Driving Me Crazy!

When I turned 16, I wanted nothing more than to get my drivers license. My father, however, was of the opinion that girls did not NEED a drivers license, that they could go everywhere they needed to go with their parents, their brothers, or their boyfriends. He steadfastly refused to take me to get my license.

Until it occurred to him that he could also take my brother, who is a year younger than me, at the same time. At that time in Georgia, if your parent was with you when you went to get your drivers license, you did not have to show your birth certificate. You parent told the officials how old you were, and they took them at their word.

So, on that day in 1968, my father told them I was born in 1951, so he could tell them my brother was born in 1952. And ever since then, my date of birth has been incorrect on my drivers license. It has never been a problem. Until yesterday.

Yesterday FabGrandpa and I went to the Arizona DMV to get Arizona drivers licenses. His was coming up for renewal in March. Since we are not planning to go to Georgia until November, it would have been a problem for him. He is required to have a valid drivers license for his summer job. An expired Georgia license wouldn't work. And, because we also got a post office box in Arizona last week, I decided to go ahead and get my Arizona license, too.

When it was my turn, I appoached the desk, and gave the clerk my two forms of ID, which consisted of my Georgia license and my brand new US Passport card. And the dates of birth on them did not match! I went through the whole story of how my father lied on that day in history. The clerks conferred amongst themselves. They called the supervisor. They called The Boss. All of this was making me really uncomfortable. And they finally told me I could have my Arizona drivers license, but that I really need to bring in my birth certificate next time I am in town. You know, the birth certificate that the Passport office said was not a valid one? Thanks, Dad, for all the fun.

Today Was A Good Mail Day...Oh, and Project 365

I love getting snail mail, more than I love getting email and comments on my blog. Because I am a gyspsy, traveling around the country fulltime, I don't get mail often. Our daughter, Becky, has the key to our post office box in Georgia, and has been sending us our mail for 8 years. Thank you, Becky!

In today's mail bag there were lots of goodies! First, there were two Christmas cards from people who love me. Ahhh, I am loved, after all. Second, there was a refund check from that nasty telephone company, remember them? It wasn't much, but by dang it, that is MY money. There was also a check from the cactus guy, ooooooooo, and it was a good one too, Thank YOU Robert!

And last of all but best of all, I finally got my passport! Yippee! Now I can go to Mexico.

And I do want to apologize for falling down on the job of posting my project 365 photos. I will start up again, starting where I left off, next week. I am not really loving being in Phoenix, I feel like all the tension of being in this huge town, driving in all the traffic everywhere we go, has stiffled my creativity. Yeah, as if. But seriously, I will be doing Project 365, Day 59 next week.

Project 365 Day 40 Out And About Town

We finally did feel better today, so we drove up to visit our friends Lynda and Charlie but they were not at home. And since I got that letter from the passport agency telling me that my birth certificate and passport photo was not to their liking, I decided to look for a place to get my passport photo take again. Well, for the first time, since I took the first one. And yeah, they accepted the one I took of FabGrandpa and printed myself, because they sent him his passport card, so I guess they just decided that no one could look as good as the person in my photo and rejected it as too good to be true, hahahah!


Did you know that the portrait studio at Wal-Mart does passport photos? I should have known, you can get everything else you need there. So, for $10.82, here it is:



They even put it in a little card case. After I got the pictures, I thought, well, what a coincidence, I am wearing that same orange shirt that I wear everywhere I go, so when I cross the border, I will probably be wearing the same shirt. See here, and here.


We went to Circuit City to see what was on sale because they are going out of business. But, the TV's were not marked down much, and were still higher on a so called clearance sale than they were at Best Buy. We have been looking at the flat screen HDTV's for over a year, but have just not found one in the price range we wanted to pay that we could both agree on, until today. No, the money for it did not come out of our spending money budget, because we have budgeted money for a new TV. We got a Insignia HDTV 22":

We Got Mail Today!

We normally only get mail about once a month when my step-daughter, Becky, sends it to where ever we may be. She hasn't sent it this time in over a month because I did not know how long we would be somewhere until this week.

