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Our next-door neighbours have a dog of very little brain indeed. It's a small animal, and I suspect it doesn't have much by way of memory, since it tends to have a couple of daily rituals. One of these has just finished (furious barking to alert the world the sun appears to have vanished, taken by person or persons unknown), and the other is just beginning (plaintive yelping because it's still outside in this strange new world with no sunshine). I suspect it sleeps through sunrises, since I don't recall being woken by the reverse sorts of barking in the morning (or else it has a different ritual to deal with the apparent reversal of such a terrible trauma). If nothing else, it means I didn't sleep through from my after-bureaucracy nap today.
Yes, I did say after-bureaucracy nap. I renewed my driver's licence today. This was a rather involved process, since to start with, I had to transfer it over from the ACT (where I'd been living the last time a driver's licence renewal was due) back to WA, and I also had to change my address, as well as getting a full check up to testify that yes, I am safe to drive despite taking regular medication for my depression. This involved firstly heading over to the nearest licensing centre (Rockingham) and fronting up to their little queue management machine, and picking what I thought was the appropriate category (drivers licence renewal). Then I waited (briefly) for my number to come up, went to the counter I'd been called to, and discovered I should have picked a different category (drivers licence transfer). Fortunately the nice lady behind the counter was kind enough to deal with me rather than sending me back to the queuing machine, and she started handing me over forms - one to get the renewal done, one to get the transfer done, and then she discovered that oh dear, I was on medication and needed the medical forms filled in too.
I'd sort of expected that, since the last time I'd been in there (to update my address) I'd been told I needed to get the forms filled out. At the time, I'd been issued with the bits and pieces, but the depression got in the way of my finding the round tuit required to get them filled out by my GP - my bad. Anyway, today's effort had me phoning up the usual medical practice and finding out that none of the doctors there were available (all booked out) so I wandered over to the nearest medical centre instead, and took a walk-in appointment there (after being warned forwards, backwards and sideways that it was gonna cost me money that I couldn't claim back - about $125 - to have the check-up done). To which I said yeah, okay, I can handle it - I had my book and my bottle of water, so I was pretty much set to sit and wait. So I sat and I waited, and I got a nice doctor who basically checked everything to make sure I was still alive: weight (he got my lecture to doctors of "I know I'm overweight, I know being overweight is unhealthy, I just don't give a monkeys"); height (still the same as last time, 5'2"); reflexes; heartbeat (yes, I have one); eye test (able to read the bottom line forwards and backwards from the other end of the office, yay); blood pressure (low end of normal, as expected); a series of tests which I think were to do with muscle strength or resistance, or possibly ability to understand instructions; and a sheet to go talk to the nice vampires at the blood collection service so that they can test to make sure I don't have anything massively terrible happening with my cholesterol and sugars. Then he signed the nice form from the department of Transport, I got the girl at the counter to fax through copies to their medical office, and took the originals off to the licensing centre again.
Back at the licensing centre, I picked the correct tab from the ticket machine, and took a seat, carefully ignoring the heart-warming movie which was playing on the prominently displayed televisions. Once my number was called, I took the forms to the nice lady at the counter, who sent them off to the medical office as well, and then handed me over to another nice lady at a different counter, who finished the processing and informed me there was an outstanding fine awaiting me. This was for not handing in the licence plates on the last car I'd owned (an ancient Nissan Pulsar which I wound up selling for scrap in the ACT back in about 1999). So, one statutory declaration explaining what had happened later, and I was given a phone number and pointed to the courthouse to pay the fine because otherwise the nice people from fines enforcement can suspend my drivers licence. Of course, by this point I was starting to run out of dealing-with-people spoons, so I decided to give the courthouse a go-by, and I'll call the number given to find out what my options are tomorrow.
On my way home, I stopped in to pick up some components for the dinner I was planning to make (plans put on hold by collapsing in a heap), and also to fill the prescription for my anti-depressants. There was supposed to be a chemist at the medical centre in Rockingham, but it was at bird-box stage (all the fittings and fixtures provided, but no actual proprietor) so I couldn't get the scripts filled in there. So I stopped by in Kwinana to do the wee bit of shopping (1 zucchini, 2 tomatoes, and the script refils) and picked myself up a sandwich from Subway as a reward for managing to get all the way through everything without cracking up or breaking down.
