Aliens/Rambling

I completely forgot!  We had our second visitor from Michigan!  Again, not here just to see us though.  Corey's old acting teacher/our friend/our camping buddy/the person whose house we lived at and house sat for before moving out here, actor Ralph Lister (he's British!).  He lived out here and did the acting thing years ago, and he was back for a weekend for a friend's wedding.  His original plans fell through, so he slept on our couch the first night.  He took us out to Golden Road brewery and we met up with some of his other actor friends still living in the LA area.  We hadn't been to Golden Road before, but it turned out to be the local version of Grand Rapids' Founders.  It was nice to see Ralph again.  He also brought us a CD of all of the pictures he'd taken whenever we hung out with him.  I'll have to post some of the better ones sometime.  For now, here's me in the parking lot of a fancy schmancy winery in Traverse City the weekend we went camping:

There was also another instance of things working out.  I mentioned Grant moved into his apartment just as Nick and Afton were moving in together, so Grant got free furniture.  Well, Dee was moving out and therefore wouldn't be able to use Mary's hairdryer anymore.  She was hanging out with co-worker Karla and asked if they could stop at Target to pick one up.  Turns out, Karla had gotten a free one that had been sitting in the box unused for the past year because she already had one.  So she let Dee have it.  It's dumb, but I think it's really cool how things work out perfectly like that.

If you read my blog regularly, there was a blog about Dee buying us a nice Ikea table.  Well, about a week after that, we found out the woman that lives next door was getting a new set, and looking to get rid of her old, really nice, actual dining room table with insertable leaf, 8 chairs, and matching little side table.  So we ended up taking that from her.  Dee had been trying to sell the table, but it's now her desk at her new place.  So that worked out as well.

Mary's back from Hawaii.  She had fun, but had her wallet/phone stolen :(  We picked her up from the airport last night.  Note to self, if I never fly out of/into LAX, do it in the middle of the night on a week night.  There was NO traffic on the highways, and the airport wasn't TOO busy.  The worst part was we were running late because of the stupid gas stations out here, and since she didn't have a phone there was no way to call her and let her know.

Did I ever give a final update about the DMV?  I know I talked to my mom about it.  If I already did, feel free to skip this paragraph.  I had my appointment at 10:30.  Luckily I got there 10 minutes early because I had to drive around for 5 minutes waiting for someone to leave just so I could park.  There wasn't much of a line for appointments, but the place was PACKED.  It took a while to have my number called, but it still wasn't probably much longer than 20 minutes since I had an appointment.  While I was waiting some guy decided to start a conversation with me, probably because we were both losers spending our Valentine's Day at the DMV.  Lol.  My number was called and I explained what happened to the lady.  At first she didn't understand, but she finally figured out what happened, and went off to find my paperwork from last October.  Luckily, they had it.  She didn't know why it wasn't processed because it's all done manually and not put into the system.  Most likely, it was because the mileage part wasn't signed on the Michigan title.  If I had gone back last year, I would have had to mail the title back to Michigan for my dad to sign since he was on the original title, then come back in.  But since it's now 2013 and my car is a 2003, they don't need the mileage.  There was also an issue with getting the car out of my dad's name and into just mine.  Luckily she was really nice and helpful.  She did everything she could to work with me and the paperwork I had.  I added a note to form I filled out before stating I was taking the car out of his name and putting it into just mine.  Then I had to add to the note my dad signed saying he was giving up all rights to the car so him and I were "selling" the car and I was "buying" the car.  Also, plates went up a dollar since last year, so she moved some stuff around so I wouldn't have to pay the extra dollar.  I'm also lucky the police never randomly looked up my plates.  Since the paperwork never went through, I technically didn't have valid plates or registration.  If I had gotten a ticket I probably could have fought it though.  My California title is supposed to come within 3 weeks.  Hopefully it'll be here before I leave so I'll know everything worked out this time.

 There's a house I pass on my way to work that has a lot of cool plants out front.  I think they're cacti and aloe plants.  Every time I walk by I want to take a picture to post, but taking pictures of a random house might look weird and suspicious.  I found it on Google maps though.  It's hard to see, but hopefully you get the idea.

It's on a corner and they curve all the way around

 Also, on my walk to work last week, I saw a small lizard scurry across the sidewalk!  He was only about 5 inches from head to the tip of his tail.  I think other than birds and the occasional squirrel, that may be the first wildlife I've seen out here.  It doesn't sound very exciting, but I thought it was cool.