Happy Wedding Day - More Wedding Pics if You Can Stand It

No 2008 year-end blog would be complete for me without more wedding pictures. Here are a few of my favorites. For those of you not totally sick of seeing my wedding pictures, our photographer's favorites can be seen at geniceandron.weddingherald.com.

4 Year Anniversary of My Blind Date with a Baby

Today marks the four year anniversary of my adoption trip to Kazakhstan. I've posted pictures to commemorate Jiana's and my very first meeting on December 30, 2004. The hours leading up to our introduction were groggy, anxious ones for me, having not slept much on the red eye from London. I had so much invested in the process... months of anticipation and nightly prays that this child would be healthy, undamaged and motherhood would be all I had dreamed. Driving through rural Kazakhstan (1.5 hours outside Almaty) enroute to the baby house, I was numb to the gravity of the adventure... stiffling any ambivilence I had about the beautiful, but not smiling baby I had travelled thousands of miles for. It was an odd state of presence.... traveling into the unknown, with only the assurance that my life would soon be forever altered.

Upon arriving at the baby house, I was interrogated by an regional official about my motives for adoption (how old was I?, why was I still single?, etc). I apparently passed the test and a caretaker quickly brought Jiana in to me.

Anxiety dissappated within moments of meeting her and we start to bond as mother and daughter.

The adoption went smoothly. Jiana came to stay with me at the apartment on January 4th and we completed the adoption and were heading home by January 23. It was an atypically fast and efficient process (at the time, most families were spending 6 weeks in Kazakhstan).

Fast forward to today... Jiana is very mommy attached and we are madly in love with one another. Our personalities work well together and we share a wacky sense of humor. I couldn't imagine having any other daughter and every day I feel so blessed that things worked out so well. Traveling to Kazakhstan for her was the single best decision of my life. (Closely followed by my decision to marry Ron.) And as for the smiling, she hasn't stopped since we returned home.

My full blog can be found online at www.tangodiva.com. Search under Kazakhstan Baby Diary.

Not Taking Anything For Granted

Last November.... Following one of my early wedding planning anxiety attacks, I called my good friend Gigi in Austin for some consolation. The instant I heard her voice, I could tell that something was very wrong and redirected the conversation. Gigi told me that a doctor's visit to address a persistent pain had turned up advanced cancer in her liver. In that moment, my world was shook from trivial to profound. I had been around cancer enough from my ACS days to know that liver cancer was one of the worst to be diagnosis with. My heart was sunk by the thoughts of potentially losing one of my best friends and how devastating the loss would be to her six year old daughter, husband and mother (Gigi is her only child). How could this be happening?

Over the next few weeks, this bride-to-be walked around in a heartbroken funk. Before Gigi's revelation, my bridal wimsy had already been tempered by news of my friend Carol's cancer reoccurrence and the painful drama of another friend's unexpected divorce with two small children. It was devastating enough to think Gigi might not make the wedding, but incomprehensible to consider that she make not be with us in 6 months.

With Gigi's ok, I called several of our grad school mutual friends (UT Dept. of Advertising) to let them know what's up. Together shocked and saddened, we came up with the only remedy we could. We would all convene in Austin for a long talked about reunion as soon as possible.

In the coming weeks, we learned that Gigi did not have liver cancer after all, but instead had an aggressive form of Lymphoma residing in her liver. This was a huge relief --- this meant it was treatable with reasonably odds. Over the next 4 months, I closely followed Gigi's cancer odyssey through the blog she started... She gave very frank, tender and often funny accounts with her bouts of chemo, hair loss, wigs and other cancer misadventures. I checked for new posts daily and found comfort in her positive outlook and good humor. Her trials and grace in the face of them grounded me as I agonized over the most trivial of bridal concerns.

By April, Gigi was finished with her cancer treatment and her prognosis was good. Margaret, Eileen, Trina, Chris and I travelled to Austin (from Knoxville, suburban NJ, Boise, NYC and Oakland respectively) for a weekend with Gigi, Sherry and Michelle who all live there. By happy coincidence, Margaret, Eileen, Trina, Sherry and I all have 4 year olds in toe. With Gigi's Emma, it made for a great 4th birthday party for Jiana, whose day happen to fall the weekend we settled on. Just hours before the party, an unexpected storm took our perfect weather and the party was moved from the park to Gigi's living room. Some professors and faculty from the Advertising department joined in the fun. Marye Tharp surprised the kids by bringing along her pet paraquets.

By summer, Gigi's Dr's had declared her cancer free and she and husband David were there to dance and celebrate at our wedding. I whispered to her that her presence that day was my greatest gift.

BFF

Ron's mom and mine meeting for the first time two days before the wedding (at our house). They immediately found common ground for bonding-- medications and how impossible it was to find a dress for the wedding.

Stephanie, Ron's sister ran up to me and said our moms are BFF. Danielle translated this to me as "Best Friends Forever".

