We have braved the bureaucracy

cattitude and I went to the Registry of Motor Vehicles office today, and handed them forms, ID from other places, and utility bills, and will be getting Massachusetts ID cards in a few weeks. We have also registered to vote.

I had gone to the RMV website, filled in the information ahead of time, and printed out the number-coded receipt it gave me. This seems to have made absolutely no difference to the process: I got to watch the clerk retype information from that printout into her computer. Cattitude got to watch a different clerk retype handwritten information from his form into the same computer system.

We had lunch at Zuzu, a Middle Eastern restaurant and music club in Central Square, on the way to the RMV office in Watertown (which appeared to have shorter lines than the one in downtown Boston). Cattitude had the pumpkin kibby (which is what he had on his previous visit, and why he wanted to go back), and I had lamb shank, on the theory that a restaurant that has lamb shank on the regular lunch menu probably knows what to do with it. Both were excellent; the pumpkin kibby is one of several vegetarian options. They also know how to make a decent cup of tea—the water was hot enough, and they had a black tea that wasn't Earl Grey.

On our way back from the RMV, we went to Toscanini's for hot fudge sundaes; it appears to be strawberry ice cream season there, so I got a large sundae with strawberry and lemon ice cream, because I felt obscurely that I had earned it, even though this wasn't a particularly difficult encounter with bureaucracy (in terms of time or complexity).