The Way I Feel is Like a Robin

 I guess I'll just say a bunch of random stuff because I keep sitting down trying to write a post about.... something....anything..... and failing.

It's been decided that in the fall Eve is going to McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, about four and a half hours away. She was accepted into the Arts and Science Program, which is really cool - limited-enrollment, interdisciplinary, emphasis on social awareness and developing transferable skills. Matt and I both went to McMaster, and we had friends in the program, and Matt's brother later went into it. Matt encouraged Eve to apply while I was sort of hoping she would go to McGill in Montreal, two hours away in a cool city with her friend Davis. Davis's mom and I (HI JODY) have become really good friends and I had visions of excellent Montreal adventures with and without our daughters. Plus if she was homesick or anything bad happened I would only be two hours away.

Well, things didn't so much go my way on this. McGill has been taking it's sweet goddamned time accepting my perfect jewel of a daughter (not that I'm bitter) - not just her, to be fair, it's become increasingly clear that they don't really operate on the timeline all the other universities we applied to do. 

Matt's brother who's a cardiologist is on the faculty at McMaster as - I don't know, some kind of doctor teacher. A couple of weeks after Eve was accepted to the program, his lovely wife also got a job there. I yelled upstairs to Eve "Hey, Laura just got a job at Mac too - isn't that AWESOME?" in a very sarcastic, the-universe-is-markedly-not-bending-to-my-will tone of voice. 

It's good. It was a good school when we went, and it seems to have only become better, based on the marks that you now need to be assured a spot in residence (I still would have been a shoo-in, Matt not so much, tee-hee). My sister is only an hour away, Matt's brother and his wife less than that, plus many friends that we don't see enough of. And now that I'm settling down to it, her going to the same university we did is really kind of cool. Jody and I are joking about being Co-dependent Empty-Nester Alcoholics (I think it is a funny joke and yet I am slightly uncomfortable joking about alcoholism so know that I am conflicted posting this. Also I am a laughable lightweight at this point, so it's more Co-dependent Empty-Nester drink-one-glass-of-wine and cry a little bit in an extremely stereotypical how-are-all-my-chicks-flown manner, but then we can't call it CENA, so, poetic license).

Speaking of chicks and nests, remember the Grackle-Crow Rumble that Matt and I witnessed on our walk? Well, we realized that there was a chickadee nest in the cedar bush in our back yard. And then Matt saw a baby chickadee out front looking confused, and then there was a mother chickadee going frigging bananas in our back yard all day. We were all walking around checking the bushes for the loudly peeping baby and Lucy was running around not knowing what the hell was going on but wanting to be involved (we were hoping "being involved" wouldn't include "eating the baby chickadee"). There's no resolution to this, but at least there was no visible dead baby bird this time, and the chickadees hopping around the back yard from the fence to the tip of the push broom to the garden gargoyle is entertaining and makes me feel vaguely Snow-Whitish.

Well that was a smoother segue than I was hoping for. I don't have anything else nest-related, I don't think. Except I'm annoyed again at myself for being a giant cliché, sad about my kids leaving home, even though the only thing more annoying than a cliché is someone who tries so hard not to be a cliché that they end up being one of those obnoxious parents whose kids only listen to Bob Dylan and never get to eat a hot dog. I mean, have you seen the Backyardigans? That is some good shit that you're going to miss if you're trying not to do parenthood traditionally. 

I mean, it's good that I miss them when they're gone, right? That means they're not assholes (not all the time, anyway, which is all I ask of anyone, including myself). We're supposed to raise them to want to leave. Growth. Potential. Opportunity. It's the natural fucking order. 

Bleah. 

Whine and Cheese

 I cannot promise greatness today. Or goodness. Or general coherence. I have been going through my blog posts from the first one in January 2009 and noticing how much I talk about coughing and lack of sleep. Since I was diagnosed with sleep apnea which they think started in my adolescence but wasn't diagnosed until I was in my forties, I'm happy to observe and report and remind myself to feel grateful about the fact that I cough less. Something about my airways being chronically inflamed because of all the gasping desperately for oxygen, I presume.

It would be really awesome if I could report that the sleep apnea treatment had solved all my problems with, you know, SLEEP, but not so much. To be fair, going up against the perimenopause and Covid anxiety twofer is a tall order. But even before, I was never one of the poster children for a CPAP being a lifechanging miracle. That's okay, I don't require a lifechanging miracle. The CPAP was helping, until I hit perimenopause. 

