Fun and Games Dept

We are settling into eating dinner as a family on the gazebo. We are lucky to have such wonderful chefs in the kitchen. Some of us help out by setting the table and cleaning up.

The sunsets from our back yard take my breath away.

So amongst our errands for the day we had appointments at the ADOT Motor Vehicles Division office on the east side of Tucson. I’m always fascinated with Motor Vehicles offices such as these, so I was excited to see how the fine folks of Arizona handled things like issuing Driver Licenses and Motor Vehicle Registration.

A good deal of the paperwork can be completed online in their well designed web portal. This is where I took the opportunity to schedule appointments for our transactions. Surprisingly, the office was not particularly busy, so we breezed right through without an issue.

The friendly man at the front desk took our photos and engaged in pleasant chit chat. This is completely backward from anything I’ve experienced before; in both New York and Illinois they didn’t take your photo until you’ve been approved and you’ve paid your fees. Once we accomplished this, we were off to the desks, where we waiting in line for a few moments and then stepped forward when beckoned by the smiling faces behind the plexiglass. Earl took care of his license and the car registration; I just to take care of my license. No tests, not even an eye test this time. Show plenty of identification to prove who I am (I used my passport, my Illinois license, the official “change of address” mail from the USPS, and my Private Pilot Certificate). Answer some questions, get all of your documentation scanned, and off we go after $25.00. I received a temporary license.

Earl did the same, with differences in the paperwork, and then he quickly completed his car registration transaction. The only difference in this process is in Phoenix and Tucson you need to get an emissions test before you register your car. This seems a little out of order to me, but we accomplished this easily this past Saturday. I had seen the information on the website so that’s what probably kept the whole process simple.

We have a waterproof paper temporary license plate on the back of the car and for the first time in our car’s life it no longer has a front license plate bracket. ADOT issues random characters for license plate numbers now, hence the reason they send the license plate to you in the mail.

There are certain amount of feeling settled once you get all of your motor vehicle requirements registered to your new home state. I’m excited to no longer be driving around the area on Illinois plates. We probably still act like snowbirds but we no longer look the part.

We are officially in Tucson. The drive was not bad today, the house is beautiful, there is much to do, and I’m off to bed. Time changes and all that..

We are about six hours from our new home, stationed in a Ramada in Albuquerque, N.M. I wasn’t expecting to drive through snow squalls, but we ran into two snow squalls between Tucumcari and Albuquerque. Um, this is the desert.

Overall the drive is going well. Truman has settled into a routine and takes naps. I follow road signs. Earl converses with us both and plays with his phone. It’s quite routine but still enjoyable.

I can’t believe it’s been nearly eight years since this song’s release. The second single from the album “A”, by Agnetha Fältskog (the first ‘A’ in ABBA), “I Should Have Followed You Home” was a duet with former Take That singer Gary Barlow. Both Gary and Agnetha are so classy, and this live performance still brings me to tears all the years later. Beautiful people, beautiful music.

I had a mini meltdown on social media today. After doom scrolling through too many successive posts of glee around receiving COVID-19 shots I decided I had enough and decided to vent. I don’t understand how this is working, I don’t understand why young people apparently healthy enough to go out partying for St. Patrick’s Day are getting vaccinated when the rules are something like 65 and older for us in Chicago right now. I read about people coming from Iowa and Wisconsin and Indiana getting vaccinated because it’s easier. I’m told to hang out around the back door of certain Walgreens locations to maybe get injected with some Moderna or Pfizer scraps that weren’t claimed during the day.

This is how the “greatest country on Earth” is vaccinated its citizens. By living The Hunger Games dreams, politicizing the event beyond any sort of reasonable thought processes, and people paying and/or lying to get to the front of the line.

I read that NASA found another meteor the size of three football fields. They always promise something big with meteors but it never happens. I don’t want an Extinction Level Event, I just want a meteor to come so close that is makes a lot of wind and dust and scares the shit our and some sense into the populace.

Front line workers, essential personnel, and our elderly should be at the front of the line. Full stop. Now the Instagram Influencer dude or chick making idiotic cash by talking about their COVID-19 vaccination experience online? Get in the back of the friggin’ bus.

Anyone that has had to deal with cancer. People keeping society moving. Doctors. Nurses. And all the people that support the medical profession. Teachers. All the folks in the public sector trying to keep our economy afloat. Vaccinate them. Don’t make them have to pledge their unborn children in a sacrifice to get a few drops of J&J from the back door of a CVS.

The Biden Administration is making up for a lot of lost time. I get that. But there should have been a federal system based on zip code and population. And stop dividing the public up into groups of “ones”, “phase 1A, 1B, 1C”, etc. We’re not all number one. For God’s sake, group one, group two, group three. I don’t need the ego boost.

I just want my husband to get vaccinated. I at least want to know when I’m going to be vaccinated.

And when it happens, I will NOT be broadcasting the event. Anywhere.

I still have my “band jacket” from my high school years. It’s a little snug 37 years later, but I can still button it up. I wouldn’t wear it in public, as one of the snaps might break loose, but I’ll gloat here on my blog.

It was 10ºF in Syracuse, New York when we departed our hotel this morning at 8:00 a.m. By the time we were west of Cleveland, Ohio and stopped for lunch, it was almost 50ºF and the forecasts on the various radio stations I was hopping around on indicated it could be nearly 70ºF tomorrow and Tuesday.

Spring has sprung?

I have a feeling this is fake spring and there will be another winter storm before Mother Nature gets her act together. But when we got home the Chicago forecast also indicated very spring-like weather this week, and that has me in a sunny mood.

We’ll be packing this last week of Standard Time for 2020-2021. At least we’ll have some warmer temperatures outside to make the task more pleasant.

In the meanwhile, a selfie from a Service Plaza on the Ohio Turnpike.

We took a walk around a local mall during our travels this weekend. Still concerned with COVID-19 and the behavior of society in general, we’ve been social distancing as best as we can, while wearing our masks whenever we’re out in public. But sometimes nature calls and the closest bathroom is in a mall.

I was very surprised to see how busy this mall was.

To be fair, everyone we saw, save for one person who looked confused in general, was wearing a mask in some way. Too many people weren’t doing it properly; if people are wearing condoms the way they’re wearing masks it’s no surprise how many accidental births we have in the country today. For the uninformed and/or confused: the mask goes over the nose and mouth. Covering just your chin (what the hell is that about?) or only your mouth is like putting the condom over the testicles instead of the penis.

I decided to word that in a way that isn’t as crude as it probably should be. Today’s finer American needs “crude” to understand concepts.

While we maintained plenty of distance from the mall patrons, I couldn’t help but feel very anxious and trapped as we made our way from finer fashions to the mall bathrooms. Folks still ignore signs on the floor that encourage social distancing. People congregate in packs. I said to my husband, “let’s get out of here”. So we did.

This particular mall has four anchor stores. Two of them are gone: JCPenney had departed and Macy’s was in its final days of a store closing sale.

I do believe the retail landscape has been changed forever.