the daily snivel

  Quit stalling!

This time last week I was intending to write about how marvelously my driving lessons were proceeding. On just my third time driving a car (and a standard to boot), we were out on highways and beginning to travel along major roads. I was shifting smoothly, starting easily, and wasn't doing weird things like a three point turn in third gear, or stalling while I'm putting the car in gear at a green light. I was also really relaxed while driving, and embracing the moment instead of worrying about each and every little thing I had to do while on the road. I was very aware of pedestrians ahead, people backing out of their driveways too slowly, and anticipating problems before they occurred.

Yesterday, sadly, I was just the opposite. In retrospect, I don't suppose the two giant "motivational" cups of coffee I had in the 40 minutes immediately beforehand helped my nerves any. I was tense and jittery during my lesson, which was cut short in any event because my instructor had been stuck in traffic on the way over. Part of my frustration was based in our first exercise in parking in a parking lot. Because we were in a lot that had a lot of cars all parked closely together, we had to practice further back in the lot where snow had covered over all the spot markings. This meant that I was backing into "pretend" parking spots and found that a little difficult when it came to really lining things up right. There were no points of reference. So after 9 or 10 practice parking maneuvers, I was feeling a little tense -- mostly because of the coffee and the fact that I had a meeting, a class, and a client interview back to back afterwards, but also because I was having a hard time backing up within the imaginary lines. I should mention that Young Drivers, the school I'm learning with, teaches that backing into a parking spot or driveway is safer than driving straight in, as then you can drive straight out instead of backing out. More collisions happen when backing out of a driveway or parking spot because it's much harder to see oncoming traffic, and very difficult to see small objects like pets, children, or bicycles that could be behind the car. Very sound notion, and I do recommend learning to drive in the winter since you'll have the experience of practicing in the worst of conditions, but it does make staying in the "lines" difficult.

Since we had to cut the lesson short, we decided that I would drive us to the university so that I could attend my file review. This didn't start out so bad (I'm getting the hang of driving forwards, after all), but at one point a lady in the car behind us honked at me when I inadvertently stalled at a stop sign, and this really set me on edge.

At this point, I would like to interject a passionate plea to all you impatient drivers out there. We all had to learn how to drive at some point. Most of us were also dorky and nervous and stuck in a car with a big, impossible-to-miss sign indicating that we were learning to drive. By definition it means that we are not very good drivers yet. AND HONKING DOESN'T FUCKING HELP. It's definitely worse when you're learning to drive standard because stalling is very embarrassing, and this is only compounded when you also worry about the impatient people behind you who have no sympathy at all and can only think of the precious, precious seconds this is costing them. I solemnly swear that I will never get impatient with anyone getting driving lessons, because I know it means they're taking steps to become very safe and skilled drivers and because I know precisely how they must be feeling when they come off the clutch too fast while not giving the car enough gas.

So that happened. After that, my instructor had me proceed along some busy streets (I was so tense I failed to notice which ones) and then instructed me to turn onto a ramp, which lead to the 417. Also known as the Queensway, the 417, for those of you who don't live in Ottawa, is a freeway. When you have a G1 licence (as I do), you are prohibited from driving on a freeway unless and only when in the supervision of a qualified driving instructor. Since I was being supervised by a qualified driving instructor, it was perfectly legal, but it was still my first freeway experience. So, no problem, head from the light up the ramp, depress clutch, ease off the gas, put it in second, release clutch, give it gas, give it more gas, depress the clutch, ease off the gas, put it in third, give it lots more gas, OK, and merge with the freeway traffic doing 90 kilometres an hour. Now put it in fourth. My brain blanked. Where was fourth again? The gears on my instructor's Mazda 3 (a fantastic and zippy car, by the way, which both my research and driving experience have left me convinced is an excellent first car if I choose to buy new) were in the standard import "H" of 1, 3, 5 above and 2, 4, and R below, with neutral in the middle. Again, this wasn't a problem I was having last week when I was on the highways, but being tense and surrounded by cars and already a little frazzled took its toll. I took a quick glance at the gear selector and put it in fourth, and after that I was alright, though my instructor was ready to grab the wheel if I drifted or didn't change lanes properly.

