We could be....!

This is what I know so far: our possible consulate appointment dates are Tuesday, 9/22, Wednesday, 9/23, Tuesday, 9/29, and Wednesday, 9/30.

It was kinda funny. This morning I wrote an email to the agency - an epic email, complete with whingeing, begging, bargaining, reasoning... the works. Wordy Mom was being wordy. Then, a few minutes later, I got a response. It was an awfully quick response, barely long enough for my agent to read the whole thing. I was a little nervous - there was no way she could have answered aaaalllll my questions in that short time.

I opened it. It was a one-liner:

"Your TA just arrived. Call me."

EEEEK!

I called her. It turned out that I didn't have an actual appointment, just the promise of one, and I needed to pick a day. "Which day?" she asked me

"Okay... um... any day is good! As long as it's in September, I'm happy with whatever day!"

"Call me back this evening when I'm in the office and you've had time to choose a day."

"Great!"

I spoke to Husband'o'mine, and he was in agreement - any day at all was good. Oh, but it would be nice if he could attend school on the 10th and 11th, just to set his students up for the two weeks he'd be gone. But if we had to leave before the school year started, that was doable. Somehow.

I called her back at around 4:30. "Hi!" I said.

"Did you pick a day?" she asked.

"Well, my husband thought it would be good to leave on the 12th, so that he could attend the first two days of school."

This was apparently not the answer she was looking for. Incorrectly formatted, perhaps.

"He doesn't have to," I assured the agent. "Any day is good."

"The consulate appointment has to be on a Tuesday or Wednesday." Right. I knew that. The consulate appointment is at the end of the trip, but it's the starting point around which the rest of the trip is built. I was thinking of departure date, but China doesn't care when we get there.

"The 22nd and 23rd are a Tuesday and Wednesday!" I observed. "The 29th and 30th are also."

"Choose three possible days and I'll try to make the appointment," she said.

"That's four. Four is close to three," I pointed out.

The thing is, the day-to-day scheduling doesn't matter one bit to us. The only parts that matter are the few days before we leave and the few days after we get back. Those are the days when our real life intersects with our Chinese adventure. Once we're in China, it'll all be a wonderland of exotic locales and Mandarin-speaking masses and arriving at appointments in offices we've never been to before and can't find by ourselves.

Oh yeah, and getting to know our new son. Our firstborn. Our AwesomeCloud. As priorities go, everything else is icing and sprinkles.

It's kind of weird to be staring at a calendar and shouting out numbers from it, because none of the squares are distinctive in any way. The only significant part of the calendar is whether or not we have to flip ahead two pages. If we can get GuiGui in September, then the answer to any other question we're asked is, "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Throw a dart at the calendar! That's fine with me! As long as it hits September, I'll be flying high. Just lay it all out for me and then give me the directions.

My parents are coming on Friday. Perfect timing. I can walk them around the house and give them copious house-sitting instructions. I'll be wordy, as usual, I'm sure. They will probably demand that I leave notes. However, I'd like to point out that my long-windedness is a learned trait. :)