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the adventure continues
Jun. 4th, 2008 09:49 pm.
My big concern was to get driver's licenses for us and license plates. I studied the driver's handbook until Cathy said I wouldn't have to take a test. Then I searched for documents. Social Security card, check. Birth certificate, no. Passport, no. Important papers were in the rolling file, which the movers emptied. With the crazy labeling system they used, who knew what box it might be in? I looked at pretty much every box in the house. I found our box cutter, which made things easier for a couple of hours before it vanished again.
Finally, I spotted my blue plastic box in the garage. It contained my passport, as I had hoped, and I took a bunch of forms to the DMV (once a week, there's a DMV in the basement of the municipal building in Pittsford), where they said the passport had expired. I'm still me, I said, to no avail. Home again. I couldn't get the cars registered because I had only brought my ID, and not Cathy's.
The following Saturday, we went to the DMV (this time to the monthly Saturday DMV at a mall in Greece) and got registrations and Cathy's license. I put NY plates on the cars and kept searching boxes. Finally, I found the box of hanging file folders, and there was a certified copy of my proof of birth in with the adoption papers for Sarah. So I'm licensed.
We also signed up at the YMCA, mostly in order to gain pool privileges. I printed out the schedule for the pool and circled the times for Family Swim. Sarah is in heaven over this.
We've gone out and done other things. We went to the Greek Festival on Sunday, and they had a bounce house (obstacle course type) and a big slide. Rather than buy a couple of $3 tickets, we splurged on the $12 wrist band for unlimited admissions, and within five minutes, we were ahead of the game. She must have gone through and down two dozen times at least. Cathy took Sarah to a ball game. There was some kind of stick horse deal where they got a stick horse and Sarah and I decorated it, and she took it to the game, where they were given a meal and a cowbell to ring (cue: video of Christopher Walken and another celebrity demanding more cowbell). Sadly, they came home without the horse -- horses were collected for judging, and when it was time to get them back, hers wasn't there.
We are on the trail of the horse. I think it's coming back.
Meanwhile, Sarah has friends: two girls roughly her age and a year-old boy across the street that she plays with daily; a brother and sister down the block; an eight-year-old girl on the other side of them. This is what we were hoping for when we scouted out the neighborhood -- all signs pointed to plenty of playmates, and so far, it's all working out. In fact, when we went to the Y this evening, we encountered Sonali and Ishan and their parents and grandfather, so we have actually run into friends at the pool! (wait -- make that "!!1!11!!MCXI!!")
I'm trying to get some work in here in my neat and comfy, yet box-filled, office room. The more Sarah goes out and plays, the more I can get done. This will help us pay off the credit cards from the move, and maybe pay for Sarah to go to day camp this summer, enabling more work which might make a new lawn mower possible, and a snow blower for when it gets cold. Oh, and spray those bleeding carpenter ants.
We've also seen a bunny or two, and a woodchuck or something in the back yard. Not a raccoon, though those seem to be around as well. Also deer, which we haven't seen yet, and whatever chewed the bark on the dwarf maple by the sun room. I'm guessing porcupine, but I hope I'm wrong.
.
My big concern was to get driver's licenses for us and license plates. I studied the driver's handbook until Cathy said I wouldn't have to take a test. Then I searched for documents. Social Security card, check. Birth certificate, no. Passport, no. Important papers were in the rolling file, which the movers emptied. With the crazy labeling system they used, who knew what box it might be in? I looked at pretty much every box in the house. I found our box cutter, which made things easier for a couple of hours before it vanished again.
Finally, I spotted my blue plastic box in the garage. It contained my passport, as I had hoped, and I took a bunch of forms to the DMV (once a week, there's a DMV in the basement of the municipal building in Pittsford), where they said the passport had expired. I'm still me, I said, to no avail. Home again. I couldn't get the cars registered because I had only brought my ID, and not Cathy's.
The following Saturday, we went to the DMV (this time to the monthly Saturday DMV at a mall in Greece) and got registrations and Cathy's license. I put NY plates on the cars and kept searching boxes. Finally, I found the box of hanging file folders, and there was a certified copy of my proof of birth in with the adoption papers for Sarah. So I'm licensed.
We also signed up at the YMCA, mostly in order to gain pool privileges. I printed out the schedule for the pool and circled the times for Family Swim. Sarah is in heaven over this.
We've gone out and done other things. We went to the Greek Festival on Sunday, and they had a bounce house (obstacle course type) and a big slide. Rather than buy a couple of $3 tickets, we splurged on the $12 wrist band for unlimited admissions, and within five minutes, we were ahead of the game. She must have gone through and down two dozen times at least. Cathy took Sarah to a ball game. There was some kind of stick horse deal where they got a stick horse and Sarah and I decorated it, and she took it to the game, where they were given a meal and a cowbell to ring (cue: video of Christopher Walken and another celebrity demanding more cowbell). Sadly, they came home without the horse -- horses were collected for judging, and when it was time to get them back, hers wasn't there.
We are on the trail of the horse. I think it's coming back.
Meanwhile, Sarah has friends: two girls roughly her age and a year-old boy across the street that she plays with daily; a brother and sister down the block; an eight-year-old girl on the other side of them. This is what we were hoping for when we scouted out the neighborhood -- all signs pointed to plenty of playmates, and so far, it's all working out. In fact, when we went to the Y this evening, we encountered Sonali and Ishan and their parents and grandfather, so we have actually run into friends at the pool! (wait -- make that "!!1!11!!MCXI!!")
I'm trying to get some work in here in my neat and comfy, yet box-filled, office room. The more Sarah goes out and plays, the more I can get done. This will help us pay off the credit cards from the move, and maybe pay for Sarah to go to day camp this summer, enabling more work which might make a new lawn mower possible, and a snow blower for when it gets cold. Oh, and spray those bleeding carpenter ants.
We've also seen a bunny or two, and a woodchuck or something in the back yard. Not a raccoon, though those seem to be around as well. Also deer, which we haven't seen yet, and whatever chewed the bark on the dwarf maple by the sun room. I'm guessing porcupine, but I hope I'm wrong.
.