We soon exited onto Nicholas, and I downshifted from fourth to third to second as we approached a stop light and heavy traffic. Here was where it really got bad. Because we were in busy lunch-hour traffic, it was constant start and stop city driving. This isn't so stressful on its own, but requires a bit of care when driving a standard because you're never off the clutch for long and have to release it with care. If you brake without getting to the clutch in time, you'll stall. If you start without giving the car enough gas and/or get off the clutch too quickly, you'll stall. This becomes almost unconscious with practice but, when you're nervous, suddenly all that confidence can be replaced with an acute consciousness of what your feet are doing.

We were stuck behind a big, Budget rental truck that obstructed a lot of the view ahead and was very slow to get moving, so naturally it was a lot of creeping and stopping. Then, finally, the traffic started moving, the truck began to really pull away and I eased off the clutch so that we could proceed.

Stall.

I quickly engaged the clutch, put the car in neutral, and restarted it. Then I shifted into first and prepared to roll again.

Stall.

Now I was a little freaked out. Cars behind me were starting to honk (and I refer you back to my above appeal on the matter). So I hastily repeated the above steps again and just got us jerkily moving forwards until I gave the car enough gas to get us moving and fully disengage the clutch.

After that, I didn't have any more problems. We couldn't get into the right lane because of the dense traffic but we proceeded into the Byward market and then got onto King Edward, where I drove up the big hill, turned at the lights, and parked the car in a lot and Bob, as they say, was my uncle. I was still frazzled from the problems in traffic and beating myself up a little, though, so I didn't have time to savour the victories of successfully doing so much so well when I'd done a couple of things so poorly.

Today I feel better about everything, and am again looking forward to my next lesson so that I can do everything right. Gas before clutch. Gas before clutch. Words burned into my head and hopefully ones which will not need to be repeated again.

On the bright side, my evaluations scores are steadily improving, even though what I'm currently best at (10 out of 10) is remembering to turn the lights on and perform a circle check of the outside of the car before starting.  

  Happy goddamn inauguration day.

This is a four-year-old covered in her family's blood after U.S. troops fired on their car. From Steve Gilliard's News Blog. Everybody loses.

Brought to you by 59 million "values voters."  

  It's not easy being green

Well, it was bound to happen, but six and a half years after she was brought home, my beloved green tree frog, Gimpy (so named because the toes on her front leg were malformed, making it hard for her to use it to climb), has gone up to frog heaven. I came home last night and didn't see her in her usual location, (namely, sitting motionless for hours while clinging to the glass wall of her aquarium), and started to look around and see if she were alright. I didn't see her anywhere, which started to concern me. I knew the old gal was getting on in years (green tree frogs don't live much past seven years) and she had been predeceased by the two males that accompanied her when my friend Natalie bought them for me (the first died two years ago and the second died last year -- as an aside, you can tell the sex of these frogs by the colour of the throat, and the size -- females are larger). Still, she's been happy and healthy for a remarkably long time, having survived a cat attack by George two years ago when he busted into the aquarium, grabbed the frog, and knocked her around the floor until I came home and found her in the kitchen playing dead -- limp, dusty, swollen, and bloody -- and then nursed her back to health over several weeks with careful applications of diluted hydrogen peroxide and lots of love.

But, all things are inevitable, and it was her time to go. I was really upset by it, even though a frog is by no means a loving companion the way a cat or a dog is. They tend to think of you as a giant hand of justice that dispenses crickets, showers of water, and the horrible horrible tortures of handling and confinement in old pickle jars while the terrarium is being cleaned. But I love these creatures, and feel a definite loss. I actually cried when the first frog died, but have been expecting this for some time and feel a little more resolved. I'm glad that I gave them all a good and healthy lifetime, with lots of tasty bugs and warmth and humidity, just the way they liked it. I loved them like any other pet, cuddly though they weren't.

Goodbye old frog.