praise the lord and pass the ammunition.

as if he were not already my favorite person in the world, BoyCat arose at an ungodly hour this morning and dragged himself to the DMV to register our car. three hours, a mountain of paperwork, and one battle of wills with a DC municipal employee later, we have DC license plates! and a DC registration! and a parking permit!! (you know, not that temporary kind that parking enforcement officials can't understand and thus ticket you while you're legally parked on your own street.)

words cannot express my relief. am i slightly anal-retentive? yes. but did wrangling with the DC DMV nearly drive me to the looney bin? yes.


BoyCat: now officially my favoritest favorite person in the world.

***

in other news, i have been wide awake from 4:00 am to 6:00 am the past two nights. i try in vain to sleep, but i just toss and turn and get cranky and sigh a lot. is this some kind of biological prank my body is playing on me?

so, it follows that i've been very tired during the day.

so, it follows that it took me until 11:30 am to realize that i had never taken off my ratty, commuting flip-flops once i got to the office.

so, it follows that i didn't give a shit, and tromped around in them for the rest of the day.

so, it follows that when i tromped over to CVS during my lunch hour to buy shampoo, i nearly threw a temper tantrum in the hair care aisle upon realizing that a 17 oz. bottle of paul mitchell costs $11.39. why did this vex me so? i've paid far more for far less of a necessary hygiene product. and yet, with the whining and the stamping of the feet.

the ugly flip-flop shod feet.

***

finally, everyone, humor me. take five minutes, click over to slate.com, and read this article by meghan o'rourke about the history of engagement rings. no seriously, i know we've been over this before and you think what you think, that's fine, but it is enlightening! i learned things! like this:

...as it happens there was another factor in the surge of engagement ring sales [in the 1930s and after] — one that makes the ring's role as collateral in the premarital economy more evident. Until the 1930s, a woman jilted by her fiance could sue for financial compensation for "damage" to her reputation under what was known as the "Breach of Promise to Marry" action. As courts began to abolish such actions, diamond ring sales rose in response to a need for a symbol of financial commitment from the groom, argues the legal scholar Margaret Brinig — noting, crucially, that ring sales began to rise a few years before the De Beers campaign. To be marriageable at the time you needed to be a virgin, but, Brinig points out, a large percentage of women lost their virginity while engaged. So some structure of commitment was necessary to assure betrothed women that men weren't just trying to get them into bed. The "Breach of Promise" action had helped prevent what society feared would be rampant seduce-and-abandon scenarios; in its lieu, the pricey engagement ring would do the same.

see? interesting. at least, as interesting as antiquated, mid-century legal matters can be.