Squirrels, Open Adoption, More Squirrels

On Wednesday morning, I was driving to work when I got a call from my roommate.  Apparently she had gone for a quick jaunt around the neighborhood and had forgotten to take her key with her.  I accidentally locked her out when I left for work.  Poor thing!  She sprinted to the gas station down the street and called me on the gas station owner's wife's cell phone.  To be politically correct, there was a huge language barrier between the two of them.  I can only imagine how that conversation played out.  But she was finally able to get a hold of me, and I immediately turned my all-wheel drive sleigh around.

So I headed back home, and I was coming in hot on the homestretch to my street.  Suddenly, a squirrel appeared out of nowhere and jumped directly in front of my car!  The squirrel was paralyzed in fear, and it couldn't decide which way to run.  And that's when I ran over it.  I didn't do it on purpose.  I did it because I couldn't stop in time, and ever since I first learned how to drive, my dad has burrowed it in my brain to never ever ever ever swerve for an animal because you're more likely to get in an accident by trying to avoid the animal than by just running it over.  With my dad's words playing in my head, I cringed as I heard the thump.  Much to my surprise, as I glanced in my rear-view mirror, I didn't see any roadkill.  There was no squirrel in sight.  It was the strangest thing!  I continued on my way, hurriedly unlocked the door for my rooms and I bolted to work. 

Then, later that evening, I had the amazing opportunity to be a special guest on MomTV's Adoption Angles web-show, and aside from a few kinks here and there (and a crazzzzzzy distracting echo in my ear at the beginning), I think things went pretty well...until the very end.  After the webshow was over, Melissa "signed-off" and I figured that meant my video was shut off too. My cell phone rang, and I saw that it was my roommate.  I answered it and I'm pretty sure I updated her on the squirrel scenario from earlier that day.  I think I said something along the lines of, "I cannot believe that squirrel today!" and "I hit it and it just disappeared!  I think I killed it, but I don't know.  There was no roadkill, isn't that strange?"  Then I received an instant message from one of the show's viewers who informed me that my video feed was actually still live and my personal call with my roommate was in fact being broadcast over the Internet.  So there's that. 

Just another day in the life of Amstel!  
Here's a recording of the show if you happened to miss out on my debut of Guinea-pig awkwardness:





Speaking of open adoption...
Here is one of the first pictures I took with De after babe was born.

And here we are almost five years later!