I have been to Columbus, and back again

Husband and I went to Columbus yesterday in order to "state certify" all our Ohio documents for our adoption dossier.

We had ten Ohio documents, and I just didn't trust the Secretary of State not to lose at least one of them.

For several days, I thought I was going to have to go alone, but, we accomplished some fancy foot work with finding someone to take care of Gabe (which involved picking Gabe up at noon from a day camp he is attending this week from 9:45 to 12:00). So, anyway, I am grateful to my friend B~, who stepped in and took care of Gabe yesterday afternoon so that Husband and I could drive to Columbus together.

I had not been to Columbus since 2003, when I took the Bar Exam, and I think I will forever associate that city with the terror/nausea/mind-boggling stress/insanity of those three days of sitting at a folding table in an enormous room with 350 other recent law school grads, writing frantically, certain that I would fail and never be able to practice law.

We made our way into downtown Columbus (2 hours and 45 minutes after we left home), and, amazingly, found an empty parking spot with a meter RIGHT NEXT TO the building that houses the Secretary of State's Office. Unfortunately, since I had assumed we would need to park in a parking garage, I was armed with lots of $1.00 bills and $5.00 bills, but, almost no coins. We scrounged through the car and my purse, and found .65 - which bought us 33 minutes at the meter.

We quickly made our way to the Secretary of State and back to the car, documents all authenticated, with TWO MINUTES left on the meter. Hurray!

Then, we set off to go shopping and have lunch at a place called Easton Town Center. We had lunch at a California Pizza Kitchen, bought a set of sheets for Lana at Pottery Barn Kids (they were 60% off so they were $19.99!!) (They are white and green with little octopuses on them. Octopii? What's the plural of octopus?)

We shopped some more (mostly window shopping), stopped in at Maggie Moos for a cake batter ice cream cone with cookie down smush in*, and made our way home, where we picked up Gabe by 6:45.

All in all, it felt like a productive day, adoption wise.

Lawmommy

*cake batter + cookie dough smush-in is an excellent combination at Maggie Moos, an even BETTER combination, which cannot be done at Maggie Moos, but, which CAN be done at Cold Stone Creamery, is cake batter ice cream + sweet cream ice cream + cookie dough smush-in. I keep telling them they should add this to their board of special combinations. So far, they haven't taken me up on it. I have decided it is dangerous to have a Cold Stone less then five minutes from one's home.