11Mar2009: Day 289: Student Drivers

Over here I’m guessing it’s mandatory that you have to take driving lessons from a service. I’m not sure how many hours one has to train with these people and/or if these people then give you the road test and a piece of paper stating that you can now officially drive. I’m not really sure if it’s absolutely required to take lessons from these people. The only reason I think it is, is because there are so many different companies that you see teaching people how to drive. They all have signs on the cars and/or on top of the car so you can clearly spot these people and be forewarned. They are everywhere, especially in our area it seems.

Sometimes, there’s not forewarning about how ridiculous the actions of these people learning how to drive are going to be. Once, about a month or so ago, I was at a light behind one of these cars and as the light turned green, the kid put the car and reverse and just stopped short of backing into me. I was in my car screaming, “What are you doing?” and then profusely honking. He obviously didn’t have the car in gear when he first started and then stuck it in reverse instead of drive or first.

So today came as no surprise, just frustration. As I’ve stated in the blog before, the roads here are very narrow. When people park on both sides of the street, you typically only have room for one car to go down so it’s like a game of chicken as you go head to head and the first person to find an open spot pulls over so to let another person continue by. Today, there was a student driver in the middle of the road with his reverse lights on. Cars behind him are stopping and lining up, waiting for him to move the car. Cars in front of him are now starting to line up. This kid is just sitting in the middle of the road not doing anything. He had plenty and I mean plenty of room to back up and park in a spot. It’s like he was learning how to parallel park but not between two cars. He only had to back up past one car and all the room behind him along the curb was clear. It’s like you want to get out of your car, knock on his window and say, “um, excuse me, do you happen to see the chaos you’re causing by just sitting in the middle of the road?” “Would you like me to drive the car out of the way or are you trying to really make all those behind you and in front of you totally infuriated?” He finally did finally back up and park but it took what seemed like forever. Once that happened, then the game of chicken began for the rest of us who were waiting to get by.

The last day of this swim semester was today and Makenna did okay. She wasn’t into kicking her feet too much today but we were successful. I also had her go under a bit and she even jumped in between the two noodles the teacher set out and went under when she jumped in. She had another kid who was a bit over zealous jump in right away after and he got quite an earful from his mom. Makenna was really okay and this kid was bawling for getting in trouble. Inside the locker room, another little boy was overjoyed being able to run around naked and promptly peed all over the floor. His mother had to use one of their towels to clean it up.

Today at play group I tried getting Hannah to say Makenna’s name correctly. I said, “Hanna, say “ma”.” She said “ma.” I said, “kenna.” She said, “wakka.” Then she said, “Mawakka.” Wonderful I thought. Close enough. When we were leaving play group I told Makenna to give Hannah cuddles (hugs) and she went and laid her head on Hannah’s shoulder (as Makenna doesn’t put her arms around people.) Hannah put her arms around Makenna and they went toppling over onto the floor, on top of Hannah’s sister Bethany who promptly started to cry. Then Hannah rolled off of her onto the floor with Makenna on top so Hannah started to cry. Makenna who landed on top of the whole mess was just looking like, “um, why are they crying?” I told her it was an accident not to worry.

The word for today was “stunk” for skunk. She found another cute cartoon called “Little Bear” that she really likes and there’s a few bits that show a skunk but Makenna keeps asking for the “stunk.” I keep trying to correct her but she still says stunk.