kids.

Everyone tumbled into the car and we made it to the doctor's office just in time, where each child was unpleasantly surprised with a prick to their arm that will show by tomorrow morning whether or not they have tuberculosis.  We all made our greetings with the doctor as well, and then tumbled back in the car to head over to Kristen's where our girls would play with her boys all afternoon.  I spewed a bit of my tension at her and then we raced out to get stuff done.

Dave and I headed for lunch first, because my tension level was only rising and I was seeing red.  I couldn't discuss this without emotion entering my voice - honestly, I still can't.  We sat at lunch to talk it over, and that only served to heighten how upset I was.  So, Dave changed the subject to talk about the rest of our stuff.  We decided to sell the red chair, and needed to follow up on that sale.

For those of you who don't know, the Red Chair belongs in capital letters because it is an emblematic part of our family.  People have prayed for the Red Chair.  We have taken a picture of each of our children on each of their birthdays in the Red Chair.  We have also snuggled our kids and read countless stories and nursed sleepy babies and rocked feverish children in that chair.  It is the only piece of furniture we have had everywhere we have lived.  Possibly the only thing.

But as it is a piece of furniture, we can not have it sent to us in DC.  We are here only temporarily, and so the State Department will ship our furniture directly to Indonesia for us.  We will see most of our things in about a year.  When we realized this, we looked to see if we could replace the chair with an exact replica.  We could.  A new chair means having the Red Chair in our current home, leaving no gaps in the Red Chair photos.

Trouble was, neither of us had begun the process of selling the chair.  That is, we hadn't mentioned it to any of the people who might be interested.  And as we were sitting at the table, we realized that our best buyers were probably at our house at that moment, moving out the furniture they had already bought.  Overwhelmed by the feeling that I had probably missed my window, I pulled out my phone to send a last ditch email.  As I did, I received a message from Jesse, the friend in charge of our sale - Just sold your chair.  Can I sell the freezer, too?

This is when I cried.

I can't even explain to you exactly why I cried.  It must have just been everything - the possibility that my kids couldn't start school the next day;  the stress of not being able to sell the Red Chair coupled with the clear knowledge that we are blessed these days;  and the fact that my Red Chair was gone.

After lunch we bought a car.  I don't love this car, which is crummy.  We are strongly advised to buy a car when we arrive in Indonesia rather than taking one with us.  Buying a car for only 9 months is only fiscally responsible if you buy a car that has already lost most of its value - so we have a kind of stinky, little bit beat up Toyota Sienna for a good price and an exhausting afternoon.  By 5:30 when we were still completing paperwork in the dingy old offices of the used car dealer, I had a headache and couldn't focus on anything.  I left Dave to finish the purchase and went to pick up the kids from Kristen's house.

And after such a horrible day, we had blessings heaped upon us.  Kristen has 3 boys and a 900 square foot house.  She took all three of our girls and fed them both lunch and supper, carved pumpkins with all 6 children and gave them all a fabulous day - after having nursed on the night shift the night before.  Kristen is amazing, and getting a hug from such a good friend after such an emotional day normalizes everything.  We are in a good place.  Everything is going to be fine.

Soon after I got the girls home, I got a message from Esther.  We are downstairs with supper.  Can you come down?  We just met Esther and her family at church on the day before.  They are new to the area and her daughter became fast friends with Lilly in Sunday School.  She brought over a pot of chili, salad and cut veggies, and a bright and cheerful mum to set on the table.  Esther is amazing, and getting a hug from such a new friend after such an emotional day makes me realize how blessed we are.  We are in a great place.  Everything is going to be fine.

epilogue:  We were not home by 5:00 for a nutritious dinner, but that was covered by our friends on a different and better schedule.  Dave tried to call the school social worker and she didn't answer.  She never called us back.  We have done our duty and assume she is letting it go.  The Principal has allowed the children into the school and they are now in their second day of class.  Everything is going to be just fine.