Hip to be Mom» Cars & driving

If I have to turn around one more time

Clairity — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 04:39:00 +0000

Some days are crazier than others around here. And yesterday was one of the crazier ones. I was running late sending Raine to college. She had a 10:00am class but by the time I pulled up at the college gate, it was 10 past. She gave me a hasty peck, jumped out of the car and I drove off.

A couple of corners later, I get a call from Raine in a high-pitched voice “Mom, turn around, class is cancelled!!” Now tell me, which kid isn’t excited about a class being cancelled? Sometimes I think they pray for a class to be cancelled .

That’s not the end of this story though. There was still her 4:00pm class. Ten minutes into our journey, it started to pour like nothing you have ever seen. I mean, we get huge, torrential downpours here all the time but this was like the heavens were intent on emptying every drop of water up there.

Combine that with ghastly gusts of high wind, lightning dissecting the gloomy skies and a flooded highway… and you have one heck of a storm!

Fre-eaky!!

What’s up with the weather these days? Now I’ve driven in a combination of dense fog and heavy rain along the coast of California, but nothing like this! I had my headlights and wipers on max and I still couldn’t see!

My biggest worry though was less about the storm and more about our brilliant drivers. You’d think the first thing folks would do is turn on their headlights so others can see them. No! You’d think they would stop speeding and switching lanes. No!

Wokay, that’s it!! I didn’t need any more reasons to turn around and head back home. Forget trying to get to class. Let’s just get off the roads.

Oops, I did it again!

Clairity — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:30:32 +0000

I’ve done it again. Made another boo-boo. I dropped Raine off at her early morning class and took the wrong way home. Don’t ask me how I can get lost on a route that I’m on every single day of the week. Don’t even ask !

But yeah, it happens. I’m not sure if it’s ever happened to you, but if it has, I’d love to hear about it. It would make me feel a whole lot better .

Point is, if I didn’t do silly things like this, where would I even find the occasion to laugh at myself, right? Laughing at other people when bad things happen to them is unacceptable. But laughing at yourself, now that’s different and it’s good for your psyche even.

But I digress. Back to how I turned up a blind ramp onto the highway and there was this oil truck doing some stunts and everyone was swerving to avoid it. With all this confusion going on, I somehow ended up on the wrong lane.

Fine, I was a little distracted and it was only when I made the turn that I noticed the scenery wasn’t quite familiar. Apparently I wasn’t alone though. Seems like the car in front of me made the same boo-boo! What a laugh!

The red post

Clairity — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:14:54 +0000

The traffic jam this morning was exceptionally horrendous. Aren’t they always? Yes but not nearly as bad unless some vehicle has broken down in the middle of the road and needs rv repair pronto. My usually short commute took me a full half hour.

This is the Chinese New Year rush, folks! There’s less than a week and counting before we enter the Year of the Dragon.

I guess I have it easy. Folks rush out to buy new clothes. We don’t. No big deal, we’re shopping practically all year and our last shipment from Macy’s and Forever21 arrived over Christmas.

Folks decorate their homes with lots of red. We don’t. Being a karma believer, I am less than inclined to believe that putting up red ornaments, red lanterns and lucky plants, and eating food with lucky names is going to change anything. If that’s all it takes to attract wealth, we’d be a worldful of raving billionaires, right? Oh well, to each his own.

Folks rush back to their hometowns. We stay put. There’s no way we’re making a road trip during the holiday season. We’re just happy to own the roads when everyone and their cat leaves the city.

I do, however, buy mandarin oranges which we love to eat, and some cookies for the odd guests who show up. Lesson learnt: I don’t buy a lot of cookies because they end up sitting there for months afterwards. I bought 4 crates of mandarin oranges this year, and that’s it, I’m done.

Yeah, I know, we’re different and we’re boring. But that’s just us!

Working up to that holiday feeling

Clairity — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. You do not see any photos of my bread or fruit cake. That’s because they are still stuck in Raine’s phone waiting to be offloaded to my computer. But this has been another one of the Hip family’s believe-it-or-not days. Long story but let me just sum it up for you.

