Baby You Can Drive My Car
Can I ask a couple of blog questions? Do you usually read blog on your phone, or computer? And do you feel like you need to add pictures to a post, or not really? Aside from the posts where I'm doing a photo-essay kind of thing, I always feel like blocks of text are too visually dull and need photos to break them up - for my blog, but I don't really notice that on other blogs. And recently I'm having issues with my pictures disappearing (not actually disappearing, but being a blank frame with that stupid little square in the top left corner) from posts, which makes the posts look really stupid when I'm talking about a photo that's no longer there.
This also reminds me that I always think I should probably switch to Wordpress from Blogger, but I also think I should switch to a local independent pharmacy from the super busy Shoppers Drug Mart with the often-crappy customer service, and then I get home and my indignation subsides and I forget/can't be arsed to actually do it. And I hate change. And I'm bad at technology.
Anyway. Want to hear a funny story about me scarring my daughter for life? So here in Canada (maybe just here in Ontario?) we have a graduated licensing system for driving a car. First you do a written test and if you pass you have your G1, and can drive with a licensed driver above a certain age with you and not on a highway and not between midnight and six a.m or something (I'm not looking any of this up and it's entirely possible I'm confusing some of it with Gremlins). Then you do a driving test and have your G2 and can drive unaccompanied but I think you can't have any blood alcohol content at all. Then you do the final test and have you full G license and Bob's your uncle.
Eve is a perfectly fine driver - considering the speed (or lack thereof) she used to drive a go-kart, she's an almost surprisingly fine driver - and is also very anxious about driving. During Covid, the drive-test centers here in Ottawa and anywhere in a four-radius closed and then were insanely busy for a while. Because of this, she ended up taking her G2 test in a small town almost two hours away, which was honestly just as well - the Ottawa one is a tiny bit gnarly to get in and out of and I thought this would be good for her anxiety.
It was, although she was still so shaky when she started out that her foot was jarring the gas pedal and made the whole car shake. I was so nervous waiting that I texted Jody (HI JODY) and she called me and talked to me until Eve drove back into the parking lot totally unnoticed by me and came bounding up to me cheerfully and we went to the Dairy Queen around the corner at ten a.m. to celebrate.
So then she went away to university with this time limit for her to get her full license before she had to start over. I think technically she has until next July, but that would be cutting it close, so we booked it for this summer, another smaller town about an hour away called Brockville. This is the town where Matt's Nana and Grandpa lived in a retirement home for the last few years of their lives, and we visited them quite often. It's also a town with a really great fish and chips place called Don's. So today we road-tripped with Marianna and Jackson (the summer school study partners) to Brockville for Eve to get some highway driving in, scope out the town and incidentally maybe end up at Don's around lunchtime.
It all went fabulously, as opposed to our last driving adventure, which was me suggesting that Eve drive from her doctor's appointment about ten minutes west of our house (I think, hahaha, I actually have no idea, just go with it), to a brewery about fifteen minutes east of our house so I could pick up some beer for our friend's birthday. She was amenable, and we started out with the GPS sending us a different way than I thought it would. Then I realized we were going on the highway. She said "am I going on the highway?" I said "yep", but I thought it would be fine because it was a nice peaceful twinned highway, which she has driven on before.
And it was. But then my GPS lagged and we missed the exit that would have taken us sweetly and peacefully from the nice twinned highway to the brewery.
I still thought we might be okay, because I have a terrible head for directions and we were going a way I hadn't gone before, and then suddenly I realized what was happening, and I was aghast but I pretended to be calm for Eve's sake. Because where we were going was onto the absolutely bonkers five-lane highway going west where I used to drive Angus to work out three times a week - you come in on the left and have to get over five lanes to get off at the next exit. (When we told Angus about this, his eyebrows flew up and then he absolutely guffawed, sort of sympathetically).
This was TERRIBLE. I just kept saying "it's fine, you'll be fine, just take your time." She signaled and started to move over into the next line and some asshole SPED UP into the lane and honked at her, because we were suddenly in a FUCKING NIGHTMARE, I'm surprised we both still had clothes on.
So we didn't die, and then she still had to get over four more lanes, and then she pulled over into a Holiday Inn parking lot and I drove us home.
Possibly the funniest part was when she came to me later that night and said "okay, I have to ask, not that I don't trust you.... did you do that on purpose?" And I had to assure her that it was completely down to my incompetence, not my deceitfulness.
On the up side, driving to Brockville was a walk in the park, and her test can't possibly be more harrowing than that beer run.
