There will be some wobbliness

So I went to the BMV and did the license thing again. And yes they made me do the eyesight test again and pay another fee. I await the receipt of my new and improved license with breathless anticipation.

In the meantime – Cate on Monday started a four day conference – staying at a hotel in downtown.

Naturally this accelerated the arrival of the sea freight which duly turned up on Tuesday - so I spent Tuesday and Wednesday on my own trying to ensure that at least some of the boxes and furniture ended up in the right rooms.

Cate caringly rang me each day to see how it was going.

The task was harder than I expected and there will by quite a bit of schlepping to do over the next few weeks. Fortunately we have a loft and a basement so have room to put the more obscure items until we can get to them.

Tomorrow we move out of our apartment and take the cats to Delaware street. This will be the third traumatic event for them in a month so we are expecting a week or so of wobbliness. 

You can just imagine the scene

I got my new driver’s license.

It was issued on 28 May 2013 and expires on 27 June 2013. Fabulous – one month of driving. Somehow this did not surprise me so I went back to the BMV and asked them if there was any particular reason my license was only for one month.

They could not come up with one and after much discussion decided that it must have been change by Homeland Security.

Homeland Security?

I am not making this up.

Homeland Security must have very little to do if they are concerned with restricting Badger’s ability to drive in the USA.

You can just imagine the scene in Homeland Security…..

Hey Frank – remember how much fun we had when Badger tried to get his power connected?

Oh yeah! That was great leaving him sitting there for 3 hours with no one at the counter. It was almost as much fun as when we gave him an extra name at social security.

Well now he wants a driver’s license!

Fabulous – give him one for a month so he has to drag his sorry ass back to the BMV again. And then we’ll have some real fun when he tries to register his motor veeehickles.

I mean – really.

The BMV could find no way around the problem and suggested that I start the process again and apply for a new license.

No - I am not making this up.

So tomorrow I am dragging my sorry ass off to the BMV again to re-start the process. Fortunately they have a whole room full of sad bastard’s chairs.

What's the big deal?

We had a second test of our house for Radon. The first test was done in the basement and showed that we needed mitigation. The second test was done in the house proper and showed that we do not need mitigation – unless we are going to spend a lot of time in the basement.

This is possible – there will be a lot of stuff down there and we are fortunate that it is very big. We also have a lot of space over our – ahem – ‘carriage house’ which of course is really just a garage – and I imagine is called a ‘carriage house ‘ only by Realtors. This space above the garage is apparently called a loft.

Both these spaces together are much bigger than the basement we had in Vienna so we will be able to spread our stuff out a bit and make it more negotiable and indeed I may be able to occasionally find things when I need them.

Did I mention that before moving Cate got rid of some towels. Not many – mind you - and we still have a fine collection – just not as many as before.

Anyway – we are going ahead with the Radon mitigation mainly because we don’t understand it and just because everyone has it does not seem to be a good reason to allow it to lurk under the basement floor. The Radon man will come on Tuesday week to drill holes in the basement floor and walls so that the Radon will be sucked out of the house and blown onto the neighbors.

At the same time they are no doubt sucking it out of their basements and blowing it on us so it would seem to be a zero-sum game – except that we probably have more Radon than them so have a slight edge. 

I imagine in  a year or so we will be as blasé as everyone else about Radon ‘Radon? Sure – everyone has Radon – what’s the big deal?’