My nighttime routine is pretty much unchanging and appalling right now. Whether or not I force myself to go to bed earlyish (before midnight) or when I actually feel it (well after midnight), at some point I will feel pleasantly drowsy, put on my mask and lie down and drift off. For about ten minutes. Then I'm wide awake, with electrical currents running through my legs that make it impossible not to thrash, and I don't fall deeply asleep until near dawn. Then I either force myself to get up at a semi-reasonable time (before eleven) or I sleep until I'm more rested (after noon). I feel like I'm in the sunken place. I'm embarrassed that the people live with know I'm sleeping late most days (which is dumb because they don't care). I'm frustrated because anything I've tried (walking a lot, walking less, stretching, cool shower, over-the-counter sleep meds, marijuana edibles) either doesn't work or works for two nights and then stops working. It sucks. But that's how it is for now, so I'm putting it here and moving on with my weird, fucked-up-sleep-routine life.

So in my sleep-lacking, perimenopausal, covid-anxious brain fog, I wandered into Eve's room the other day and saw this:

I started to compliment her on her really well-laid out French presentation on Mesopotamia. Then I stopped. Because she's in Grade twelve and she's not taking French or anything to do with Mesopotamia. I thought she had taken complete leave of her senses and concocted an entire useless presentation in her sleep or something. 

She looked at my face, looked at the board and said "I'm just reusing the back of the bristol board for my English artefact for The Great Gatsby.

Whew.


Could be worse. I could have this guy's last name.


I was about to make fun of the people who labelled this cheese, like yeah, who wants to enjoy a big block of cheese the same night they buy it. But I just made mac and cheese in the instant pot and used, if not the equivalent of this block of cheese, very close to it, so maybe I'll stfu about that.


I was filling in in the school office almost constantly the last few weeks before we locked down because the Office Administrator was on stress leave (no effing kidding). We were giving out water bottles in the school office for kids that forget theirs at home, and then we switched to giving out paper cups to fill at the water fountain.  This seemed sort of petty and mean to me and I was skeptical of the cost savings and general environmental impact, but I don't make the rules and I wasn't up to protesting. So we were out of the paper cups and Heather, who usually buys stuff like that, wasn't there. Carla gave me the school credit card and instructions to buy... paper cups. This was a little stressful since I didn't really know what ones to buy or what a reasonable price was, but I'm of an age where I don't obsess about this stuff QUITE AS MUCH as I used to. I went to Metro. They had compostable cups like the ones we had just run out of at school, but only with lids, and they were quite a bit more expensive for something we didn't actually need. 

So I bought these, and said "sorry if it makes it look like I'm sending the students to a kegger" and the vice president got a good laugh out of it, which we all really needed.


Angus is doing quite a bit better, judging both from his texts and from the forensic accounting we're able to do with the credit card bills: 1.67 at 7-11 (Gatorade); 4.58 at Dunkin' Donuts (breakfast); 10.44 at Stoney Ridge Winery; 12.35 at Barnstormer Winery; 9.87 at Lakewood Vineyards; etc. This does my heart, if not his liver, some good. 

Now I'm going to go read and then probably have a crappy night's sleep. Although it occurs to me that I haven't yet tried drinking a bottle of wine out of a Red Solo cup, as a sleep aid or just for general recreational purposes. 

So Something Really Cool Happened

 So in this post, this woman named Shawna followed a link to my blog from Swistle's (everyone knows Swistle, right? If not, absolutely just ditch my blog right now and go to Swistle's if you haven't, she's awesome, big, big fan). And then was surprised and amused to find out that we live in the same Ottawa suburb. That was cool.

So on Tuesday I went to the chiropractor and then got groceries. I was grumpy. I was wearing a cloth mask after weeks of wearing nothing but medical ones because my chiropractor is fully vaccinated and I wasn't going to be close to anyone else and I like the smell of the dish soap I boil the cloth masks in and I hate the smell of the medical masks, but everything still smelled bad and I hadn't slept well and we're in lockdown and all I want to do is sleep but I do it badly, and you know the drill. Anyway, I got my groceries and I was loading them into my car, probably wearing a textbook example of Resting Bitch Face, and from the car parked RIGHT NEXT TO ME, I heard a woman's voice say "hey, do you write a blog?" 

IT WAS SHAWNA, YOU GUYS, parked RIGHT THE FUCK NEXT TO ME AT LOBLAWS. I said we should go buy a lottery ticket, and we took off our masks and had a conversation from two car widths apart which was awesome because the conversations I've had with people I'm not directly related too are few and far between right now. She's a really good photographer which I know because I Facebook-stalked her, which is okay because that's how she recognized me. Nothing like a cosmic coincidence to torpedo a massive grump-fest.