So, I opened the bag and got a few surprises. First, the good ones. I got my yearly dividend check from the electric co-op from when I had my house. I think I'll still get those for a few more years. The check I got this year is enough to go out to eat at a really good place, like maybe Outback Steakhouse or something similar to that.

Next, I got a statement from one of the medical bills we have been paying on since 2005, when FabGrandpa was in the hospital for four days, and it turned out to be that his thyroid had quit functioning. Anyway, that one bill is paid in full, YIPEE. One down, three to go.

The last of the good ones, is that I also got a statement from the IRS, showing that I only owe them $63.00 more, so that bill will get paid off this month, too. Yay!

Then for the finale: FabGrandpa's passport arrived, but I got a letter saying that the birth certificate I sent them won't do. It is not a "certified" copy, and it does not show the date my birth was recorded. Excuse me? I ordered that certified copy from the state of Georgia, and paid good money for it. The other copy I have (I ordered two copies from the vital records department at the same time) does have the raised embossed seal on it:

However faint it might be, it IS there. And the date the birth was recorded is also right there on it:


So, it sort of looks like the date filed says 6/16/1952, which would be about three weeks after I was born, but if who ever filled out that form way back then couldn't write worth a shit, how is that my fault? I was a baby at the time!

How in the hell do they expect me to correct something that was recorded way back in 1952?!? I am going to call the vital records department on Monday to see what, if anything they can do for me, but if I don't send in another copy in 60 days, I'll lose my application fee and have to start all over again. So NOT FAIR! FabGrandpa will get to go to Mexico without me. I demand justice! I NEED that tequila, I NEED those margaritas!!!


So, to calm my nerves and get my Mexican fix, I made charro beans for dinner:



1 lb dried pinto beans
6 slices bacon

Rinse the beans, cover with water, and bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. Pour into a crock pot. Add the bacon, cut up, cover, and cook until the beans are tender.


6 slices bacon
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
1 poblano pepper, seeded and chopped
1 16 oz can diced tomatoes
1 tsp oregano
1 tablespoon cumin
salt to taste

Fry the bacon until crisp, set aside. Add the garlic, celery, onion, and peppers to the pan, and sautee in bacon grease until the onions are clear. Add the bacon, crumbled. Add all to the crock pot. Add the can of tomatoes and salt to the crock pot, stirring well to combine. Cook for one hour longer. Serve with corn bread or corn tortillas.

Finally Applied For My Passport

(my official passport photo, ick)

FabGrandpa and I have been talking about getting our passports for a couple of years, but never got around to doing it until today. We went down to Kanab, Utah to the county clerks office to get the applications. With applications in hand, we walked over to Linda Lou's Coffee Shop to get a cup of coffee and fill them out. Since it was such a beautiful day, we decided to sit outside. While we were sitting there, our neighbors George and Nancy walked up, so they joined us at our little table.


We have not had much opportunity to just sit down and talk with them before today. While we were talking, we discovered that they live in San Diego, (when they are not volunteering at the Grand Canyon) and that George taught school in National City. Why that surprised us is because FabGrandpa grew up in Imperial Beach and went to Mar Vista High School, not far from where George taught school.


When we finished filling out the applications, which were actually pretty simple, we walked back over to the county clerks office. The information needed to fill out the form included the names, dates of birth, and place of birth of our parents; the name, address and telephone number of an emergency contact; and our own names, dates of birth and places of birth. We also had to supply certified copies of our birth certificates, a picture ID, and two 2 inch by 2 inch pictures of each of us.


The clerk went over the application to make sure it had been filled out completely, then attached the pictures and birth certificates to the applications. We gave her two checks, one made out to the county and one made out to the Department of State. The total amount per passport card is $45. We should receive our new passport cards in the mail in about two months. Yay! now we can go to Mexico this winter.

We also went to Kanab T-Shirts and got a T-shirt for my son, Seth.

(Seth with his baby boy, Owen)

Seth had surgery for sleep apnea last Friday, and has not been feeling good. He loves the movie Napoleon Dynamite, so we got him a "Vote For Pedro" T-shirt. That should cheer him up! When I talked to him tonight, he told me that he is feeling a little better, and that he can already tell the difference. He can breathe a lot better and is getting rested from his sleep. He had this condition for a very long time, if not his whole life, so we are glad the surgery is working for him.