A Husband Who Cooks

Ron loves to cook. He reads cookbooks in French for fun. I don't get it as I'm not that crazy about cooking. It's not an ability thing, I just prefer not to. When Ron's out of town, Jiana and I go out for burritos. My husband cooks dinner just about every night and when all the kids are with us, he'll make multiple meals on weekends. While most are masterpieces, one time he tried to make Foie Gra- an expensive experiment that didn't turn out. More often than not, his creations are amazing. My girlfriends are jealous and several have asked to be his su chef. We both love to eat and appreciate good wine... Thankfully my husband is as neurotic as I am about keeping weight in check or we'd be totally out of control.

My Cat

Jupiter was MY CAT LONG BEFORE I had Jiana and Ron, Danielle and Jonah came into our lives. We were so close and he loved me enough to tolerate my treating him as a surrogate baby. Now Jonah and Jiana both proudly refer to Jupiter as "My Cat". As if it wasn't bad enough that I have to share my See's candy, my Tibetan Singing Bowl and my computer; now I have to share my cat.

Mother of the flower girl and daughter of the bride

I was certain that very my mommy-attached daughter was going to insist on giving me away. I had my heart set on giving myself away. It seemed most fitting for a first time bride of 44. Dad and mom were cool with this. Our rehearsal was primarily purposed to sell Jiana on the idea of being escorted by Jonah. She eventually relented, they were cute enough to upstage me and I had my perfect moment.

Glowing Bride

I just love this picture of me. I'm glowing and looking victorious. After 400 or something dates over the course of almost three decades, I was finally marrying 'the one."

Making GAK

During those rare moments that I wasn't planning the big day, this is how I spent my summer vacation. Left to their own devices, I've learned that the kids will disassemble the house, track in dirt and otherwise create a mess. I have a choice... I can follow them around the house and clean up after then or I can come up with creative outlets.

Doing Everything Backwards

As legend has it, "boy meets girl... falls in love and marries girl", they court, travel around the world together, pursue their careers, a few years later, they have or adopt a baby, they purchase a home, a couple years after that, they have or adopt another baby and either live happily ever after or get divorced.

I did everything backwards.

I bought my house and started a business on my own. Then I adopted a baby and brought her home from Kazakhstan. Nine months later, I met my husband. We moved in together. Travelled together with baby Jiana and Danielle and Jonah, his two kids from his previous marriage. Kids fight like siblings in backseat of car. Parent cling together for dear life and bond over craziness of traveling with kids. Then we bought a house together and 14 months later we got engaged and married 10 months after that. Then we travelled alone together.

The benefit of doing things this way is you really get to kick the tires on the relationship. You can't dwell too much on your fantasies of how great it's going to be when you are drowning in dishes and laundry and kids who would rather take things out then put them away.

New Day... New Life

After a million years of being single, I woke up one morning and found myself happily married with three kids. No more denial, I was a full fledged grown up. A lot has changed. In a instant, my days of trampsing around the developing world, peacefully shopping for crafts and existential breath work retreats were replaced with practical vacations, dinners on plates (as opposed to Burrito wrappers) and more laundry than I'd wish on anyone.

I don't miss single life, but do miss my adventurous alter ego. Aside from our honeymoon in Peru, all our vacations over the past three years have involved taking three kids to practical destinations (a cruise, Rosarita Beach, MX, D.C., Austin). Ron is an easy traveler and one of the most low maintenance people I've ever met. Our kids mostly aren't... 90+ temps, snow, too much walking or a bad sunburn will prompt enough wining that you wish someone would bring in a chalk board and start scratching.

I sometimes dream of packing up the crew and taking them somewhere really cool like Vietnam, Bhutan or Morocco or for a few weeks of humanitarian work vacation to somewhere like Rwanda. But, I wake up to the shear cost of traveling with five and visions of complaining children and risks of illness.

For now, I'll choose to be satisfied with annual trips to sort of interesting, reasonable places and enjoy our much loved new home... while Ron and I work on our exit plan to sell our dream house and retire in Europe in about 10 years. Ron has just about collected all the papers needed for him and the kids to qualify for joint US/German citizenship, which means we could eventually work and live anywhere in the EU. I'm cool with that.


Pictured above: Skiing in Lake Tahoe just before my ACL injury ' 05, Rosarita Beach '06, NYC '06, Dubrovnik, Croatia, '03, Skydiving over Monterey Bay '02, French Rivera '94, Annapurna Trek, Nepal '99, Mt. Sinai, Egypt '00, Osaka, Japan '87.

Existential Angst - What To Be When I Grow Up?

As I was compulsively planning our wedding this time last year, it struck me that I was about to cross off the last major item on my long standing to do list. Adorable daughter... check. lucrative, flexible self-employment... check, dream house... check... finding a wonderful man to marry... BINGO... more kids... done. While others might find peace in this, my goal oriented alter ego found the lack of a road map unsettling. To make matters worse, I was working out regularly and dangerously close to my target weight.

While always grateful for my blessings, my eternal question kept coming up.... what's next? My life matched my design, but I still had a sinking feeling that somewhere on the path I'd gotten off track.

