dmv with a difference

My first visit last week to a Florida DMV office was hellish, both in temperature and in customer service. The DMV is universally recognized as one of life's worst experiences—right up there with route canal—but this office could give the most sadistic dentist a run for his money. This completely disorganized place had folks lined up, trickling out of the building. Yes, outside, in Florida, in ninety degree plus heat. And that was at nine in the morning. Just imagine what it must be like as the line snakes longer, in the baked-in heat of a long afternoon. Not to mention that they are running first-time driver's tests in the same parking lot. Really smart.

 No

I had to wait in line for almost an hour before I could even say what I was there for, or get a number to  wait to be seen by someone. Almost an hour before being told I didn't have the correct paperwork. Some folks got to wait as long or longer to be told they were in the wrong office altogether. Apparently this office doesn't do car registrations, even though it's supposedly a DMV.

After coming from the land of forms to fill out, Washington, D.C., the paperwork required for a Florida license seemed a little heavy-handed, if you ask me. A potential Florida driver must show up with his/her social security card and/or current driver's license and/or U.S. passport, plus two proofs of residence, etc., etc. I guess the high amount of over-70 population coupled with the proximity to the edge of the country makes them a little more demanding or nervous. But as a civil servant I was more than a little surprised when they ignored or sneered at my federal government I.D. and D.C.  driver's license—D.C. uses a person's Social Security number as the driver's license number. But that's not good enough for Florida. But I tried to keep my cool as best as I could after standing outside in that heat, in that line, and gritted my teeth, shrugged and decided to return the following week with enough forms of ID to choke the disinterested clerk.

It was impossible to tell from their maddening website what services were offered by other Florida DMV offices not far away from this location, but I tossed the dice this morning and decided to try a different office—and what a difference. I walked across a shaded outdoor courtyard into an air-conditioned government building and was kindly directed by the security guards to the correct office. The smiling lady at the front desk immediately assessed my needs and gave me a number and asked me to take a seat and wait to be called. I pulled out my iPhone to settle in for some time-killing  web-surfing or solitaire, when a moment later I was called to window 4. The young woman who helped me was friendly and apologized for the wait as she processed my driver's license, registration, and temporary tags. After I posed for my photo she asked if I wanted to see it, and when I asked her if it looked OK she turned her computer screen to show me and said I had a very nice smile. I practically walked out of there whistling a happy tune with cartoon bluebirds tweeting around my ears.

 Yes

I much prefer this Twilight Zone DMV and I hope I never, ever have to go back to the other stupid, mean and naughty one. Ever.

Whistles . . .

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afternoon (de)light

I was thinking of all the different places I've lived this morning.

When you live in older houses or apartments you are coming into spaces lived in, loved in, by others. Do the former inhabitants leave traces? The only place I have lived so far that was "new" was a model home ranch house that my parents bought when I was ten. I think I will think more on this, blog further on this train of thought, in future.

But the image that popped into my head this morning was the memory of the afternoon light in my fourth floor railroad apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. No matter what was going on in my life at the time, just hanging out in that room in the afternoon was always a soothing and reinvigorating experience.

To all the rooms we've loved before . . .

is there an I Love Lucy reference for everything in life?

Just wondering. I know I bought the DVDs (for my daughter, really) and some episodes are fresh in my mind, but lately it seems like Lucy references are everywhere.

A friend posts some photos and video of adorable baby chicks and the episode where Lucy tries to raise chickens in the "country" (Connecticut) comes to mind.

There's a loud party going on upstairs and all I can think of is the "breaking the lease" episode end hope I don't end up wearing plaster like Fred and Ethel. I'm writing this late at night. I've been known to throw a loud party or two myself in a previous life, so can't get too annoyed. Ahhh...city life.

I've been spending part of my week off updating our genealogy on ancestry and scanning in some really old family photos and remembering Lucy's Scottish highland fling and her disturbing discovery about her roots. And I don't mean her brunette ones, but the "McGillicuddy Curse."

I guess it could be worse.

At least I'm not sunburned and trying to wear an extremely itchy designer wool suit, or getting locked in my walk-in freezer, or trapped on the subway with a trophy stuck on my head...

That bass sure is loud, though. That plaster's coming down...

eek a mouse

I have been following Steven's posts about animal experiments and it makes me wonder about how they relate to what's been happening in our apartment, off and on, the past few months. We've had a mouse.

One evening as I was sitting at the computer I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. A day or so later I saw the evidence of our visitor in our pantry. The Fig Newtons had been breached and nibbled on. I cleaned up the mouse poop and the building maintenance came and patched up a hole. No more mouse. Or so we thought.

A few weeks ago I was standing by the sink and I heard the distinct sound of crunching, sort of like what it sounds like when a person is eating a chip or a cracker. Except I wasn't eating. The next morning I asked the building to check on it, but they claimed they saw no sign of a mouse. A few days later, the same sort of thing happened again, and I asked them to check. No mouse. I heard crunch-like noises again a few hours later and ran downstairs. I wasn't going crazy, the little guy was up there, practically mocking me. They came up again, and with me looking over their shoulders, managed to find a few new holes behind the stove. This time they sealed the new holes, put down poison and a glue trap. I had been trying to avoid that more deadly approach, but having a kid makes you cave on certain things...

A few days later there was mouse poop on the kitchen counter. OK, this isn't Tom and Jerry anymore. He's taking it up a notch. I cleaned it up and also laid down a house-mouse-martial-law. While my housekeeping is somewhat lax - I pick up the big chunks and always straighten up, but I never mop or vacuum. I hate doing it, always have. I have Maid Pro come in every two weeks to do that sort of stuff. (Why I waited until having a kid to do this, I don't know. It's so worth the extra bucks to pay a little bit extra and avoid housework. I only wish I had figured this out years ago. Anyway...) But with a mouse in the house who has probably been sealed in with us now, we have to clean up our act, and I have to remove his food source. So no more spilled Cheerios left on the floor. Before we leave the house in the morning we clean up every crumb, a la the Grinch. Luckily, the kid actually enjoys doing this.

We'll see how it goes. So far there's been no recurrence of poop on the counter. As much as I don't want to deal with our little visitor, I secretly hope that he has found a hole into greener apartment pastures, rather than think of him starving or poisoned or stuck to a trap. Of course none of this would have happened if our cat still lived with us. But that's another story, for another time.