Hot Wheels

August 11, 2011

My first car when I was a kid--18, newly licensed--was a beat up old junker of a Thunderbird that Mom sort of 'rented' from a family friend. They were in the process of fixing it up, and it was essentially drivable, though not exactly in the inspiring-confidence-in-dependability way. Every third day the car was parked back at the friend's house to be repaired, because I was kind enough to find yet another thing wrong with it. However, despite its sometimes erratic behavior, I enjoyed the freedom (every few days, anyway) of having my first set of wheels that didn't belong to my mom. This is a picture of what the car would have looked liked if it wasn't so beaten up and faded. The important part was that it was blue. Kind of made up for the fact that it mostly didn't run. Mostly.


My second car was a Mustang--used, of course, but much more reliable than the previous car. The first car kind of set the bar low, so pretty much anything was a step up. I was completely in love with this one. It was the first car I actually got to go shopping for and choose as mine; it got me through most of my college years. And yes, it was blue, too. That was at the top of my wish list.



This was my third car, and the last used one I had for many years. I was engaged at the time, and my soon-to-be husband decided I needed a more reliable, sensible car. He was a big fan of Hondas, so he sought out one for me within our budget. Once he found one he thought was suitable, he took the money I had been saving up for a car and made the purchase. He drove it to my work to surprise me. I hadn't even seen the car before I bought it! It was brown--one of my least favorite colors--but it was a very good car. Still, it never really replaced my beautiful blue Mustang in my heart.

Random Stuff

May 11, 2010

--I'm pretty excited that I'm going to be chaperoning Grad Nite this year. It's been a long time since I've signed on for that duty, mainly because when the kids were younger it was harder to get away over night. This year, though, they're having such a hard time getting people to sign up that there are extra spaces on the bus. If my sister can get away, she gets to join me, which would be so much fun! We've been to Disneyland together with our kids before, but never just the two of us. It will be a blast!

--Bree had AP Psych testing today and AP Comp testing tomorrow. I'm sure she'll be all kinds of relieved once she's done with all of that.

--Nicholas has grown like a weed this school year. I wouldn't doubt if he'd sprouted up five inches or so. He surpassed me at the beginning of the school year, and I think right now he's got at least an inch on his dad. He's definitely not done yet, either, since he's only in 7th grade.

--Danielle wants to attend Young Chef's Academy this summer. It's kind of expensive, but I think if we can swing it, we'll let her go. I think she'll get a lot out of it, and we'll get to be her taste-testers at home, too.

--I was reminded again today of one of my big pet peeves while in the drive-through at McDonald's. Danielle and I stopped there on our way to the Parent Club meeting at school this evening. She ordered a kids' meal, as she usually does, and the young man taking our order asked me if I wanted the "Boy Toy" or the "Girl Toy" to go with it. Why do they have to perpetuate stereotypes like that? Why can't they just ask if the kid wants a car or a doll? I spoke back to the speaker box and said, "SHE wants a car." "She wants the Boy Toy?" "She wants the CAR. Thank you!" Seriously, it makes me crazy. When Danielle was little, it really used to confuse her and make her cry, because she thought that if she wanted the "Boy Toy," people would think she was a boy .Now she's just amused that it annoys me.


--I read a headline today that said there was a Korean woman who took 960 tries to pass her driver's test. 960? Shouldn't there be a limit on that sort of thing? At some point, shouldn't someone take the girl aside and help her focus on picking up a different hobby? "Listen, Sweetie, maybe driving's not your thing. Have you thought about taking up knitting or cooking or fencing? Let's maybe leave the driving to the people who pass within, oh, say, the first five or six tries, huh?"

--Yesterday I found out that Mia Michaels is going to replace Mary Murphy as a permanent judge on So You Think You Can Dance this season. Finally! Mia isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I love her. Mary will be back for the audition rounds and will appear now and then as guest judge, but we won't have to endure her every single week. Honestly, once you've become a caricature of yourself, it's time to move on. She was beginning to turn the show into a punchline.


