Today I’m officially a Georgian (again)! I got up an hour early this morning to head back down to Woodstock. It was cold and rainy; the bank clock said it was 34 degrees. I was afraid there’d be a long line at the tag office, but I only had to wait a few minutes before one of the four tellers opened up. I thought to bring my car title along this time; I had forgotten it Saturday, so even if it had been open, I wouldn’t have been able to get the tag. I had a minor snag – my car insurance policy wasn’t in their system like State Farm promised. Fortunately, I brought along my policy as well, so they just made a xerox of it and everything went smoothly after that. They gave me my tag (my first thought was “Where’s the other one?” before I remembered Georgia only has to put a tag on the back of the car, not the front also, unlike Missouri).

I headed out and changed my tags in the cold rain of the parking lot, like several other people were doing around me. I had my handy Leatherman with me, so the work went swiftly, even though my fingers were numb and the bolts were wet. I would have stepped back to admire my work, but it was too cold and wet to sit back and reflect on how much better my car looked with a nice orange Georgia plate on the back and nothing on the front.

It was with a sense of relief that I went to work today, glad that all the bureaucratic nonsense of moving has finally been taken care of. I got to work supra-early; I had allowed a lot of time for waiting at the tag office. The rain was so relaxing, I put my seat back and took a nap in the parking lot and waited for the store to open.

I turned my calendar over to “February” today. For the last several years, I have been getting a “Tolkien” calendar every year for Christmas. For the last couple of years, it’s been a “Lord of the Rings Movie” calendar, with pictures from the movies for each month. Well, guess what the picture is for this month? The back of Aragorn’s head. That’s right, no face, no background, nuthin’. He’s wearing the crown he gets in the last movie, and that’s the only way I knew it was him. I mean, really, why would I want to look at the back of someone’s head for a month? February is dreary enough as it is. I wonder who it was that thought, “I know! Out of all the cool action shots and movie images I could put in this calendar, I will use one of my twelve slots for the back of Aragorn’s head! I’m sure people are dying to see a close-up of every greasy strand!” Come on, even last October’s shot of the half-slaughtered orc was better-looking than this.