So up until Covid, I was the one who walked Lucy the majority of the time, other than my mom who walked her whenever they dog-sat while I was working (not really necessary at all given the hours I work, but both my parents and the dog enjoy it, and it gives me an excuse for frequent quick visits). Eve would walk her once a week-end or after school if I expressly asked her to, and Matt almost never. This made sense - I'm the one who's here the most, I'm usually the least busy, and I'd usually walked her before Eve got home from school. When we went into lockdown the first time last March, Eve quickly made walking Lucy a part of her daily routine most days, because even when they started online learning it ended early in the afternoon, so she would have lunch, go for a walk and then do homework. Matt would take her once in a while if I told him he should, mostly to get him out of the house because he was in the basement sometimes from seven to seven and it seemed unhealthy.

This worked out for the most part, but the new wrinkle became that if I came downstairs in anything resembling walking clothes, Lucy started refusing to go with Eve. This is both hilarious and infuriating - she loves walks, but she apparently she loves me slightly more. Eve would drag her for a few metres and then come back enraged and I would have to go for a short walk with them before going on the treadmill or doing errands or whatever I was planning. 

Today I was actually going to walk her, but I was doing some kitchen stuff first, and Matt decided he was going to. I said fine, I would drive somewhere and get in a good trail walk (I take Lucy on these sometimes, sometimes I go along because she's annoying and my shoulder gets sore from the leash). Then I said "oh shit, she's seen me, she might not go with you." He said confidently that she would go with him. I thought maybe she would. I'm totally the alpha bitch, Matt is an authority figure, and Eve is just like her other-dog sister or something. 

I went in the bathroom to brush my teeth. I heard them come back in. Matt said "she won't go with me.

I had to walk my husband AND my dog.

On our walk, we passed a tree with a bunch of loud birds in it. Matt noticed that a bunch of grackles seemed to be harassing a crow. The grackles were vocalizing loudly and following the crow around. We walked a little further and found a dead baby bird in the street and realized the crow had found the nest and the grackles were congregating to drive the crow away. The crow came back for the dead bird and the grackles started dive-bombing it. We were transfixed - it was heartbreaking and fascinating all at once. I said "well, it's only one crow. What's a group of grackles called?" I looked it up when we got home. It's a plague. Bit on the nose, if you ask me.

So things still kind of suck, we have no idea when lockdown will end, I still can't fall asleep before four which means getting up before noon is torture, my one work project is over and now I'm not sure what to do because librarianing at home is just kind of pathetic. But I met a new friend and went for a walk and had ringside seats to a nature documentary. And we just got home and it just started raining. Taking the little wins where I can find them. 

Backsliding

I know I said I was done with the wallowing. I gave my head a shake! I got some perspective! I was ready to move forward! 

I am not ready to move forward. Well, I am in theory, but I am just lacking the bodily resources to make it happen. Last night I slept like I had been drugged or cursed by a poisoned wagon wheel. Wait, that's not right. Spinning wheel. Eve said she feels the same, so maybe it's just the weather. Pam and I went for a great walk last Thursday and declared that we would do the same at least once a week. The following Wednesday I looked at the weather and said "oh great, it's supposed to rain for the next six...seven...NINE DAYS?"

Saturday and Sunday were sunny and cold and then warmer. I hate when people on social media tell me to go outside because it's beautiful, but I did, in fact, force myself to go outside and do the stupid little walk for my stupid mental health. Saturday I got Eve to go with me, and Sunday Matt and I walked over to my mom and dad's because they needed help figuring out the bill for the mobility devices we rented and bought when my dad fell back in September. I asked Matt why they didn't just pay it rather than making him go through every line with them (it wasn't that high, they could easily afford it) and he said "your mom just wants to make sure she isn't getting ripped off" and Eve said "just say 'oh look, in this Young Person Font that only I can see it says 'you're not getting ripped off''". After they dealt with that Matt put Angus's game on his phone so we could listen to it (because we should be in fucking Elmira New York watching fucking baseball) and they pulled off a surprise win (the team has been struggling pretty hard) and I sent this picture to Angus, which he liked.

