Carmelamericano

My family tree has an invisible asterisks after the title itself, set there in an attempt to be honest of my faint origins while maintaining the dignity of respect for my adopted family.  I love my family, along with it's regular amount of drama and unsettling factoids.  The complications of explaining the family org chart is already un-simple, complete with half siblings, step parents, missing links and whatnot.  Toss in the adoption fact and watch your audience dwindle quickly while the faithful few try to un-spin their heads.  The entertainment value is certainly there, but usually the conversation simply concludes with the all-too familiar phrase.   "That's crazy!!!" To keep things straight, I wound up creating two family trees: one for my adopted family and another for my birth family.  As of last week, I still had no specific information about my mother other than her full name.  It was as if she had disappeared when she went to Oregon with my father, ne