March 29, 2014 - A drive on the wild side

I had a great day with Aria today.  We got up early and left the house at 6:11.  We met some brothers from church, and drove to NJ to the Bishop's Storehouse.  This is a small warehouse that the church maintains.  It is filled with food for the needy.  Our task for today was to pick foodstuffs off the shelves and package and palletize them.  The pallets (based on the individual needs of specific families in our region) will be delivered to a central location in the Hudson Valley, and then the individual families who need the items will get them on Tuesday.  The 4 of us ended up filling 4 pallets about 6ft high with food - pears, flour, syrup, toothbrushes, hamburger, bread, cereal, milk, diapers.  Yeah.  All that good stuff.

We finished an hour early (it took us 3 hours instead of 4), and stopped by Wendy's for lunch on the way home.  Helping the poor makes me so thankful that I am in a position to give.  And aware, at the same time, that I may be on the receiving end someday, and grateful in advance for the those who will help me.  It's a really good feeling on many different levels.

We drove back to Beacon where one of the men lives, and then got back in my car.  We did a little shoe shopping, then saw the new Muppet movie. Just me and my teenage daughter.  She didn't want to see the latest YA fiction-based PG13 movie.  She wanted to see the Muppets Most Wanted.  Maybe part of that is knowing that I love the Muppets, maybe she just wants to see it, maybe she just wants to spend time with me.  I'm grateful for all of it, whatever mix there might be.  The movie was good - the cameo at the end was the best for me.  I won't spoil it for you, but I will say the cameos in this movie are the best of any Muppet movie I've seen (except for maybe that Gregory Hines bit in one of the early ones).  Not my favorite Muppet movie, but not my least favorite, either.

We left the Fishkill Regal 10, and there's a Famous Footwear there.  So we did some more shoe shopping.  She loves boots, and wanted to get another pair.  So we went back to the corner of the store with boots, and the clearance rack was there as well. She spends the family's money as carefully as if it were her own.  The first shoes she looked at were on the clearance rack.  We walked down the aisle, and spend maybe 10 minutes together.  Then I left her to look on her own and went to look at trail running shoes for me.  Really surprised to see Avia shoes so dirt cheap, and that they look like New Balance or ASICS or Nike.  She surprised me in my shoe shopping, coming over in a pair of sleek shiny black vinyl heels.  She showed me them first, then stepped out of them and into a pair of very classically style heels.  They have the solid sole that is popular now, but a medium-brown base, and black satiny upper with a black satin rose above the open toe.  Aria said she was going to start painting her toenails.

She told me the price for both pair ($20 for one, $30 for the other), and I told her it didn't matter which pair she chose for those prices.  She said she thought so, but she wanted my opinion.  I told her I would choose the satin-look ones, because they were more like 1940s movie star shoes; classy.  She said that's what she wanted to know, and those are the ones she chose.  I feel unbelievably privileged to be a part of her growth into a woman.  Not just to see it happen, as so many parents do, but to be a part of it.  And that she wants me to be a part of it.  Quite a blessing.

A few minutes later, we left the store with a pair of every-day black canvas shoes for everyday wear and the heels for Sundays, along with more of the no-show socks that are stunningly overpriced.  That's a good business to be in, may I say.  Those socks are $1 each, $2/pair.  For how little fabric they are, someone is making a stunning markup.

So we had completed our shoe shopping.  We had a little time left before we needed to be home, so I drove us to a deserted medical center parking lot and parked the car.  "Dad, what are you doing?" she asked.

"Would you like to drive?" I replied.
A smile conquered her disbelieving face.  "Are you serious?"
"Yes, I'm serious."
A pause.  "YES!"

So we switched seats.  I taught her how to adjust the drivers seat from a 6'4" man setup to a 5'4" woman setup.  I explained how to adjust the mirrors, what she should be able to see out the mirrors.  After a few minutes, she was settled in.  I had her use the blinkers, the windshield wipers, the high beams, turn the headlights on and off, rev the engine in park.  Then we proceeded to take it slow and easy: foot on the brake, push in the button on the gear selector, move it to Drive, remove foot from the brake.  No gas yet.  The car started to move.  She started to steer it, took us around an island at the end of the parking lot.  By the end, we had discussed right of way, some NY laws, she had parked head-in, had used reverse a few times, had sped up to 25mph and then come to a complete stop in a certain space.  I had her stop the car and get out to see how close she was to a curb or to a stop sign to get a good feel for the vehicle's size.

The lesson was maybe 30 minutes.  She did really excellently.  She was calm, followed directions, and paid attention to detail.  When I told her, "Getting behind the wheel is a life or death situation, every second, every time.  It's serious."  I think she believed me.  Your first time behind the wheel of a 2,000lb hunk of steel is humbling and thrilling at the same time.  I think she has a lot of respect for the car now.

We got home just after 6, a phenomenally fun and enjoyable day behind us.  Certainly a day for the record books in my life.