Raine’s driving lesson

Instructor shows up an hour late. No apology. Wasn’t expecting one.
He takes a wrong turn on the way to the practice grounds and wastes 1.5 hours getting back on track.
His car runs out of gas in the middle of the freakin’ highway!! How in the h … never mind, I asked the same question!!
Poor Raine has to push the car off the highway. Imagine that!

Practice grounds are in the middle of nowhere. Raine had had no lunch, no drink. She swears if she had eaten the food, she would’ve been poisoned instantly. And there was no way she was going to use their restroom either. Ew!
Lesson lasts 6 whole hours!

My work schedule

My college wants me back next semester. Yay!
I’m juggling my class schedule around Raine’s and Skye’s school hours. I want everything to line up snugly so we won’t have to be climbing trees. Easier said than done.
Rave teaching reviews from my last batch of students. It’s good to be loved .

In other news

Finally stopped procrastinating and changed my car tires. Ripped a freakin’ hole in my wallet too. Big tires cost more. Yeah, I know!
Eat. Drink. Laugh out loud. The holidays are here! I gotta start acting like it is.
I promise, those pix are coming. Wait for ~~them~~ it!

The chauffeur

Clairity — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:00:54 +0000

Three days ago, Raine, my darling 17-year-old, hopped into a sardine can of a car (it’s so small you can practically put it in your pocket, yes!) with a strange man. Yes, the driving lessons have begun!

Her driving instructor is the same guy who taught Steev. He was so patient with Steev that I just had to get him back. Raine, however, is just a little less than enthusiastic about learning to drive. Like her mama, she much prefers to be driven.

Oftentimes while sitting in rush hour traffic, I would reminisce about the days when I was dropped off at college and at work by the family chauffeur. Those were the days. All I had to do was get in the car and be magically transported. Nice!

No throbbing head, no fugly 2-tone arms, no overworking my middle finger! No circling like a hawk for a parking spot, no loitering in “no stopping” zones, no double parking hoping I won’t get caught. No matter how long the road, how bad the traffic or what time it was, I would arrive with nary a hair out of place.

Life doesn’t get much better than that. That was before I stupidly got married and moved out. That’s why they say love is blind. How could I not have seen that I would end up being the chauffeur, rain or shine, any time, any day .

Dare I even dream now that my secret wish might come true – that I would soon have a chauffeur at my beck and call? Then again, doesn’t she only want to be driven?

The reason for a picnic

Clairity — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:02:22 +0000

Friday evenings are quite a big doo-dah for us these days. I signed Skye up for Math tutoring for these next couple of months. It’s just to give her more confidence with topics that are haphazardly covered at school.

Late Friday evenings are definitely not the best time to be out if you want to keep your stress level down. But we don’t have a choice as this is the only time schedule available and we like that this tutor explains very well, teaches a structured approach to dealing with questions and doesn’t spoon-feed the kids.

So Friday evenings it is! Granted it’s the hottest time of day when the setting sun is making one last attempt to grill us all to a crisp before calling it a day. Not to mention that driving down the highway with the setting sun directly in my eyes isn’t exactly fun either. So my sun shades are down and my new pair of Ray Bans are on.

The only thing left then is that horrendous Friday evening rush hour traffic. I used to drop Skye off, then head on home, and pick her up later. But it’s gotten to the point where if I do that, I would have to leave again the minute I reach home, which makes no sense whatsoever!

So these days, Raine (who usually comes along for the ride) and I head to the club instead after we drop Skye off. The club is halfway between our home and the tutor’s. So we’re saving time and stress by hanging out at the club’s library till it’s time to pick up Skye.

But not on rainy Fridays though because then, even that shorter distance is undoable. We’ve had to make a U-turn before we even reached the club or we wouldn’t have enough time to go back and pick up Skye. That’s how bad it can get!

So guess what Raine and I did today? We saw how bad traffic was and decided we weren’t going anywhere. We would just camp out in the car outside the tutor’s home with our jar of chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of iced water. Our picnic on a Friday evening!