Disorderly Day meetup with Duck Dynasty

I jumped out of bed in alarm,🛌🤸‍♀️ because I didn't set an alarm.⏰ Drove on another wild goose chase🚔 to the Secretary of State to get my enhanced driver's license (because I almost needed one awhile back) only to get sent home🏡 and told to call a certain number📞 that didn't do anything but tell me a bunch of stuff and to go online.
 As it stands, I can't get my license renewed until a month and a half after my birthday, but the phone and the instructions said, it's waived, because of the CV19 delay. 
Now, my experience was, there were a number of people basking in the sun with masks,😷 except for one full bearded guy,🤧 who sneezed. When I looked at the instructions I would have to follow, they said, mask required and other rules, so I hope they kicked "Sneezy" out of there🏈, like to the curb.

August 17th:

Time to vent: I thought, oh what a good girl am I! I have all the documents they called for in a folder for the Secretary of States' Office. I wanted an enhanced license with a star🌠 to be able to travel by going through Canada,🇨🇦 and maybe, coming back to the States, plus other travel possibilities, not that I can afford it. So, I produced everything, including my original birth certificate complete with imprints of my little👶newborn feet.👣 Nope. That wasn't the right birth certificate. It had to be the one I sent for in 1979 to Washington state with a notary seal! I assumed that one was the wrong one and the earlier copy I had was the right one. So, I settled for the regular driver's license,🚗 and since I didn't want to be pressed for time, I signed up for an advanced appointment in December! ☃️ The state was not about to answer the phone regarding questions, just check the FAQs on the web page.
Everything's a process,🐌 we keep saying.

Wild Goose Chase, Righted

Well, after I got done being a Grandma, 👩‍🦳I got out into the boonies to get a "script" at the foot👣 Dr., which was closed, when they said they'd be open. I wandered around the back of the huge building near the highway, trying to see if I was mistaken as to where the main entrance was located, to no avail. Returning to the front, a man drove up for the purpose of honoring his appointment. I was please that he put on his mask, as I did mine. Calling on his phone, he discovered that said building was closed, due to a power outage. That explained it, and I thanked him.
Well, of course, if Barnes and Noble happened to be open, I would certainly want to go there and call Bill to let him know about the wild goose chase. 🏃‍♀️ This gave him the opportunity to have me pick up his favorite magazines if I could find them, and to get mine. Now, if you want to think it's La La Land time in Michigan, all you have to do is go into a store that just opened a week and a half ago: Same rules as the grocery stores, same markings, same percentage of people obeying and disobeying the mask rule. You'd think that those who read 📖would consider obeying, but they're probably reading things like, How Science is Duping the Public. I don't know if there IS such a book, but I've somehow met up with a lot of people who've read it,📙 claiming they've "studied" the matter more than anybody else, especially me.
Then, I thought, well, that made it less of a hunt for a goose, 🕵️‍♀️after doing a good deed for him and me. We'll be happy readers tonight.
Store hours were a little later so, I stopped at the optometrist, since about the first thing I did to start the Pandemic Incarceration was to accidentally sit on my glasses to make them cockeyed.🥴 Again, masks were "requested", same rules, same dividers in front of the workers. There were even the same list of questions and a temperature check. Since I was the only one, I couldn't judge as to whether people were cooperating. But it turns out the frames were so old, they broke off.🧐 Well, I was given a temporary pair, which I liked better. So, now, I'm wearing classy glasses frames for good. 🤓
Moral of the story, keep being careful. Most of Michigan businesses appear to be trying. And it doesn't take that much to just cooperate.💃🕺 It becomes as much a part of your lifestyle as waiting for your baggage to be checked at the airport.

Slowly Reopening and Slow Reconstructing

Still in stage four of Mi State being opened, so when I went to the lab today, they questioned any symptoms (taking for granted that they and I would be wearing masks  😷😷😷 and even took my temperature without even touching my forehead. I said, "is that all there is to it? What was it, BTW?" (Normal) They had the place blocked out ❎⬆️⬇️❌for social distancing 🚶‍♀️ 🚶‍♂️and how many could be in the lab at a time. That took a short time, too.
 Now, on the way there, my focus was getting there, but there was a detour into an area I worked for six years. I returned the same way, of course, and I couldn't help but notice how much road construction🚜 was needed in this minority area. When I got closer to my neighborhood, which is mixed, the roads were improved. Perhaps, I became more aware, due to the marches,👣👥👤👮‍♂️👨‍🚒👮‍♀️👫👥👤👣 of what I hadn't noticed enough all those years I was actually working there.

Update:  I'm happy to say that those areas that needed construction are listed as roads to be repaired, according to the local newspaper.