Okay. Is this post too long? Did it need a picture? Do you want to report me to the Children's Aid or the Ministry of Transportation?
Comments
With regard to your questions: I don't read blogs on my phone, too small. I also cannot comment when I'm on my phone and I don't know why. So if I'm on holiday or something I just don't read blogs. Computer only for me.
I read most blogs on my ipad. It's old so the commenting can be difficult on some sites. Sometimes on my phone, sometimes on my computer. So all over the place I guess?
For writing posts, I'm almost always on my computer, though once in a while if I have something simple to say, and I am pinned down by a cat on my lap, I will write one on the iPad. In general, I do like to put in pictures (or memes) to break up the text, and I'll also make my paragraphs shorter than I might in other writing.
Also, if I have a footnote to put in, I will put it under the paragraph it refers to, not at the end of the piece, as it makes me crazy to have to scroll all the way down to read a footnote, then scroll all the way back up to where I was. Just my pet peeve!
I read posts on my phone if I am out and about . . . like rn, waiting to see a doctor about Reg's lip injury suffered a week ago in a bball game and not much better.
I prefer to comment on my desktop. My laptop no longer corrects spelling errors. Why? I am fine with or without photos, but I do enjoy them.
As far as 'Is this post too long?' - I think I should defer to blog friends who write shorter posts than me. ;)
I read blogs on my laptop. I struggle to comment on my phone (typing is HARD) and I want to comment 90% of the time, so I do it on my laptop.
I also feel obligated to have a photo in every post, but that's silly and I don't notice if other people don't have photos. I LIKE photos, of course, but I'm really into the words mostly.
To answer your questions (and I like the questions; makes me feel useful), I read blogs on my phone and my computer... My phone will only allow me to comment on a handful of blogs, and it is quite irritating to type a comment on my phone. For instance, I read this post on my phone and then got my computer to type out my critically important response. Probably it would be better if I stuck to my phone; I am much less wordy when typing with my thumbs.
When I write posts, I just blather on incoherently until it feels like I've reached some sort of conclusion. I only add a photo if I have one, or on rare occasions when I feel like the post *requires* a photo somehow, like it needs a visual anchor. But I don't mind reading posts without photos at all. I do like photos, but don't NEED them.
I have had Wordpress for my entire blogging life (fourteen years, woot woot!) and I like it. I think I whined on my blog recently about the increase in ads, and I am slowly working myself up to paying for an ad-free version of the site. But I also don't like change, so it may be awhile.
By the way, my insurance forced me to switch from Big National Drugstore Chain to a hospital system pharmacy, and it is THE BEST. The customer service is SO much better. The pharmacist knows me, and my kid, and asks after her and offers suggestions about the medication I'm picking up. I always get to speak to a human, usually after only a couple of rings, and they are mostly quite knowledgable. Just FYI because obviously our experiences would be identical.
My youngest child has given up driving (currently lives in a big city, so doesn't need to drive and owning a car would be a burden) and I feel that is a big failure on my part as a parent. A few years back, she had a full blown panic attack while driving on a local highway that is notorious for crazy drivers and rather wild curves. She managed to get off that highway and called me and I had to talk her down ("name 3 things you see around you. Name 3 things you hear right now" etc) and had to go pick her up.
I mainly read blogs on my desktop computer with giant screen, and if traveling, on my ipad. Never on my phone - too small. While I am traveling I seem to be psychologically incapable of posting a comment. What's up with that?
My main need in blog text is that it should be in paragraphs (which yours always is). Photos are a plus, as they add explanatory value and visual interest, but strictly speaking not necessary. On my blog I usually try to at least put one photo at the top, and then may try to post some photos with my text. But putting in photos is time consuming, mainly because I go down the rabbit hole of looking through my approx 50,000 photos to look for the exact right one. So these days I often post without a photo.
I had to use wordpress about 6 years ago to do some blogging for an organization, and I found it incredibly difficult to use. But I guess it does some things better than blogger?
Something similar happened to Lindsay with her dad, getting on the highway after I told her for years to NOT get on the highway. He made her and she had a panic attack and almost wrecked them.
I 95% read blogs on my laptop; it's just better for me. I don't need photos, unless it helps tell the story. That being said, I don't know that I've ever shared a post without a photo.
I do love WordPress, but there was a big learning curve until I got the hang of it. Now, I can't imagine using Blogger again as it wasn't user-friendly.
Honestly, I am 45 and this is STILL how I feel on busy highways.