the times, they are a-changing
obama-lantern
Originally uploaded by embem30I haven't really written a whole lot in terms of current events since the honeymoon, but there's certainly a lot to write about. We have a new president-elect, I have a new last name, I gave in and joined Facebook, we cleaned out the office a bit, and our house has two fewer mice. I'm sure there's more--things to write about, not mice, hopefully.
Our New President
I have to say, I'm pretty excited about Barack Obama winning the presidential election last Tuesday. Sadly, I didn't get to vote (see next section), but our state was already pretty solidly Obama. Steve and I ate pizza and watched the election coverage that night, switching between NBC and Comedy Central. We were on Comedy Central when the official news came in around 8pm our time. One of the perks of living on the west coast: although Saturday Night Live isn't exactly Live for us, we don't have to stay up as late to hear who won the elections.
It's pretty cool that a younger guy won. A new start is pretty appealing, and he seems quite intelligent and likable. He also picked someone intelligent as his running mate. I just couldn't understand McCain choosing Sarah Palin. It was like they didn't think that one through; they just chose a woman for the historical significance so that they could compete on that front. Sure, she was likable to a lot of people, but I can't believe that they couldn't find a Republican woman who was more competent. We've had eight years of a president who has been mocked for seeming less intelligent. I'm not sure that picking another person for vice president who couldn't correctly pronounce the word "nuclear" was a good idea.
Anyway, it was an historical election. Everyone was certainly patting each other on the back for being so beyond race issues that we could elect our first African American president. Meanwhile, several states simultaneously passed propositions to take away the rights of another group of people. California's Proposition 8 passed by only a few percentage points, eliminating gay marriage. Apparently homophobia is the new racism. The kicker is that the deciding demographic was African American voters. It seems that getting all those extra people out to vote for Barack Obama was a double-edged sword. I guess we still have some progress to make.
New Last Name
The reason I was not able to vote is that I was in the middle of changing my name when the voter registration deadline came. Who knew that it would take so long to change one's last name? I thought I would easily have changed my name before the October 20 deadline, but each hoop I had to jump through took extra time. We had to wait a few weeks to send in our request for a copy of the marriage certificate to make sure that it was filed and findable. Then, we had to wait to get the copy in the mail. The next business day after receiving it, I walked down to the nearest Social Security office, waited an hour, and filed for a new card with my new name. I was supposed to give it two weeks and then call if the new card didn't show up in the mail. I gave it almost three weeks, called Social Security to get a new one sent, and then the first one showed up. I was waiting to change my name with the state and get my new driver's license until I had my new social security card to be sure that it would process right. Unfortunately, the DMV works on an appointment system, and the first appointment I could get was after the deadline for voter registration.
My dilemma was which name I should register with, since I hadn't changed my name with the state yet. Either way, I probably wouldn't have my new picture ID in time for the election. At least that's what I thought. I should have just registered anyway with my new name and taken the chance, because my shiny new driver's license arrived in the mail on election day, one week after I visited the DMV. Oh well, it's done now.
Joined Facebook
I resisted for quite a while, but I finally caved and joined this morning. I wanted to see my friend Abby's wedding pictures, and Alyson sent me a link to a picture that I couldn't access unless I logged in. So I'm on Facebook now. Woot.
Cleaned the Office
Our office has been the box room (again) ever since we finished our living room. We've cut down on the boxes full of stuff we want to keep, but now the room is mostly cluttered with boxes, bags, and stacks of stuff that we need to get rid of. Steve brought in a flyer a couple days ago that advertised a free e-waste recycling event at a local high school. I took it as a sign. So today, we packed up a box with our old cell phones, VCR, DVD player, remotes, and several computer cables, which we dropped off at the event.
When we got back, we started going through some of the other boxy buildup in the office. I consolidated the boxes of wedding stuff that hadn't been touched since August 17th. I also finally opened the boxes that Steve's parents so kindly brought with them this summer in their RV. They were boxes of photo albums, books, etc. from my parents' house. In the end, we threw a whole lot of stuff away (or into the recycling), added some more things to the Goodwill/Salvation Army piles, and found better spots for the rest. When we finally get around to donating those final boxes and bags, we may actually have room in our office to think about getting some sort of daybed or futon.
While I was going through my old stuff, I took a gander at my senior scrapbook and senior pictures. I can't believe how different I looked eight years ago. My face was a lot rounder, and my smile was different. I don't remember looking like that, but I look pretty much the same in all of them. I guess it's been a while since I've really looked at pictures from high school.
Mouse Watch
The alternate title would be "Tuesday is Mouseday." I saw the first mouse a few Tuesdays ago. There were a few sightings that day, and then none for a week. Steve set up several traps that first day, but we didn't catch anything. Apparently he hadn't set the traps to be sensitive enough, because some of the cheese disappeared without catching the culprits. The next Tuesday, I saw the mouse again. That night, Steve saw it. Then nothing for another week. Tuesday morning, election day, Steve checked the traps to re-bait them and found our mouse, caught. We left the traps out, just in case, and he found another, smaller mouse in one of them when he got home from work that night. It's a little scary that there was more than one, but we've left out the traps for a while longer just in case. Hopefully I won't see any more mice running around next Tuesday.
And there you have it.