Another Driver

A friend of mine has a son who, when she used to say, "You kids are driving me crazy!" would respond with, "But mom, don't bother driving, it's such a short trip, why waste the gas?"

Little Girl, my youngest, begins driving school today.

#2 Son's driving adventures will have to wait for another day, but after today, i will have no one left in the house who hasn't at least been initiated into the pool of potential drivers.

Gads.  The shuddering you just felt is my wallet, as we already pay a huge amount for insurance.

Last night, as a celebration, Bigger Girl took her out for ice cream.  When i told them not to stay out late as they would all have an early morning, Bigger Girl noted, "It's okay, mom, we are going to buy some and bring it back.  After that, it's up to her to go to bed at a decent hour, and if she asks for coffee ice cream, it's her own fault!"

In preparation for this day, we took Little Girl to the eye doctor for another exam.  It's about two months shy of a year since her last exam, but because of driving and school beginning (another story, the red tape nightmare of getting her into the regular schools around here), and she's been saying everything is blurry even with her glasses, i took her anyway.  Her prescription has changed by about 4 diopters.

When i mentioned that to Sweetie, with a bit of concern, he said, "Ah, don't worry, when I was her age, mine would change by 2 diopters every 6 months, so she's right on schedule!"

Great to know, i responded with a bit of sarcasm.

Although it is nice to have proof, once again, that though she really doesn't look much like anyone in the family that we know of (there are extended family and some of Sweetie's biological family that we have no pictures of, so there could be a link to some of them, but we have no way of telling), she really isn't adopted as she likes to tell everyone when they ask why she looks so different.

And if you followed that last sentence, good for you.  No, i'm not retyping it, it's the morning of my youngest starting driving school, and i'm not up for much editing.

Especially not as i'm trying to gear myself up to another round of hours and hours of sitting, white knuckled and clutching the door handle, through another kid learning the ropes.

If i'm even more of a dithering nut in the next several months, you will know why.  And no, i won't let it drive me crazy, i'll walk because it's too short a trip to waste the gas.


Today is:

August Bank Holiday -- Australia; Ireland; UK

August Monday/Culturama -- Saint Kitts ande Nevis

Barsi Bhagat Puran Singh -- Sikhism

Bogota Carnival -- Bogota, Colombia (celebrating the city's Hispanic founding; through tomorrow)

British Columbia Day -- British Columbia, Canada

Carnival Monday -- Anguilla; Antigua and Barbuda; British Virgin Islands

Celtic Tree Month Coll (Hazel) commences

Civic Holiday -- Canada
   
Cuti Bersama -- Indonesia

"Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead" Day -- statement uttered this day by Admiral Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864

Emancipation Day --  Bahamas; Dominica; Granada; Guyana; Montserrat; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Turks and Caicos Islands

Farmer's Day -- Zambia

Festival Monday -- British Virgin Islands

Frídagur verslunarmanna -- Iceland (Commerce Day)

Hanakasa Matsuri -- Yamagata City, Japan (10,000 costumed dancers perform; through the 7th)

Independence Day / Republic Day -- Burkina Faso (former Upper Volta)(1960)

International Beer Day

Kadooment Day -- Barbados (huge carnival celebration of the end of the Crop Over festival, celebrating the end of the sugar cane harvest)

National Blackmail Day -- according to mostly ecard sites, with suggestions to send a card to the friend who has told you his/her secrets, with the notice that you plan on celebrating this date!

National Children's Day -- Tuvalu

National Underwear Day -- sponsored by www.freshpair.com, which encourages people to rethink their underwear style, make sure they have the right fit, and which gives away free underwear
     details here about this year's attempt to break the Guiness World Record for most people publicly gathered in their skivvies in one place

National Waffle Day

New Brunswick Day -- New Brunswick, Canada

Nuestra Senora de Africa -- CE, Spain

Old Fiddler's Convention -- Galax, VA, US (fun and fiddles, dulcimers, banjos, autoharps, and more; through Saturday)

Oyster Day

Picnic Day -- NT, Australia

Pixie of the Year Competition -- Fairy Calendar

Sacrifice to Salus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of health, associated with Greek Hygeia)

St. Afra of Augsburg's Day (Patron of converts, martyrs, penitent women; Augsburg, Germany)

St. Oswald of Northumbria's Day (Patron of Zug, Switzerland)

Sturgis Rally -- Sturgis, SD, US (the grand-daddy of all motorcycle rallies and races; through Sunday)

Tampere Theatre Festival -- Tampere, Finland (largest such festival in the Nordic countries; through Sunday)

Turku Music Festival -- Turku, Finland (music from medieval to modern, by world-famous artists in the historic venues of Finland's oldest city, in historic buildings all over the city; through the 17th)

Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and the Day of Croatian defenders -- Croatia

Work Like a Dog Day -- different from work-a-holics, people who work like a dog work hard while they are at it, and rest when they aren't

Youth Day -- Kiribati


Birthdays Today:

Maureen McCormick, 1956
Loni Anderson, 1946
Neil Armstrong, 1930
Raoul Wallenberg, 1912
John Huston, 1906
Joseph Merrick, 1862
Guy de Maupassant, 1850


Today in History

The last outpost of Bar Kockba, Betar, falls to Rome, 135
Penda of Mercia defeats and kills Oswald of Northumbria at the Battle of Maserfield, 642
King Edward and Earl Aetherlred, leading the allied forces of Mercia and Wessex, defeat the last major Viking army to raid England at the Battle of Tettenhall, 910
Anti-Jewish riots in Arnstadt, Germany, 1264
Sir Humphrey Gilbert establishes first English colony in North America, at what is now St John's, Newfoundland, 1583
The Mayflower departs from Southampton, England on its first attempt to reach North America, 1620
New York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger is acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he had published was true, 1735
US Army abolishes flogging, 1861
Standard Oil of New Jersey is established, 1882
The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor, 1884
Bertha Benz drives from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back in the first long distance automobile trip made in her husbands invention, the first patented automobile; her journey was to publicize the invention, and she garnered attention and sales, 1888
The first electric traffic light is installed, in Cleveland, Ohio, 1914
Debut of the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie", by Harold Gray, 1924
Debut of the comic strip "Andy Capp", by Smythe, 1957
Nelson Mandela is jailed, 1962*
The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty, 1963
The city of Knin, a significant Serb stronghold, is captured by Croatian forces during Operation Storm, 1995
The Copiapo mining accident traps 33 Chilean miners about 2,300ft below the ground, 2010

*Released in 1990