Holly Doyne

And the saga continues.

1) remember I said that George tried to do the renewal online? Well the system accepted his payment without problem.

2) Arriving at the DMV after the smog check, he was informed that he had to turn in the INCORRECT plates. They would issue him a temp good for up to 30 days.

3) The tags that would arrive in the mail would not be valid (see comment of payment above). Apparently payment triggers an automatic shipping of tags. This makes no sense. What about if the car hadn’t passed the smog check?

4) When the new plates arrived at the DMV he would be notified and would need to trade in the temp (removed from the back window) for the new plates. If the tags had arrived, they would be traded in for valid tags. I am not sure what would happen if the tags didn’t arrive in time. That wasn’t covered.

5) So here we are, car with a placard in the back window and no license plates. Go figure. It certainly makes me glad we don’t have any distance/out of state trips planned in the next couple of weeks.

I have a cat in the lap who has decided that it is the only place in the house suitable for napping. It certainly doesn’t make stitching easier.

For those of you not in the US – DMV is our Division of Motor Vehicles. It is the agency (each state + autonomous districts have one) that deals with licensing drivers (all levels) and vehicles (again, anything wheeled with a motor entitled to use regular streets).  We will not talk about electric bikes here.

Any way. We purchased our current car back in late 2017 or so before the new models came out. It was new. It is a standard transmission VW Golf; we purchased it for a very good price. Nine years later, the license tags have been renewed annually. There have been a few parking tickets, routinely driving through the automated Toll booths on all three SF Bridges. The car has about 60k worth of miles on it.

George attempted to renew the tags on line and hit a snag. Our registration was correct. Our physical license plates were not.

What?

It seems that we were issued the WRONG NUMBER PLATES back in 2017 and have been driving on an incorrect plate number for nine years. Now I totally agree with a friend of mine: the first thing you do when you get license plates is check them against your registration.  Now looking back at the time frame, I was just starting to grow my hair back from chemo and we were shortly headed back to Germany for a cruise going to Iceland & Greenland. So, I never double checked the license plates against the registration. Obviously, George didn’t either.

( Note, for UASREUR,  USAFE-UK, Germany, Switzerland, plates didn’t  arrive in the mail, you have to physically trade in the temp at the registration office where both you and the clerk verified everything before you went out the door).

Fast forward to 2026. That is right. All those years of annual renewal which consisted of filling out the form, paying the price, getting a new sticker in the mail and slapping it on the plate. Never once did anyone compare the registration to the plate. To be fair, obviously our car insurance folks didn’t either.

I am not sure how the error got discovered. My guess is that the person with our plates had to make a transaction and their incorrect plates were discovered. When run – the computer pointed to us.

I am hopeful George can have this dealt with by COB (close of business).

In any case, I wound up searching back through old posts to see if I could pin down the actual date we purchased the car but no luck.

And, if you have gotten this far – please reassure yourself (if you have a car) that its plate and the plate number on your registration match.

Today matched my t-shirt that says – under the illustration of a very grumpy cat –
Another Day I didn’t sign up for.

And that goes especially for one punctuated by a migraine on top of missing car keys.

I don’t know about you, but doing laundry is one of those basic tasks that feels like “a gift that keeps on giving.” it doesn’t seem to matter if I do a load every couple of days organize it for once a week, or let things pile up till there is an acute shortage of critical clothing items.

Today was that day. Hauling everything to the laundry room and sorting out the fabrics by color and weight, it appeared to be about five loads. More than the average, but considering I am not sure exactly when I did laundry prior to today….. I have a system down pat which involves essentially running the loads first which take the least amount of time to dry and leaving towels/jeans for the final load. Since we renovated and the laundry is down stairs, I am less likely to take it out side and hang to dry. It also might have something to do with the frequency that we get deer in the yard…

anyway – five loads later with cat supervised assistance –

I finished up and started hauling everything back upstairs. 

And very likely next week I will do this all again….

I had no intentions of getting up early. In fact, I had planned on taking the opportunity to sleep in. The cat had other ideas. He started his Siamese howl shortly after 0400 otherwise known as 0dark o’clock. Even at this point in the summer it is dark out. A few birds providing commentary, but really quite. No traffic on the road, no dogs barking. Even the deer seem to be absent.

And here I am, awake, up and figuring out which things on my task list will be accomplished today. All because of a cat howling starting shortly after 0400. As it turns out, he had a dish of food, he just didn’t eat it. I squished the soft pellets. He ate them along with a bit more from a different bag.  Now finished with his breakfast, he has climbed into my arms and is purring. Since there was coffee left from yesterday which I could heat. up in the microwave, I am letting him live.

I think I have mentioned before that it seems that whenever I am home and leave my comfortable chair in the living room for more than a few minutes – come back to find this –

my chair has been taken over and he seems to be more than comfortable.

And, just in case I didn’t get the point …

In the house,

Dropped off to friends & neighbors

And on our tree. Several dozen in fact still at the partly green stage.

I have been watching the price/ear for a while. Let me just leave it with – it hasn’t been what I would call affordable. Up to $1US/ear just doesn’t make sense to me. Or packages of shucked corn which were 6ears/$5. But then we went to Safeway this evening. Walking in the front, there was a package of 8 ears – shucked – for $6. Still too much. But part way down the fruit/vegetable section was a sign – 8 ears for $1. Limit 8 ears.  I read it twice. The number and amount didn’t change. I grabbed a bag, stuffed in 8 ears and went on with shopping. 

Once we were home, I shucked an ear, then nuked it in the microwave. I have it down pat. And it tasted delicious. 

and rather shocked to see me coming up the stairs toward the front door. Being disturbed wasn’t in her plans.

According to the calendar – it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere. In fact, we are beyond the solstice. So why is it below 15*C here and I have out my flannel pjs?

It is not that I want to be out baking in the sun, getting sweaty and burned, it is just that much of the rest of the US and a portion of Canada is suffering under a heat wave while it feels like my area has sucked all the coolness from other regions and are keeping it to ourselves.

It means that having a cat on the lap almost continuously (he takes a break for meal times) is not uncomfortable. At least in regards to warmth, being pinned down, looked at with disgust should I venture out of the chair? Disturbing his highness is not apparently all that acceptable.

So no errands for me today. Perhaps a soccer game on the screen. And stitching.