Cellar Scribblings

[CellarDweller]

Hiya BetterMost friends.

As of 4:30 yesterday, I am officially on 'stay cation'.     I started it by making an appointment for the car for maintenance, and picking up my groceries.

Had a nice sleep in today, did some straightening up around the apartment, got a workout in, and now I'm catching up online.

Tomorrow is laundry day, and I need to clean out the car.

Car goes into the shop on Monday, and one day this week I plan on having a social-distancing lunch with a friend.  I also need to get to Target and get some new stuff for the apartment.   My broom and mop are shot, so I need to get some replacements for them.  I could go today or tomorrow, but I figured that Target would have more people in it those days, so I'm waiting until oe day during the week to get the items, when (I assume) it will be less busy.

Of course, I have masks and gloves to use, as well as hand sanitizer.

[serious crayons]

Of course, I have masks and gloves to use, as well as hand sanitizer.

I don't wear gloves but immediately upon getting back in the car I sanitize my hands and everything I touched. Except the products I just purchased. I wouldn't sanitize fresh produce, for example. Yet that's the product people are most likely to touch (to test ripeness, etc.).

[CellarDweller]

I also need to take the car to the shop on  Monday.  Nothing  major, just routine maintenance is due.  So that means on Sunday I'll need to get the car cleaned.  LOL

I've never done that! Is it basic car-repair etiquette?

Hello Katy.  The car's oil should be changed every three months or so, and before 5,000 miles have been put on the car.  Of course, because I'm working from home,  I'm not using the car as much, but still will take it in to maintain it, just to make sure everything is working as it should.  With past cars, they were old/used when I got them, so I wasn't as diligent as I should've been.  With my last car (the Tracker) I did it religiously, and had no problems with her, and she lasted almost 200,000 miles.

BTW, have I mentioned that my car was stolen last Friday night?

Your car was stolen!? What a GDBoaUS!! Did it happen at home? How awful!!

I don't think you have. That's awful! 

Thanks. It wasn't a great car -- 11 years old, 105,000 miles. Luckily, I still had full insurance coverage. Hopefully the insurance company will pay me the Kelly Blue Book price, which is about $5,000. But minus my $1,000 deductible.  At least the insurance is paying for a rental until the case is settled. So I guess I'll be going car shopping while I still have wheels.

Well damn, that sucks, and I'm sorry that happened to you!   With all that's going on, that is the last thing you needed to have happen.   It doesn't matter that it wasn't a great car, it was your property. 

Also, a relatively minor problem, but unless the car turns up soon -- and it's been almost a week, so I'm guessing it won't -- the insurance company essentially "buys" it from me, for which I'll need the title. And somehow the file I had of car-related papers has been missing for several months. 

So because of the shutdown any DMV-related thing has become a huge hassle. The nearby AAA has a DMV counter that few people know about -- normally you can go in and waltz out with a title five minutes later, as opposed to the two hours you have to wait to do anything at a regular DMV. Now you have to get there in the morning and sign up. If you get one of the 180 spots, you can leave and they'll call you when it's your turn.

But apparently although the AAA doesn't open until 8, people start lining up to sign at like 6:30-7 a.m. Obviously those people are either superhuman or are just getting off a night shift. 
They probably need to get in ASAP. I have the luxury of working from home and generally having a flexible schedule, so most days I could go back at any time.  There's another DMV nearby where you make an appointment. But the AAA woman said they're booked into August.

Oh, this sucks too!   have you been able to locate the paperwork at all?  With all the restrictions in place with proof of ID and now combined with Covid-19, I assume that this process will not be an easy one to deal with.  Keep us posted on your progress, please!

After all that, I feel like I should be getting a "real ID" while I'm at it. Do you all have yours already?

I don't know what a real ID is, but I just renewed my driver's license online. It was pretty easy.

Real ID is a federal mandate, somehow related to security. I got mine for Pennsylvania a year ago. There was a fee for the Real ID, plus I had to pay for a driver's license renewal, although they gave you an extension on your driver's license.

I do not have a Real ID yet, but I do plan on getting one the next time I renew my license.   Lee, here is a link regarding Real ID, which is written for the residents of Minnesota.

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2017/03/07/gq-real-id/

At the time I didn't realize how long it might be before I got on a plane again. It just seemed kind of stupid that if I didn't have a Real ID, at some point I would have to use my passport to fly from Boston across Cape Cod Bay to Provincetown. 

(That business about getting on a plane had and has nothing to do with Covid-19. After I had to cancel a badly needed vacation at the last minute because my father was hospitalized, it just seemed to that I really can't plan another vacation while he's still alive. I couldn't deal with having to cancel a vacation again as I had to do last fall.)

Many of our domestic flights do not have any security, none of them require any ID.   I let my passport lapse in 1984 and it was quite a rigmarole to get a new one in 1996 so I would not let it lapse again. I now have 2 and am not sure I will renew my Australian in 2026. You can renew the NZ passport online but the Australian requires a visit with an appointment to the post office in Australia or to the High Commission in Wellington here in NZ. I am suppose to use my Australian passport entering and leaving Australia but I used the New Zealand one in 2016 as I had applied for the Australian Passport at the Post Office in Sydney and had it posted to my sister while I went to Europe. I could only get away with it because NZ citizens are the only people who do not need a visa to enter Australia.

So you can just waltz into the airport and go straight to your gate without any interference or hassle?

You don't have to take off your shoes to be X-rayed? You don't have to put all items you're carrying into bins that go through an X-ray machine? You don't have to stand in a little area where imaging shows you in a really revealing way? You don't have to take off your jewelry, etc. if the scanner beeps when you walk through it? You don't face the possibility of a body search by a TSA agent if the scanner beeped, or maybe just randomly? You don't have to limit any liquids in your carry-on bags to, I think, three ounces (so a bottle of water is forbidden)?

