Coloradans

We’re now officially Coloradans. Actually, just the car is a Coloradan. Alan had the day off yesterday and we went to the DMV and registered the car here. I had been under the impression that I could register it myself, but according to the woman we talked to, the car has to belong to the actual military member in order to qualify for a nonresident registration with all the tax exemptions that entails. So we just put made sure the new title would be in both our names and paid only $76, which is awesome since Connecticut’s registration renewal is $85, plus $20 for the emissions test. There are no emissions requirements in El Paso County, fortunately. Because our car couldn’t pass right now. There’s a hole in the exhaust line. Nothing major, but enough that it wouldn’t pass. We also found out that the Visitor’s Center at Peterson AFB does VIN Verification because they count as a Colorado Law Enforcement agency.  And it’s about half a mile from the DMV. And really, who wants to walk into the police station and ask them to do that?

For the second time since we’ve moved out here, I’ve run into someone who doesn’t understand the concept of my maiden name as my middle name. In Connecticut, the only time anyone even asked was when I went to get my name changed on my license. The guy at the counter asked if it was hyphenated or if it was middle and last. But people out here don’t seem to understand it. The thing is, almost every woman I know does the same thing. Drop the given middle name and use their maiden name instead. In my family, the only person who didn’t was my mom… and only because she’s never gone by her first name, always her middle. So she dropped her first name instead. And that’s on both sides of the family. Alan’s family did the same thing and so have any number of my classmates from high school when they got married, not to mention the various moms whose kids I’ve taught. I honestly don’t know if my cousin Hilary did it, because her maiden name and her married name are very similar. I assume she did, just because it’s what’s "normal" in our family and she would have grown up taking it for granted that’s how it worked.

But it seems to confuse everyone I meet out here. Is it really that odd? It’s obviously not a northeast thing because my mom’s family is all from the Midwest. And Alan’s mom’s family is from California.

I don’t know. It’s just odd.

At least the car is all squared away now. It was making Alan nervous to drive on post with the CT registration expired because the MP’s will pull you over for anything and they do random checks at the gates when you come in. So if we’d ended up being that car, they could have turned us away from the gate without a current registration. And they also have monthly personal vehicle checks to make sure everything is up to date. I don’t like having Colorado plates though. The Connecticut ones stand out so much out here. And they’re pretty with the ombre effect. Colorado’s are okay, but not great. Better than a lot of them of course. New York never does manage to make pretty license plates.

On the "hey that’s cool" side of life, Sims gave Alan his log-on information for Netflix, so now we have that without having to pay for it. My first order of business was to watch the one episode I missed of Law & Order SVU last season… the season finale of course, and Stabler’s last episode. It’s supposed to be on Tuesday but I have to go to an FRG class on Ball Etiquette, so I would  have missed it. Plus now I can see the episodes I’ve missed in other seasons. Twelve seasons and it seems like USA always plays the same set of episodes. Muy estupido.

Alan’s going ice skating in a little while because some guy he knows offered to teach him to skate better if Alan would agree to play hockey because he doesn’t have anyone who will play hockey with him. Or something like that. Hopefully it doesn’t end up with Alan breaking anything.

We bought a little fake Christmas tree yesterday and I spent last night adding lights (there are never enough) and putting on some of the ornaments that Karma can’t break. Every morning is, of course, a hunt for the ones she played with overnight while hoping you don’t get a hook in your foot. Since we only got a 4-foot tree, I have two strings of regular lights just sitting in a box and a string of 50 solar-powered LED lights. Plus ribbon and garland. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it all yet. I may or may not decorate our porch. There’s no way we could win the decorating contest because they mostly just seem to choose the tackiest one and call it a day and there’s already two places that have out-tackied anything I could come up with. Still, it could be festive. Maybe Monday.

We went to the Omelette Parlor for breakfast. Very tasty, but I won’t be able to go there again until after the baby is born. Their booths are not made for pregnant bellies.

Anyway, I’m done. Alan is pestering me for the computer.

~Liz