WANTED: Three Pieces of I.D. And Your Right Kidney

You know what I love about the DMV? I mean, besides the way their camera makes a completely normal law-abiding citizen look like a career felon. I like the way they put everyone on a level playing field. A business man in a three-piece suit, a gangly first-time teenage driver, a middle-aged mom that can't find her driver's license anywhere even though she's checked every coat pocket, every purse, under every car seat, and the dryer after every load for weeks on end. We are all at the hands of a few individuals armed with the power of rules we had no hand in making and have no ability to alter. Rules that require us to dig through dark corners of the closet and sift through years of memorabilia looking for long-lost, crumpled documents. Like, your birth certificate to prove you're a legal citizen, your social security card to cross-check that you don't have outstanding child support payments, and your marriage license to prove that your name legally changed. No, your social security card doesn't do that, at least not according to the DMV. My favorite is needing a bill in your name with your home residence on it, but without a P.O. Box listed. Somehow having a P.O. Box on the envelope along with your home address voids the place you actually live. That is, unless your homeless. In which case, as the Oregon DMV website puts it, you can use a desciptive address such as, (and I quote) "under the west end of the Burnside Bridge".

Yep. The rest of us must dig through boxes and bills to find something that comes directly to our house and not to a P.O. Box, but if you mention that you're homeless, well, just a vague corner of the city will work just fine too. So much for that even playing field, huh? I bet their pictures turn out looking like glamour shots, too.

Wonder Wheel

You'll have to excuse the tardiness of our well wishes. I've been trying to get this video posted for the last two weeks, but the first time I finished it I realized it was way too big to post on blogger and had to start over using a different format. So finally, here it is. . . . The Year 2008: A Review in Pictures. The song I used is Wonder Wheel by Dan Zanes from the For The Kids album. The first time I heard it I knew it was the perfect anthem to the crazy ups and downs of our life.

so begins another day
crazy stops along the way
think of funny things to say
and ride the wonder wheel

going round and around,
it takes us up and it takes us down
i love the sights and i love the sounds
riding on the wonder wheel

So here's to another year, folks. May it be even better than the last and may it always be filled with wonder.

The Winds of Change

Okay, so I didn't get around to writing the same night - I spent it skipping through the eight hours of inauguration footage I had recorded on the DVR and basking in the glow of the new First Family. And rest assured that that glow has kept me walking on air the entire week. Watching and celebrating as Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States has been the perfect cure to my winter blues. Its like opening the windows on a brilliantly sunny winter day and letting a crisp, cool breeze blow all that old stagnant air out of the house. I imagine the Obamas doing the same thing in the White House. Letting that energy that always seems to surround their family flow through and recharge that place like it has recharged the country.

I read somewhere this week that the curtains are usually changed along with a change in the administration. At first I thought this seemed like an unecessary extravagance given the current economic situation, but then I thought about it some more and realized that a light dusting and a spray of Febreeze just isn't gonna cut the smell of Bush. The curtains had to go. . . . . . and maybe the carpet too. And anyone know a good exterminator? Actually, we might be okay there. I heard all the rats and roaches were headed off somewhere towards Texas.

A Moment In History

I'm currently holed up in the server room at my office listening online to CNNradio.com to hear as Barack Obama becomes our 44th president. I'm visibly jittering in my chair. At least I think that's why the letters on my laptop screen won't sit still. I can't remember the last time I've been this excited. I want to write more, but I have to listen now. . . . only 15 more minutes. More later tonight after Adam and I watch it together on TV!

I Made It Through December. . .

A Continuation. . . . .

I have so much to tell you about, like all the details of my "hen party" in Seattle with two of my best friends where we shopped at our leisure for silly magnets, cheap sunglasses and the perfect pair of jeans. Where we slept in beds with down matresses and ate Italian food so good I completely forgot that Kraft existed (If you're ever in Seattle you must stop at Tulio's downtown and order anything with their homemade ricotta cheese. It was lighter and fluffier than the down mattress at the W hotel. An absolute taste of heaven). And when we awoke from our peaceful childless slumber late the next morning a light dusting of snow had the city looking Christmas-card perfect. But that bit of snow was just the beginning of what was about to hit our usually rain-soaked Northwest. Just the beginning of two weeks of clausterphobic, snow-falling, car-spinning, ice-crunching hell.


A further continuation. . . . .

As my train from Seattle got further and further south the snow got heavier and heavier and by the time we reached the station the temperature had dropped considerably and there were several inches of snow on the ground. Chains (put on expertly and graciously by my friend's husband as I sat in their warm truck and watched the the wind blow snow in his face. I still owe you one Dan!) got me home that night. The next week (as most of you know) was like a game of Russian roulette on whether or not work/school would be open or if you'd even be able to get out of your driveway. Through it all my little Mazda sedan was a champ. And with the help of those chains, which didn't leave our tires for almost two weeks, it got us where we needed to go. . . until the day I absolutely, positively, no questions asked, HAD to be at work. That is the day our chains decided to give out.

Almost 18" of snow creates some casualties and the roof on the warehouse of the company I work for was one of them. A conference call on Christmas Eve sent a group of us into action and my boss's boss on a flight up here on Christmas Day. And when your boss's boss flys on Christmas Day to help you out (the next day) it really doesn't matter if there is still 8" of snow and ice on your street, your chains are lying broken in the driveway and two tow truck companies refuse you their services, you MUST still get to work. And so with this gumption, this fear of the unemployment line and a rusty ol' garden shovel I dug a path through snow and ice for our chainless tires to follow from our driveway to the already available ruts in the middle of our street. And again I dug a few feet down our street. And again at the end our street. With frosty, frustrated, snow-hating tears running down my face and two kids murdering each other in the backseat of an overheated car, I was determined to get to the (finally) plowed highway.

We finally made it, about the same time the sun rose, only to realize the road to the daycare was just as bad as our neighborhood. Now we were a whole new kind of stuck. It was a clear road to work, but we had the kids in the backseat with no way to get to daycare and no way to get back home - at least not without a lot more digging. There was really only one choice. My dear husband took one for the team. I dropped him and our two bundled kids off at the edge of our neighborhood and took off for work - an hour and a half late - and he slipped and tripped his way back to our house with both kids in tow. I'd say I owe him for that but I'm still so far ahead on favors nobody's even counting anymore.


And in conclusion. . . .

And somewhere smashed in between multiple spin-outs on major highways and breaking inch-thick ice in our backyard so our dog could take a crap without breaking a hip, Christmas came and went. I have a vague memory of it, smiling faces digging through stockings and a hideous Christmas dinner at Shari's restaurant (that's a whole other story for a later time), but mostly I just wanted it all to be over. The snow, the ice, the tinsel, the fir needles. . . . . December. I wanted it out the door. And so my shouts of jubilation on New Year's Eve were not so much an expression of joy for the possibilities of the new year, but for the thankful deliverance from the last. . . . and of course that third glass of red wine.