Brakes and Helicopters

I’m sitting in the car place because there’s something wrong with my daughter’s brakes. I’m sure there are things just as scary or even more so, but I’ve been awake for two nights terrified of a car with messed up brakes, and she hasn’t even driven it!

For some reason, car places are closed on Sundays. I know, no one should be required to work seven days a week, but when my daughter tells me her brakes are making a weird noise, when my other daughter uses her typical exaggeration and tells me it’s the worst noise ever, and even my husband, who never hears any car noises, can hear it, I want a car place to check out the car ASAP.

Unfortunately, snapping my fingers did not encourage my car guy to open just for me. So I called at seven thirty this morning, when his website said he opened. No one answered. I called at seven forty-five with the same result. Finally at eight he answered the phone and told me to bring the car in, which I did.

I heard the noise. I reminded myself all the ways to stop a car when the brakes fail. I cursed a lot at turns and near large buses and trucks and highways. But I made it, without incident (and my nerves were due probably more to my own mishegas than to anything actually happening).

Unlike most other times, my car guy didn’t laugh at me when I described the problem. Maybe because they’re brakes and I’m not the only one who thinks they’re scary. I use him because he’s good and reasonably priced, not because of his sparkling personality.

As I sit here waiting, he’s talking to other customers, one of whom is a dad of a college student in California whose tire blew out and now the dad is nervous about the other three tires. He’s asking my car guy if the tires should be replaced. The only thing preventing my car guy from responding, “How the hell should I know, the car is 3,000 miles away!” is that the dad asking is a guy. Remember that sparkling personality? Well, it’s a sexist one. But he really knows cars, as long as they’re NOT 3,000 miles away. So he uses restraint, which I can visibly see, and suggests his son take his car to someone out there. The dad isn’t sure his son will do that. My car guy says short of flying out there to take his car himself, there’s only so much the dad can do. The dad reluctantly agrees. So my car guys says he’ll call a repair guy he knows out in California, who can probably help the college student, and the dad leaves happy.

This mom will be leaving happy, too, with two brand new rear brakes, knowing her daughter will be safe. And hopefully, I’ll get some sleep, but probably not today, since my car guy also makes really strong coffee!

The Clown Car

Driving five teenagers to a weekend youth group event reminded me a little of loading and unloading a clown car.

I drive a Toyota Highlander. It claims to seat seven (including the driver), but that’s only if everyone is small with short legs and if you don’t need trunk space. Five teenagers, including two boys, are not small. Even limiting everyone to one piece of luggage—don’t get me started on how difficult that was—there was barely enough room for everyone. For a moment, I thought I was going to have to drive with items on my lap, or my own kids strapped to the roof.

The teen I made sit in the way back of the car even asked how she was supposed to get out, and it was a legitimate question. But we made it.

Stuffing everyone in, and finally releasing them from the car made me think of other things, though. It kind of reminded me of what we do when we stress. Or at least, what I do.

I have a lot I have to get done. Some of it is my own work, some of it is volunteer work, and a lot of it is for my kids, husband or extended family. It’s very hard to say no, so I just keep cramming it in, not thinking about how it’s going to get done or what I’m going to sacrifice in order to accomplish it.

And then I stress over all of it.

Eventually, one of two things happens. Either I get my to-do list done or I completely freak out about everything that has to be accomplished. Usually, it’s a combination of both. Both methods “empty out the clown car,” but neither one is particularly effective. Or funny. Even when I do cross things off my to-do list, I don’t get the time to appreciate the freedom, but immediately start to add more to the list, to “refill the clown car.”

This tells me a few things:

I need fewer clowns.

They need seatbelts—one per passenger.

I do NOT need a bigger car.

If those “clowns” happen to be teenagers, listen carefully to the conversations. You never know what you’ll find out!

And We're Off!

We leave for our first college visits tomorrow. Well, technically, we visited a college last April during spring break. So I guess I should say that this is our second set of visits. But this time is different.

For starters, it’s just her and me. Thinking back, I don’t think the two of us have ever taken a trip together by ourselves, so I’m really looking forward to the bonding time. Of course, my luck, she’ll get in the car, put in her ear buds and text her friends the whole ride. But even taking typical teenaged behavior into account, there has to be some point during the four days we’re away that we can talk and spend time together.

We’re heading to one of the major college centers of the country. No, I won’t say where or list specific schools (see my post about that here). But let’s just say, you can’t look at colleges without checking out this part of the country. My daughter being my daughter, she doesn’t think she wants to go to school there, but I’ve told her she has to look at the area before she can say no.

Same goes for the schools we’re looking at. Two of them she’s convinced she won’t like—one it “too big,” the other is “too intellectual.” She may be right on both accounts, but again, I want her to see what a “big school” looks like and a “too intellectual” school looks like before she judges them. Decisions based on Disney movies don’t count. The other two she’s a little more amenable to, but isn’t sure they’re for her. That’s why we’re visiting.

So why are we wasting our time? By the time the weekend is over, she’ll have seen four very different types of schools—based on size, location and types of students. She’ll then have a clear picture in her mind what a city campus looks like versus a campus in a college town versus a small school versus a large school. She’ll be able to make future decisions based on what she has seen, rather than what others have told her, or what a file on a computer has said. She’ll have things to compare.

And in between, we’ll shop, check out some good restaurants, visit friends and family who live nearby, and try to turn a potentially stressful time into a mini-vacation. All while I keep track of my snarky observations for a future blog post! J

Talking To My Kids

I’ve been setting up some interviews and both people that I’m going to speak with suggested between two and four in the afternoon. I accepted, as I need to speak with them, and my reasoning was that it was okay because my kids are going to be late coming home from school today.

At first glance, it appears that I have young kids who can’t be unsupervised. I don’t. Both of mine are teenagers. And for a moment, I wondered why I had given that excuse. And then it hit me.

There is a lot of silence in my house these days. Amazing, when you consider that I have two chatty girls, and one of those chatty girls thinks talking and breathing are intimately connected. But they are teenagers and they both value their alone time. Neither one seeks me out all that often to talk to me.

Except for when they first walk in the door after school. Then they are talkative. They want to tell me everything about their day, although little of what they tell me has anything to do with academics. That talkative time lasts for a limited period. And once it’s over, it’s over.

So although my kids really are self sufficient, I don’t want to miss out on hearing about their day. I don’t want to gloss over the stories that are “too long to text” and have to wait until they get home. Because if I’m not there, I won’t hear it.

And then I’m missing out.