Monday March 14, 2016

Been a long time…So how’s it going?

So it’s been almost 10 years to the day since you last heard from us, and guess what? We’ve decided to head back to China! You know, just for the heck of it.

Well, just for the heck of it and it seemed as good a time as any to bring the three amazing Congiusta kids back to the land of their birth now that they are of age to appreciate such things. It’s something that Dorothy and I (oh, I’m Mark by the way, you might remember me from such adoption diaries as Aelex’s, Matthew’s, and Olivia’s) have always wanted to do, and hey, what better time than the present to start checking those items off our bucket list since the current US Presidential race is surely the final sign of the coming apocalypse? Might as well take care of these things before President Trump puts us all in the Trump™ Salt Mines to work off the national debt. Yay democracy! Or should I say “Trumpocracy™”!

So anyway, bringing our children back to see where they came from… This is hugely important to Dorothy and I. We try as best we can to keep our kids invested in, and aware of, their origins and heritage. While fancy book learning and the moving pictures on the TV are certainly valid methods of sharing such knowledge, there’s nothing like some good old fashioned cultural immersion. Tell me and I forget, show me and I might not forget as quickly, post it on Facebook and no one gives a crap, but take me to China and drop me in the midst of a few billion other Chinese and that’s something I’ll never, ever forget (pretty sure I paraphrased that correctly).

So off we go for the next 3 weeks or so to see the sights, visit each of the kids’ hometowns and orphanages, and see what other hijinks we can get up to on the other side of the globe. Stay close folks, who knows where we’re going to wind up…

So, what have we accomplished so far?

Not a damn thing.

Well, as long as you don’t consider a 24 hour door to door journey as much of “anything”. Because other than that, it’s been pretty tame on our end of things.

Early morning trip to the airport. Flight from RDU to Detroit (might as well pass through at least one third world locale on our trip). Brief layover and consumption of bland airport Soylent before boarding the 14½ hour metal tube of agony for our trip to Beijing. You know, usual stuff.

So far the kids have been troopers. And I will say, that as much as I am generally ambivalent about our societal acceptance of attention sucking internet enabled devices turning the brains of our children into mush, as long as those mushy brains remain glued to the screen and aren’t breaking my balls on day long airplane trips, I can make peace with the inevitable dystopian future ruled by a generation of zombified, tapioca-brained vegetables. Live in the now I always say.

Oh, one piece of extraordinary news for you all: BEER AND WINE ARE NOW COMPLIMENTARY ON ALL TRANSPACIFIC DELTA FLIGHTS! This is tremendous news as far as I am concerned, right up there with man walking on the moon, and Trump™ University still being in business. These are truly amazing time in which we live.

Well, that’s all for now. We land in Beijing in about 8 hours at which time it will be…some time in the future I’m guessing. I’m thinking in the general vicinity of a Tuesday? I’m sure we’ll be all the worse for wear, but certainly more than a little bit excited. Stay tuned, and see you in the People’s Daily funny papers.

Getting our money’s worth in complimentary airline booze…