All in all, a fairly satisfying day. I got a new driver's licence out of the whole mess, as well as a number of completed tasks on my calendar. So I'm happy enough.
Yes, I did say after-bureaucracy nap. I renewed my driver's licence today. This was a rather involved process, since to start with, I had to transfer it over from the ACT (where I'd been living the last time a driver's licence renewal was due) back to WA, and I also had to change my address, as well as getting a full check up to testify that yes, I am safe to drive despite taking regular medication for my depression. This involved firstly heading over to the nearest licensing centre (Rockingham) and fronting up to their little queue management machine, and picking what I thought was the appropriate category (drivers licence renewal). Then I waited (briefly) for my number to come up, went to the counter I'd been called to, and discovered I should have picked a different category (drivers licence transfer). Fortunately the nice lady behind the counter was kind enough to deal with me rather than sending me back to the queuing machine, and she started handing me over forms - one to get the renewal done, one to get the transfer done, and then she discovered that oh dear, I was on medication and needed the medical forms filled in too.
I'd sort of expected that, since the last time I'd been in there (to update my address) I'd been told I needed to get the forms filled out. At the time, I'd been issued with the bits and pieces, but the depression got in the way of my finding the round tuit required to get them filled out by my GP - my bad. Anyway, today's effort had me phoning up the usual medical practice and finding out that none of the doctors there were available (all booked out) so I wandered over to the nearest medical centre instead, and took a walk-in appointment there (after being warned forwards, backwards and sideways that it was gonna cost me money that I couldn't claim back - about $125 - to have the check-up done). To which I said yeah, okay, I can handle it - I had my book and my bottle of water, so I was pretty much set to sit and wait. So I sat and I waited, and I got a nice doctor who basically checked everything to make sure I was still alive: weight (he got my lecture to doctors of "I know I'm overweight, I know being overweight is unhealthy, I just don't give a monkeys"); height (still the same as last time, 5'2"); reflexes; heartbeat (yes, I have one); eye test (able to read the bottom line forwards and backwards from the other end of the office, yay); blood pressure (low end of normal, as expected); a series of tests which I think were to do with muscle strength or resistance, or possibly ability to understand instructions; and a sheet to go talk to the nice vampires at the blood collection service so that they can test to make sure I don't have anything massively terrible happening with my cholesterol and sugars. Then he signed the nice form from the department of Transport, I got the girl at the counter to fax through copies to their medical office, and took the originals off to the licensing centre again.
Back at the licensing centre, I picked the correct tab from the ticket machine, and took a seat, carefully ignoring the heart-warming movie which was playing on the prominently displayed televisions. Once my number was called, I took the forms to the nice lady at the counter, who sent them off to the medical office as well, and then handed me over to another nice lady at a different counter, who finished the processing and informed me there was an outstanding fine awaiting me. This was for not handing in the licence plates on the last car I'd owned (an ancient Nissan Pulsar which I wound up selling for scrap in the ACT back in about 1999). So, one statutory declaration explaining what had happened later, and I was given a phone number and pointed to the courthouse to pay the fine because otherwise the nice people from fines enforcement can suspend my drivers licence. Of course, by this point I was starting to run out of dealing-with-people spoons, so I decided to give the courthouse a go-by, and I'll call the number given to find out what my options are tomorrow.
On my way home, I stopped in to pick up some components for the dinner I was planning to make (plans put on hold by collapsing in a heap), and also to fill the prescription for my anti-depressants. There was supposed to be a chemist at the medical centre in Rockingham, but it was at bird-box stage (all the fittings and fixtures provided, but no actual proprietor) so I couldn't get the scripts filled in there. So I stopped by in Kwinana to do the wee bit of shopping (1 zucchini, 2 tomatoes, and the script refils) and picked myself up a sandwich from Subway as a reward for managing to get all the way through everything without cracking up or breaking down.
All in all, a fairly satisfying day. I got a new driver's licence out of the whole mess, as well as a number of completed tasks on my calendar. So I'm happy enough.