I keep saying I want to take a week to just read (other than my stupid little walk) so maybe I'll just do that. I finally got my reading mojo back after a week or so of focus issues and inability to decide on what to read next. The opening lines of the last two books I read were "So Shanna got a new job at the movie theatre, we thought we'd play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead and I'm really starting to feel kind of guilty about it all" and "How much is it to fix a broken goose?", so things are looking up. Plus I just finished this book (in actual paper form) and just LOOK at this cover:

Also, I had my first tweet to do any real numbers. Was it an uplifting inspirational verse? Was it a penetrating social justice analysis? It was not. Somebody posted this:

And I responded with this:

234 likes and counting. So proud. (It's actually killing me that I didn't format it better. Penis flytrap. It should have been Penis flytrap.)

Also, I got my Covid vaccine. 

Yes, I dressed fancy (underwire bra, even!) I didn't post a vaccine selfie on social media because I was conflicted and I sort of agreed with Tudor (HI TUDOR) that it was all kinds of messed up that the government was saying 'EVERYBODY GET YOUR SHOT' while not vaccinating essential workers. They lowered the age for Astra Zeneca at pharmacies to 40 and up, then lowered the age for the provincial portal, but they're STILL NOT FUCKING VACCINATING ESSENTIAL WORKERS. I also don't blame anyone who posted a vaccine selfie, because the messaging is so jacked that how is anyone supposed to know what to do? Get your shot! But some of you can't! But if you can you should! The more people vaccinated the better! But this one might kill you! But get it anyway! All the while la la la la, what's that about essential workers? Can't hear you! 

I was very sick about twelve hours post-vax. Matt slept downstairs so I could thrash around. Apparently I fever-texted quite a few people in the middle of the night. Here's what I sent Eve:

I needed a straw because I couldn't lift up my glass of water to drink. Everyone told me to drink lots of water but then I kept having to get up to pee and I had a 103 degree fever and convulsive chills and taking the blankets off to get up to pee was AGONIZING. I knew I would probably get mad side effects because immune responses tend to be where I shine - if there is a side effect to be had, I will have it. I consoled myself with the fact that I was clearly mounting the robustest of defenses, and this cemented my conviction that actual Covid would probably kill me. I felt weird for days. 

Okay. I have made dentist appointments for the family and a doctor's appointment for myself (TWO PHONE CALLS) and written a blog post. I'm going back to my sulking chair. I mean my reading chair. 

Oh, Eve just came down and laid on the kitchen floor to complain about Calculus. Nothing but positive attitudes and stiff upper lips over here. 

Enough of That Crap

 I'm not going to delete the previous post, but around 1 a.m. last night while I was reading I stopped and gave my head a literal shake. There's nothing that wrong with needing a couple of days to wallow, but I do try to stay aware of my privilege and my perspective on that had slipped a bit. Like a lot of people I know, I want to get the vaccine and get our cases down so things can get back to something approaching normal. No one I'm close to has died of Covid or even been really sick with it. My kids have lost out on some important senior year and university experiences, but they're healthy and safe. I can stay home most of the time right now. And people in the rest of the world and literally in my province are sick and dying and terrified. I still have it pretty fucking good, and it's time to start acting like it.

Because there's nothing I can really do for those other people other than stay home and not be an asshole not be the kind of asshole that breaks the rules and endangers others, I am going to supplant my whiny post with some random less-whiny thoughts.

(I am still really pissed that the sign-up process for getting the Astra-Zeneca vaccine at a pharmacy is an absolute clusterfuck compared to the provincial portal that I used to sign my parents up for their vaccines. There's no centralization - you have to root around for a list of area pharmacies giving vaccines and put yourself on every single wait list separately. There are rumours that some places' wait lists aren't really working, so people walk in or call and get appointments that way instead - like, wtf? I'm okay waiting for a shot - none of us can go anywhere for the next five weeks anyway - but I am offended by the absolute teeth-aching fuckery of it all. But that's not the fault of the pharmacy workers, so I'm even more offended on their behalf, because the crapstorm they must be facing right now is terrifying to contemplate.)

Yesterday Pam (HI PAM) texted me authoritatively that we would be walking that afternoon whether I liked it or not. We stuck Lucy in her carrier, masked up and drove to a nearby trail. We were able to walk distanced and kept our masks for if we ran into people or if the path narrowed. We vented about Covid crankiness so hard that we forgot to notice the beauty of nature until it was time to turn around, so we made ourselves stop and stare at the trees for a while before we started bitching again. Pam has been working at a furniture store (until lockdown started this week) and getting the full brunt of people who are Covid cranky and also mad that their furniture isn't being delivered. I feel fully qualified to judge those people harshly because we had laid down a huge chunk of change for our first new couch in twenty years just before lockdown last year and its delivery was in limbo for months before we got it, and I never spoke harshly to anyone over that. Who the fuck yells at a store employee (particularly one as nice as Pam) over a chair? Seriously, reconsider your life choices. So she's looking for a less stressful job. I suggested she get one answering phones in a pharmacy because I'm helpful like that. 