I've always had a burning desire to help the oppressed. A good chunk of my pre-Ron and kids life was spent working for and volunteering with a slew of worthy causes. But, I got disalusioned a decade ago and left full-time nonprofit for a career as a headhunter in high tech. I had enjoyed nonprofit work, but detested the "this is the way we always do things mentality" and I didn't feel like I was making enough of an impact. The last few years, I was mainly focused on raising Jiana and earning a living. I met Ron and was distracted by some personal challenges, namely a landslide and knee surgery. We began the process of blending a family. I spent less time volunteering. Now I found myself feeling out of integrity with my true life purpose. This was a mid-life crisis in the making.

I considered all sorts of radical career changes which would enable me to work in the helping field. But, realized it's impractical for me to go back to school full-time to train for a career where I would make half as much working more than I do now. I wish I was the type of person to be satisfied with that rationalization or embrace that I making enough of a difference as a mother, stepmother, wife, donor and active citizen to feel reconciled. But, I'm not and I can't. At the same time, of course, I get that I really do make a different as Jiana's mommy and for Ron and the kids and friends and family. And that I'm inspiring to some and all that. But, I still want to dive in and do more and start being on the front lines of solving global problems.

I've come to the conclusion that my real passion is to work on poverty alleviation in the developing world and in microfinance in particular. Only problem is that I have no desire to live full-time in the developing world. It only took one trip to Nepal to quelsh that fantasy. And as I recall, even living in Japan had it's hardships.

Over the past year, as I was obsessing over wedding details, I've also been searching for some international projects to support. I started in the most obvious place, seeking out projects in Kazakhstan. But, haven't been able to make the right connections there and my lack of Russian language abilities is a prob. Through Pulsewire.net, an internet community for global activists, I've had more luck connecting with projects in Africa and in Rwanda in particular. I've become friends with Anne-Christine D'Adesky, a well-known journalist and international AIDS activist living San Francisco who runs an NGO and orphanage in Rwanda. While I'm less clear on how I am going to take on projects in Africa or where ever with a little one in tow and a husband I actually want to spend time with and limited opportunity to take off and travel, I think I may have stumbled back onto the right path. Just made lunch plans with Anne-Christine for the day after xmas.

So What's My Name Now?

I never planned on changing my name when I married. By never, I mean this is something I decided around age 20. I had many reasons... for starters I'm an only child of an only child (my dad) and my father's father was the only son. So I was and now Jiana is the last of the Jacobs' in our line. While Jacobs isn't an uncommon name, there is something about having it die with you that's a little unsettling. I've also always considered it inequitable that women were expected to change there names and men weren't. There is also the whole thing about losing your identity, and the concern that a long lost friend wouldn't find me if I abandon my sir name. For better or worst, my name is tied to my identity and I'm attached to it. Even though in my not so active Buddhist practice, I strive mostly to detach from identity. But, that's a whole tangent for a future post.

So now I find myself a REALLY married women in my mid 40s (as opposed to a 20 year old imaging what it would be like to be married). At this juncture, I'm thinking differently. While I like the sound of my name, Genice Jacobs, I retain little nostalgia for my family of origin. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents tremendously. It was just our little triad of a family that I'm over. The Jacobs family is fragmented. Since their divorce 10 years back, my parents no longer speak to one another and there is just the four of us (the triad + Jiana) sharing the name for legal purposes. What's more, I adore my husband and our family is blended with way too many variants of last names. Ronald Edward Simenauer, Danielle Marie Leppert-Simenauer (w/ hyphen), Jonah Elias Leppert Simenauer (no hyphen), Jiana Hilda Jacobs and me with no middle name. So I got to thinking that if I added Simenauer to my name for social purposes and later changed Jiana's name legally to Jacobs-Simenauer it would add a bit more symmetry to our crew without forcing me to get a new passport or change the deed to the house. At the same time, Jiana could choose to carry Jacobs into her married name and keep it going. (not that I want to lay that trip on her.) Or she could become Jacobs-Simenauer-whatever.... We almost need to move to Mexico where long family names are the norm.

All this begs the question of how should you address our holiday cards. While, I haven't cleared this with Ron, I can trust that my progressive, easy going husband won't have any issue with any of the following.

The Jacobs Simenauers
Jacobs Simenauer family
Ron and Genice Jacobs Simenauer
or the ever popular Ronald Simenauer, Genice Jacobs Simenauer, Danielle Leppert-Simenauer, Jonah Leppert Simenauer, and Jiana Jacobs-Simenauer
Note to mom: if you feel absolutely compelled.... Dr. and Mrs. Ronald E. Simenauer will be ok too.

Please just remember that since my name will legally remain Genice Jacobs, all personal checks and inclusions in wills should be listed as such. So there you have it.

Launch

There is simply no good place to begin. My story is long with many twists and turns and there is too much to say about it. So I'm not going to start this blog in any logical order or even introduce myself. I'm assuming that most of my readers will have a offline relationship with me and will have their own take of me and my story. For anyone who stumbles upon this who doesn't know me, we'll meet here and you'll get to know me in a more organic way as you would in the real world.

This blog has no particular theme and I'm starting it without a spectacular mission. For starters, it will be a good place to host my annual "state of my world" letter. From there I'll likely branch out into various musings on global, political or social issues, ponderings of my belly button and funny antidotes. Hope you come to find it worth the read, or that it at least raises our relationship up one notch on the intimacy scale.