I’m in between writing projects, and in between life transitions, and even today is in between the weekend and two days off, so it’s an odd isolated work day. I’ve turned in the rewrite of a short for an anthology – the last of the lot I was invited to join this summer, and ironically the first of the invitations I’d received. It was an amazing summer for me, as a writer. I wound up not really getting much done toward my own long-format projects, but there will be a spate of shorts in the coming year. I’ve got a short I’m working on longhand on paper, because? Because muse. I dunno.
Life here in the Nut House is living up to the name. The Ginja Ninja didn’t quite make it over the hurdle of obtaining her driver’s license, and as she is no longer a minor she now has to take a class (fortunately online) and conduct no less than 24 hours supervised drive time. Which she would like to do in a week. Pardon me while I put my head in my hands and cry with fatigue. In addition to that, the First Reader and I have helped her acquire a beater car of her own. We here are nuts in another way – we eschew unnecessary debt. I’m trying to teach the kids how to exist without all those ‘normal’ American pitfalls like car loans and credit cards. So… it’s not a beautiful car. It’s got enough miles on it to have made a trip to the moon. It drips in places it shouldn’t. But the engine purrs, and if it gets her where she needs to go for a year it will have been more than worth it.
and now I have to run.
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6 responses to “In Between”
Would you like some tips on how to forge the supervised drive time records?
We don’t even have to make a log of the time. Just have a form notarized stating she has completed the 24 hours. Since we plan to tag-team this, and get hey boyfriend In on it (he’s over 21) I think we can realistically manage by Jan 1. I do want her driving that time, though. It’s good for her confidence and practice. It’s just going to take a lot out of her support staff :p
No log? That’s great! When No. 2 Daughter was learning to drive, she got far more than the required number of hours of supervised driving practice – but they wanted us to document it by hour and minute and – this was the one that really drove me crazy – topic of instruction! As if we had said, “Ok, kid, today we’re going to practice looking through the crepe myrtles before you pull out of the driveway. Stopping? Oh, don’t worry, we’ll cover that tomorrow.”
Fortunately, similar demands had already given us some practice in making the documents look good.
The Jr. Mad Scientist will have to keep a log. We’ve already been doing some drive time with her, but once her sister is launched, we will formalize it. She won’t be 18 until April, so it’s required of her.
The beater will do good. Doing “preflight” before any longer trips and regularly checking levels at (at least) every refueling is a Good Thing. Should a new(er) vehicle be acquired someday, just not having to check everything all the time will be its own luxury, never mind any alleged trim level. Why, yes, I did drive junk… and I have co-worker younger than my current vehicle, which I did buy new.
Merry Christmas!
May the next year be better than the last.