Then we went and got a few groceries, and our thing before we got stupid jobs was always going for a walk and then getting groceries, so even though we had to wear masks and be careful not to be too close it felt reasonably like normal times, and I was less cranky after (and not just because I bought ice cream). Also, the checkout girl said she liked my hair. 

We're back to the Zoom bar nights, which I hate but force myself to do every now and then. I just feel so weird sitting there, and I can't think of what to say, and I HATE staring at my stupid face and I get obsessed with all my chins, and then Matt gets mad at me because I keep moving my face around hoping some chins will disappear (they never do) and I try to tell myself that no one else is focusing on my chins (but I know someone probably is). I prefer the kind of bar night where I can just look at other people's faces and forget that I have one for a while.

Today Eve had a P.D. day so she drove us out to the fancy doughnut shop and we listened to Demi Lovato's new album. I wore a sundress and when I got home I walked Lucy in a sundress and sandals and sunglasses like an aging movie star instead of my usual ratty shorts and t-shirt. I brought my neighbour some doughnuts, which reminds me of the time we got a giant-ass cake from a local bakery for Matt's birthday and I brought some over but they didn't answer the door so I left it on the step intending to text when I got home. But in the thirty seconds it took me to walk back home I forgot about texting, and then she texted me "did you just leave cake at my door? I hope so because I already ate it", and I died laughing and told her she probably had some kind of tracker inside her now. 

It's Friday ((I think). I wish everyone health and good weather and vaccines and trackerless cake. 

What the hell is a hand-roasted nut? I guess it's better than a nut-roasted hand, but just barely

Surly Thursday, Not the Funny Kind

 Not gonna lie, things have gone to shit around here somewhat. I had a funny Surly Thursday post lined up for before our April Break (postponed from March) and then our Covid cases went through the roof and both my school and Eve's which had had very few cases were suddenly turning up positives every couple of days and I was working in the office which means cradling a lot of sweaty heads and catching a lot of nose blood, and I was feeling both anxious and guilty for feeling anxious when I was still in a pretty low-risk position. I was booked to work the last three days before the break in the office and I toyed with not going in, because quite honestly as a sub they don't pay me nearly enough to take that kind of risk, or to sit in sweltering PPE in the isolation room with a kid who has an upset stomach and needs to be isolated until a parent can pick them and all their siblings up. But I didn't want to leave the school short-handed, so I went in and it was okay, and then I sort of crashed into a boneless heap.

This boneless heap was shortly thereafter animated by rage and spite when I guess there were rumours that Ontario was going to ask for health care workers and/or vaccines to be shared from the East Coast. A bunch of East Coasters took to Twitter to express their displeasure with this. In a way I get it. I know we're all exhausted and frightened and a prolonged crisis like this makes it really hard to stay compassionate and gracious. In another way I was profoundly hurt and angry that a bunch of people were almost gleefully proclaiming that the people of Ontario had brought this on ourselves by not following the rules and it was only right that we should suffer the consequences.

This sentiment completely ignores the fact that many outbreaks came from workplaces such as factories where low-income workers weren't given paid time off to get tested or stay home if they were sick, and that there was no evidence at all that all of the cases were generated by gatherings or people flouting restrictions. We have a premier that wouldn't institute paid sick days or close schools, even when it was known that the variants are more contagious and school cases were increasing. I have heard of crises in other parts of the world many times that were down to poor government management as much as to acts of God. I have never felt anything but lucky and concerned about how I could help. Now a high number of people, many of whom I followed, some of whom I considered friends, saying "you want me to give up my vaccine for these jerks?" Well no, I don't actually, but also now we're not friends anymore because that was an asshole thing to say when you know you have Ontario people who follow you who are sick with fear and anger about what's going on in our province. It takes a certain amount of willful blindness in that person's place to feel morally superior instead of just fortunate. 

I used to be kind of dismissive of those memes about shattering a plate and then trying to glue it back together to show how you can't just say "I'm sorry" after saying something hurtful and make everything go back the way it was. People screw up, I would think, and there's no way we can all avoid ever saying the wrong thing. But a few times over the past couple of years someone has said something that I knew almost immediately had caused irreparable damage to our relationship. Sometimes they did even say sorry. Sometimes I even appreciated it. It didn't change the fact that that thing was said and I would never forget that they said it. 