That's how it used to be here. 

Plus we'd get whole meals and, if you go way back in the past, free champagne. People would dress up for plane flights. Acquiring and keeping a (paper) ticket was more trouble back then, but everything else was easier.

As I understand it, we will need the Real ID to fly domestically, but will still need a passport when we travel internationally, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
The only time I can think of that we use IDs at the airport is when we go through security.  We have to present our ID's when we check our bags and go through secuirty.  After that, we don't need it to board the plane.

[CellarDweller]

I don't wear gloves but immediately upon getting back in the car I sanitize my hands and everything I touched. Except the products I just purchased. I wouldn't sanitize fresh produce, for example. Yet that's the product people are most likely to touch (to test ripeness, etc.).

I still wear gloves just as an extra precaution.  when I get back to my car I don't dump them on the ground,  I put them in a bag in the car.  I sanitize my hands and face, my car keys and the steering wheel.

[serious crayons]

The only time I can think of that we use IDs at the airport is when we go through security.  We have to present our ID's when we check our bags and go through secuirty.  After that, we don't need it to board the plane.

You must not have spent enough time in the bars. 

I often get a beer or bloody Mary while I'm waiting, especially if I've got a long layover. For a while there, bartenders were carding literally everybody.

One time I stood next to a guy who looked to be in his '80s. He goes, "OK, but while I'm getting out my wallet, OK if I set my cane on the bar?"

 

[CellarDweller]

You must not have spent enough time in the bars. 

I often get a beer or bloody Mary while I'm waiting, especially if I've got a long layover. For a while there, bartenders were carding literally everybody.

One time I stood next to a guy who looked to be in his '80s. He goes, "OK, but while I'm getting out my wallet, OK if I set my cane on the bar?"

 

Yeah, I don't go to airport bars, so I've never been carded there.

[Sason]

I'm on a weeks staycation too! What a coincidence!

Tomorrow I'm going to visit little Jona and his service staff (aka parents).

I'm staying overnight, and have no catsitter, so I have to bring the kitties which is a major schlep.
But I haven't seen Jona in a couple of months, so it's worth it.

[brianr]

So you can just waltz into the airport and go straight to your gate without any interference or hassle?

Yes, if the plane is a turbo prop. You just have your ticket scanned and walk across the tarmac and up the steps in to the plane.

You don't have to take off your shoes to be X-rayed? You don't have to put all items you're carrying into bins that go through an X-ray machine? You don't have to stand in a little area where imaging shows you in a really revealing way? You don't have to take off your jewelry, etc. if the scanner beeps when you walk through it? You don't face the possibility of a body search by a TSA agent if the scanner beeped, or maybe just randomly? You don't have to limit any liquids in your carry-on bags to, I think, three ounces (so a bottle of water is forbidden)?

If it is a jet, those things happen except I have never had to take my shoes off in Australia nor NZ. The last time I was in USA 2017 I had shoes without any metal and told the woman and she asked my age, I said 73. She said you have to be 75. So now I would not have to take my shoes off, ridiculous. In NZ you can carry bottles of liquid( wine, water, whatever but not hot) on board
 

Plus we'd get whole meals and, if you go way back in the past, free champagne. People would dress up for plane flights. Acquiring and keeping a (paper) ticket was more trouble back then, but everything else was easier.

In NZ you do not get meals, the longest flight is only about 90 minutes. Everyone gets a cookie or crisps and tea or coffee unless there is turbulence when you only get water. Flying to Australia (3 hours), I fly Emirates rather than Air NZ because it is ony about $10 more and I get a 3 course meal with wine included. I usually arrive at my sister's home about 8pm (10pm NZ time) and she does not have to feed me, I just want to go to bed.

[brianr]

We always find it hilarious being asked for age ID when buying alcohol in USA. I remember it happening at a Bettermost dinner in Boston in 2010.
The only place I have been asked in Australia (since my 20's) was the Northern Territory to show I was a visitor, there are regulations for Aborigines so locals (of whatever colour) have to have a permit to buy.
I have a mate, he had been a student 11 years younger than me. I was Best man at his wedding, (Yes I wanted to be the Bride  )
He always tells the tale of the time I took him to the hotel for a drink on his 18th birthday (it was not his first but the first time he was legal).
The bartender asked me my age and I spluttered '29' while Graham roared with laughter.
Sadly my last visit to him and his wife in 2018, he looked at least 10 years older than me. He is a hippy with a long grey beard but smoking, both tobacco and weed, has taken its toll. He has given up drinking alcohol and had given up tobacco after 4 weeks in hospital but I do not know if that has lasted. We had an argument (always friendly, Graham loves to argue) over the comparative dangers of alcohol and marijuana.

[brianr]

I only have my oil changed once per year. I thought that was the wonderful thing about new cars. I have only averaged 7,600 km (4750 miles) per year.  I still use the original Ford dealer from whom I purchased. It has a WOF (warrant of Fitness) check every November (anniversary of first when it arrived in NZ) which takes about 45 minutes. I go across the road to the Nursery/Hardware store for a coffee and a wander.  Then a full service in February (anniversary of my purchase) which takes about 2 or 3 hours. I take the bus into the city for a movie. The dealer sends me an email reminder. I could probably find a cheaper place but prefer to stay with the original dealer. It has been 10 years and the only major cost have been tires (2ce) and a battery. Fingers crossed.
I would like to buy an electric car but they are so expensive. The Government was going to subsidise them next year (by taxing gas guzzlers) but Covid has put a stop to that.