quadro2000

Yesterday was a great, productive day.

Quadrette and I had planned on taking the morning off to apply for our marriage license. We could have gone anywhere in the state (except for the city proper), but we decided just to head back to the town clerk's office in my hometown, as I knew where it was and it just seemed more familiar to me. After getting the license, we were planning on going back to work, and then going to see a movie with Cynthetiq and Skogafoss.

We got up at our usual time and arrived at the town clerk's office at 9:01 AM, right after they opened. We showed them our IDs and went about filling out the forms.

Quadrette is taking my last name and is intending to make her maiden name her middle name. Apparently moving the last name to the middle is not something she can do on a marriage license, unless she wants to hyphenate her last name or make it part of her last name (neither of which she wants to do). So that temporarily upset her, understandably so. We talked about the possibility of doing a name change in court so she can officially make it her middle name. That cheered her up a bit.

Well, we were all set to get the license and go, except we hit a snafu: the office computers were down, meaning they couldn't enter the info into their database and couldn't print up the marriage license. So we were stuck waiting until the computers came back up - it could be a minute, an hour or all day, they told us.

I was pissed. I know it wasn't anybody's fault but it was just an annoying detour to the day. I wasn't going to go to work without that license - otherwise I'd have to come back another day. And yet I really didn't want to take the whole day off.

Quadrette and I thought about it, and she suggested we both see if we could get approval from work to take the rest of the day off. She had to renew her license at the DMV anyway, so maybe, instead of waiting around the town clerk's office, we could go get that squared away, and maybe do a few other errands we had been postponing.

We both got approval, and off we went to the DMV. I was not looking forward to the DMV (because, really, who looks forward to the DMV?). Thankfully, even with a packed office, it only took us about an hour and twenty minutes from start to finish. Could have been much worse.

From the DMV, we went out another 30 minutes to see our jeweler. We had been out there a few weeks ago to look at wedding rings, and while we found things we liked, Quadrette hadn't made any definitive decisions. We were originally going to go Thursday night, but postponed it to Saturday because of the movie we were going to see. This seemed like a good opportunity to get it squared away, and with the benefit of going in when it wasn't packed to the walls (as it was on the last Saturday we visited).

I'm glad we went. Not only did Quadrette find a great ring, but I found a ring that I liked so much better than the first one I picked out. Both of our rings were more expensive than we had planned - but we plan on wearing these things for a loooong time. So we paid the deposit, and in two weeks, we'll have our rings. Plus, we went her engagement ring back to be re-sized. (Turns out it was half a size too big, this whole year. She just thought it was supposed to be that loose. Who knew?)

After that, we drove back to the Town Clerk's office, found out the computers were back up, signed the papers and headed home. After a quick stop to say hi to the kitties, we were back on our way into the city to catch a free screening for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow with Cyn and Skogafoss. The movie was okay, not great, but entertaining.

As Quadrette and I walked home after the movie, I realized that we had spent the entire day together - we really hadn't spent more than 10 minutes apart the entire day - and managed to get a lot done, having lots of fun while doing it. I really couldn't have asked for more yesterday. So I had to take a whole day off. No biggie. Well worth it.

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You have to laugh at yourself...because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't. - Emily Saliers