--Doug has wistfully mentioned many times that all of his co-workers' wives make their lunches for them each day. I think it's only a little tongue in cheek when he says he wishes his wife loved him enough to make his lunch for him. I could, I guess, but my goodness--I don't even make the kids' lunches for school. I give them lunch money. Does that make me a bad mother? A bad wife? In the fifties, perhaps, but c'mon! It's not like I don't do lots of other things to take care of all of them. Why is that the one thing that seems to be stuck in old-school gender roles? I don't expect someone else to make my lunch for me when I go to work; I'm a grown-up and I know where the kitchen is. Doug's pretty handy in the kitchen, too. It doesn't mean I don't love him if he goes in and makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for himself to put in his lunch pail.

Driving Lesson

May 21, 2009

My fifteen-year-old had her first driving lesson yesterday. Sort of. Actually, her dad took her out driving in a parking lot twice, but the first time she was so nervous, she wouldn't even step on the gas. She just put the car in drive, and crept along as slowly as the car would go without any outside impetus moving it along. At about five miles an hour, she practiced turning the wheel, and (if I'm not mistaken) getting a feel for the brakes. The second outing with her dad was slightly more successful, by all accounts.

So, yesterday, she got her first professional lesson. An instructor from the driving school met us at the high school. He did his best to put her at ease, and when she nervously asked him, "You have insurance, don't you, just in case I crash?" he assured her that most of the students he worked with had very little experience, and he was totally at ease putting his life in her hands. She, of course, glanced at me, the look in her eyes saying, "You'll still love me if I accidentally kill this guy, right?"

After I, too assured her that she'd be just fine, I asked the guy what time I needed to return to pick her up. He looked at me quizzically and said, "You want her to come back here? She can just drive home if you want, and then I can take the car from there." Wait--what?? I don't have to pick her up? Oh man, I am gonna love having another driver in the house! I started daydreaming about all of the extra time I'll have when I give up my second job as a taxi driver.... I was brought back to reality by Bree, who was reluctantly saying, "Okay, Mom. I'm leaving. I love you....," the last line uttered as though by one who highly suspected she'd never see me again. I walked away, crossing my fingers and praying that all would go well.

It did, luckily. Bree's a quick learner, and her instructor was a fun and funny guy. He tried not to make her feel nervous, or lame because she didn't know how to drive. I actually think she'll look forward to her next lesson. Tonight she actually starts driving with me (her permit wasn't valid until she had her first lesson), but I did tell her I wouldn't make her negotiate the high school parking lot after school. I have a hard enough time driving through all those crazy drivers--you know, the seniors who are so eager to get away from the school grounds at 2:45 that meandering pedestrians and novice drivers are in very real peril. No, she'll drive with me later on tonight, when we are headed to her sister's end-of-season softball party. Wish us luck, because if she and I are both in a vehicle that crashes, that will leave all of the taxi duties to my husband, and I'm pretty sure he won't be thrilled about that.

I remember my own first driver's training class. I took driver's training when it was still offered as part of the school curriculum--it was part of our P.E. class, oddly enough. (It's a good thing, too, that it was offered at school, because that made it free. I'm pretty sure if my mom had been told that she'd have to come up with $400 to put me through driving school, I would have gotten my license much later in life.) We got divided up into groups of three. Inexplicably, there were only three of us whose parents never got the memo that it might have been a good idea to give us a little 'behind the wheel' time before we turned fifteen. I mean, there were student drivers who could drive circles around the instructors. They were so comfortable behind the wheel that they could have taught the course.

I was not one of those. Nor was my friend Jim, nor was the foreign exchange student who happened to be in our group. I'm not sure if it was mere coincidence, but the three of us ended up doing our driver's training together. I was hard on brakes, giving my passengers whiplash. Jim had a bad habit of punching the gas when he took off, compounding our whiplash problems. But we were nothing compared to our foreign exchange student, who careened down the neighborhood streets, nearly sideswiping parked cars every time she got behind the wheel. She was so nervous about staying away from on-coming cars that she would have driven on the sidewalk if she could. We made quite the impression on our driving instructor, whose face and voice remained surprisingly placid, though if you looked carefully, you could see the white knuckles gripping the sides of his seat. Suffice it to say, he still vividly remembers all of us to this day.

I am quite sure that it is because of the fact that there were no calm, experienced drivers in my car that I was in no hurry to get my license. I completed my course, but it was almost another two full years before I decided to get my license. I am hoping it does not take Brianna that long to go out and get hers once her training time is done. I am ready to hand over the keys to the taxi.