Humans and other Animals

On my walk, I encountered a pup dog 🐶 I kind of knew whose it was and to which house he belonged. I told him to follow me "home" while other dogs 🐕🐩🐕🐩 across the street scolded him with their barks, as if to say, "You're naughty; if we have to be inside, or leashed, or penned, you have no right to be out!" When we got to the place with two ramps, there was a cat🐱 guarding the door. I stooped to look at his license and read the phone number out loud. The look he gave me indicated that he understood that if I had to, I would call his owner on my phone. Immediately, he clipped up the incline, and the two creatures stole into the house. 🐕🐈 I laughed through all this, because animals, whether they're across-the-street observers or "busted" puppies, have an intelligence that we humans underestimate.

Lord, Send Me a Sign

Okay...Grocery store adventures! 🛒 Yesterday's was a bit uneventful, except the 3 oz paper cups at Dollar💲 Tree 🌳turned out to actually be 2 oz cups, but Bill likes miniature things, so he's planning on putting coke in them. (They make good viewing-at-home communion glasses, too.)
As I entered Meijer today, there were these big old signs on the doors telling the customers that state law says they MUST wear a mask. "Well," I thought, "that does it. Surely, they'll comply with those signs." Oh contrare! Again, about 1/3 were wandering aimlessly about 🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️ as if they'd failed their remedial reading 📖courses. As for arrows, ⬆️⬇️which are pretty easy to understand, you still managed to meet up with folks going the wrong way on a one-way "street". The 1/3 were also hard of hearing, because they failed to hear the P.A.📢 pep talk on using hand sanitizers and other precautions, (like wearing masks) which explained the why's and wherefores of doing those things. As I said, Bill likes miniature things, so I got him a teeny-tiny hand sanitizer bottle (and one for me, too).
But there were other good things like, actually finding bona fide masks😷 in the health section. I was wearing a sock.🧦 Now, I'd grown quite fond of socks on the face, so I traveled in a circuitous fashion, after getting Meijer-priced ink cartridges, ending up in the sock section. I thought the prices were "highway robbery" for just socks. I wanted something distinctive, and this took a long time to evaluate. I was about to "cave" to Hanes, but my eyes wandered to yet another display I hadn't seen, Aha! Only $5 for 2 pair. (As luck would have it, the receipt showed the 2 pair marked down to $1.25!) The distinctive aspect of one of the pairs is multi-colored puppy paw🐕🐶 prints. So, I hope I don't screw up the cutting and creative process.
Had to wait to hit the cleaning aisle before I found the nearly extinct disposable latex gloves. 🦖
And last but not least, food,🍉🍌🍒🥕which will hopefully carry us for another, say, week and a half.

Out There in the Grocery Arena

I like to talk about grocery adventures, since those are the only ones you can have these days. In a small store like Aldi's, it's really artful to avoid people. If they want me to come at senior times, you can bet I'm still sleeping. 😴 What do they think seniors are about, assuming they're early birds?🐦 I noticed a senior guy at checkout, wearing a mask, but it had fallen off to the side. So, why bother? 
Anyway, the clerk invited us to #1 aisle, so I went, with my black sock mask 🧦on with a coffee filter ☕️insert. He (unmasked) kept asking me questions, and I didn't do much talking. He should have been the one not talking. Basically, he wanted to know if I needed some help. It was either my gray hair 👩‍🦳cascading down my back or that I had a lot of stuff. Well, again, what could I say? I was stuck, between the side of the cart 🛒and whatever was behind me, and I couldn't get my ample figure👩‍🦳🛒 out of the vice. So, I just went along, quietly and meekly. 
He had a shield for his check out area, but I couldn't help but wonder why, when he was generally so "out there", near me.

A Hundred Million Miracles

Don't lose your sense of magic.🤹‍♂️ I remember when I received my first email, from just across town, and I told the one who wrote it, this is a miracle!
Well, I know it's hard for some to be locked up or down, whichever you want to call it. But I started my day with a Zoom class;🖥 this is something I'm being initiated into. Later on, I had a Dr. appointment/consultation, and no, I didn't go anywhere but here. The new initiation was talking to my Dr. face to face, (though I said I was a little more used to the computer or laptop); on my smart phone. 👩‍⚕️ So, that was a first, too. Talked long distance to someone else, too, the old fashioned way, on the landline.📞
Bill and I watched the first part of "Gun Smoke", and though we'd both planned on reading, Bill asked me why I was watching it. 📺 I said, those people never even dreamed of a time when they wouldn't need horses pulling their carriages, airplanes, phones, TVs, computers, and cell phones...
Yup, in 1918, there was a Spanish flu, but they didn't have these things to carry them through, not even SSRIs,😊 but then, that's another matter to "discuss" at another time.