The cool thing about this is that I've also realized that, when someone says something like that, I don't have to let them just stay in my life and keep aggravating the sore spot. I used to be bad at this. I would continue to see people or be Facebook friends with them or follow them, even when every interaction left me fuming or annoyed or going over what I wished I'd said in my head. Sometimes I did start arguing every point, because for a lot of my life I wasn't confident or assertive enough to argue or speak out even when I felt like I should. Then I'd get to the point where I'd be wondering why I kept up a relationship that was more work than satisfaction. One person on Facebook actually asked me something like "why do you keep being friends with me if you disagree with everything I say?" and it was like a light bulb - omg, I don't HAVE to be? Omg, I don't HAVE TO BE. 

I don't know why I was so hesitant to walk away like this before. Maybe I thought they weren't that bad. Maybe I thought it was too drastic a measure. I was wrong! It's so liberating! The people in my timeline are people I actually want to see and they say kind, funny, helpful things! Like Hannah (HI HANNAH), possibly the only person from the East Coast I didn't unfollow because she told everyone who snarked about Ontario to fuck off. 

The irony is that I have now bitched about this issue so much that I'm even sick of myself, but I've typed out all this crap and I'm unable to unfollow myself (believe me, I've tried), so I'm going to consider this cathartic and try to speak of it no more. Hang on, that might not be irony. Fuck it, I don't care. 

I'm going to post this pitiful diatribe and then plan to get back to being funny next time. 

Eve Passed Her Driving Test!

 This is such an immense relief, I can't even tell you. Like I said, we were confident that she is a capable, safe driver, but the fact that Covid postponed first the in-car part of her Driver's Ed and then her test made this all very fraught. She was worried that I was going to drive her an hour and a half and then she'd fail. She was worried that she wouldn't be able to get another test soon and she'd miss out on being able to drive her last summer before university. She was worried she'd throw up on the way there. It was a big giant worry-fest.

The night before she said "I have something I do that I think is normal but is probably weird but you have to find it cute because you're my mom". She said she has soap that she uses the night before every test because it's gold and sparkly and she feels like it's good luck. I told her this is not a remotely mockable thing - anyone who has access to soap that is gold and sparkly would be an idiot not to avail themselves of its possibly miraculous properties. I also told her about the time we glued a tortilla chip back together in my student house because it was the Lucky Tortilla Chip that was clearly the reason the Blue Jays were still winning and someone accidentally broke it. 

To distract ourselves the night before we watched a couple of episodes of the Really Bad Fireman show I'm currently watching. I'm finding that I can't deal with anything challenging, insightful, dense or really with any redeeming qualities right now viewing-wise, so I just keep finding terrible shows with bad writing and lots of episodes (me: finds a show with a bunch of seasons and episodes so I can just put one on whenever I want to watch something and it will last a long time. Also me: watches two-hundred-and-forty-hours of tv straight and then feels annoyed that I'm out of show). Eve enjoys heckling the ridiculous situations and dialogue: "Why the hell do people call out a criminal for being a criminal and then turn their back on the criminal? OBVIOUSLY they're going to get clocked by the bad guy!" (this literally happened TWO EPISODES IN A ROW). We briefly appreciated that, aside from two obviously hunky leads, some of the firemen were less conventionally good-looking. Then we realized that every single female character is ridiculously, insanely, stupidly hot and were mad all over again. 

Eve said when she started out her foot was shaking so hard it was impossible to maintain a constant speed - "It was, like forty-eight! thirty-seven! fifty-three!" I remember from singing exams how frustrating it is when you are actually unable to control your body. Once she got over that, though, the instructor said she aced everything else. Her parallel parking was flawless, apparently. 

I was completely calm and positive and supportive on the drive there, and then when she drove out of the parking lot with the tester, I lost it. I texted Jody (HI JODY) from my picnic table and told her I was freaking out and she CALLED ME immediately and talked to me until Eve got back and got out of the car and yelled I DID IT, and this is one of the nicest things anyone has done for me. 

We had read that the route in Cornwall goes by the Dairy Queen, so I said "good, bring Lactaid, we'll go to the Dairy Queen to celebrate when you're done." And we did, except I realized as we were headed there that it was only 10:20 a.m. and it might not even be open yet and if it was it was a weird time of the day for ice cream.

Did we let that stop us?

Reader, we did not.