songbird's crazy world

(cross posted at Midcentury Modern Moms ) Not only do you have to worry about the way your child drives....you also have to worry about all the other morons on the road. Once again I am dealing with insurance adjusters, tow trucks, body shops, accident reports.... Jen was broadsided as she was pulling out of a parking lot onto the roadway. Jen says the other car came out of nowhere, that she looked both ways before pulling out of the lot and didn't see anyone coming. The guy who hit her says he was doing 30 MPH....but the damage to her car makes me doubt it. The accident happened just south of a very busy intersection, and my guess is that he wanted to make it through the intersection before the light changed.  And, oh yeah, the guy who hit her is NOT a teen driver...he's older than I am.  I keep telling both girls "Drive as if everyone else on the road is a moron, because most of them are." And now we have to figure out how Jen is going to get to work wh...

a 2006 camry solara, a two door model, back with gray interior, with a sunroof! my auto insurance just doubled.

(cross posted at Midcentury Modern Moms ) So last week I mentioned that Jen was involved in an accident, that her air bag deployed and that she walked away without a scratch. The same cannot be said of her car. I bought the car two years ago, right after Jen got her driver's license.  Paid $2500 for a 1996 Chevy Cavalier -- the car had 150,000 miles on it, but the engine had been replaced when the car had only 70,000 miles on it (that must have been a story!).  I expected the girls to share the car, I never expected Jen to need a car at college, and I expected the car to last about 3 years, maybe 4 if we got lucky.  (I don't believe in buying brand new, expensive cars for teenagers, even if I could afford it....which I can't.) Well, when Jen called me and told me that she had an accident with the car and that the airbag went off....I knew even before I saw the car that it was time to say goodbye to the Chevy. So now she is without wheels.  and she needs a c...

(cross posted at Midcentury Modern Moms ) So I successfully taught two daughters to drive. Now I have two daughters who firmly believe "have car, will travel." I'm sort of used to it with Jen.  shes had her license for two years now,  she got her car right after she passed the road test.  That first summer, she relished her new-found freedom, driving all over our community. She drove to work, she drove to the store, she drove to hang out with her friends.  Oh, my, did she hang out with her friends!  I spent many evenings waiting to hear the car pull up on the driveway, unable to sleep until I heard the car door slam.  We had many long discussions about what time was reasonable for a young lady to come home at night, especially on a weeknight when mom has to go to work in the morning. Becca  got her license a few months ago, and got a car just a few weeks ago...and already she's starting to drive all over creation. She drives to school (she's a ...

Mine...well, I didn't have a car of my own until I was 22 and in my second year of law school.  I learned to drive on my mother's Buick, and from age 17 (when I got my license) to age 22, I spent a lot of time saying "Mom, may I borrow your car?" But then, in law school, I needed wheels to get to an off-campus internship.... ...and so my parents gave me my dad's 12 year old Oldsmobile Cutlass, affectionately referred to by my family as "the Rustbucket" because the body was rusting out.  Don't laugh, it ran.... Even after that idiot walking through the dorm parking lot filed my gas tank with a garden hose, it ran. The first car I ever bought for myself....well, I owned a Buick for about 3 weeks,  bought it used from an auto dealer, drove it for about 5 minutes before it broke down, returned it under the Lemon Law. the first new car I ever bought for myself was after my divorce.  Bought myself a brand new 1995 Toyota Corolla.  Sand pebble be...

when Drew picked me up at the train station Friday night he told me the bad news: his sister Shelley called him from Newrk, NJ to tell him she'd been in a car accident. Shelley had been accompanying a family friend on a weekend visit to relatives in Pennsyvania. the accident happened as they were driving through Newark. both women sustained injuries -- Shelley was treated in the ER and released, her friend was held overnight. the car, unfortunately, was totaled. I won't go into the details of the accident, other than to say the car was hit by an 18-wheeler and careened into another car parked on the shoulder of the highway, so on Saturday morning Drew and I found ourselves taking that hour-long drive to Newark,collecting the two women at the hospital and collecting their possessions from the car at the impound yard. (a shout-out here to Officer Aviles of the 3rd Precinct for being so helpful!) Not the way you want to spend a weekend, of course. but considering ...

(cross posted at Midcentury Modern Moms ) My ex-husband Drew has a reputation (well-earned) as the person most likely to lock himself out of his car. that's because he's done it many, many times. I remember one occasion, long before we were married, there was a party at my house, and my then-boyfriend Kenny had to unlock Drew's car with a bent metal coat hanger. And then there was the time, a few years later, when we planned to drive upstate with some friends for the Rennaisance Festival. Back then cars came with two keys, one for the trunk and one for the ignition. Somehow he managed to lock the trunk key in the trunk -- along with our picnic cooler full of food; it wouldn't have been so bad, except the car broke down just before we got to the Tappan zee Bridge -- on Labor Day weekend, so that he didn't get his car back for several days.... Yes, I married him anyhow, knowing his penchant for locking himself out of his car. Jen won't let her father tou...

You pick up the newspaper, and there it is.  A story about a car accident, and a teenage victim is dead.  There are questions -- was the driver speeding?  were drugs or alcohol involved?  There are photos of the young man or woman, a sweet-faced child on the edge of adulthood.  there are the lamentaitons from friends and family:  "He was a good kid."  "She was too young to die."  There are grief counselors at his or her school to console classmates and friends.  A yearbook page is dedicated to a lost classmate. You read about it every day.  It's almost mundane. Until it happens to someone you know. Then, every time you pick up a newspaper, it's like it's happening to you, to your children, all over again. I see an article in the paper and I'm flashing back again. I've blogged before about the worst Homecoming  ever.  October 2006.  A day of celebration and school spirt at my daughters' school that became a day o...

A musical response to my daughter's request that I buy her a vehicle for her exclusive use: and believe me, she does...as often as she can!

I am trying to decide if letting Jen get her driver's license was the best thing I ever did...or the worst. Bright and early on her 16th birthday, which also happened to be Election Day 2006, my firstborn child took that gigantic leap into adulthood and made her very first appearance at the DMV. There she got to experience, for the first time in her young life, the torture that I, an experienced driver, have known for all of my adult life. Paperwork...wait for your number to be called...more paperwork...she was photographed, she took a written test....and was handed a temporary learner's permit. So now she was legally allowed to get behind the wheel of a car. That's when the fun really began! Four days later she had her first fender-bender. She wanted to make a left turn...I saw a car coming from the opposite direction...but before my mouth could form the words "don't turn yet"...she did. Well, at least the only thing that hurt ....was paying the repair ...