Bad luck streak in driving school
Mar. 13th, 2010 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogIt's pretty unusual for all three of us here to be overprogrammed on a weekend morning- at least since Eleanor's mostly gotten out of working weekends- but today was one of those days. Turned out she did have to work this morning, and it was the second Saturday of my lay speaking course, and it was Emily's mandatory five-hour drivers licensing course (taking the place of the once-universal high school drivers ed course that they don't offer anymore), only offered in our suburb once a month, and, due to Easter, not again until the second half of next month.
All systems seemed go as of 8:45 or so: Eleanor got safely out the door, and I left plenty early to take Em to the convenient suburban location for the 9 a.m. class before going to my 9:30 session on Grand Island. Just one problem: no driving class. There was a classroom that we could see, about the size of our living room, on the ground floor of an ersatz building a block away from my office, with stairs, leading up to who-knows-where, attractively decorated with kitty litter boxes and dog food bags.
One other kid-in-tow parent showed up minutes before 9. They left when it reached Lost Cause O'Clock, and I called the main location: Oh, you should have gotten a call because there was only one student who signed up so we had to cancel. Erm, no call; I just checked the caller ID again to be sure that a voicemail hadn't been deleted, and none had. Still, though, there was that second-half-of-next-month part, so their reply, when I hesitatingly asked when their next class was at the main location? How about now?
"The main location" is on Bailey Avenue about a mile over the city line, overlooking the fabulous Veterans Hospital. Also, a location that took about 15 minutes to get to from where we were and was one which, unless J.J. Abrams just bought it, still left the Island in about the same distant location it was when we started all this. So I broke any number of traffic laws getting her to, and me then from, the driving class location. In the end, despite us both being late, both she and I passed our classes today. We will not be going back to these clowns for her pre-road test lessons, however. Fool me once and all that.
As for my adventures in exhorting, they went fine once I actually got there. They'd split the original big group from January into two separate sessions, and then today's still-large one into halves for actually giving our sermons. Last to arrive was last to go, but the comments I got on it were generally favorable and I was pleased with the effort despite the gremlinish attempts to kabosh the whole thing. (I will not bother or bore with posting it here; if you want to read it, comment and I'll send it or refer to a link to it that I'll toss up someplace. I am quite sure, though, that it's the first time Douglas Adams ever got quoted from that pulpit.) Presumably I have to await some formal certification, but that's been promised.
Meanwhile, Eleanor had to deal with a Wegmans full of pre-St. Pattys Day revelers, and at least one Customer from Hell. Go read there if you want all that.
We're now all home, chilling, planning a Geoffrey Rush film for the evening and much less confusion in our days tomorrow.
All systems seemed go as of 8:45 or so: Eleanor got safely out the door, and I left plenty early to take Em to the convenient suburban location for the 9 a.m. class before going to my 9:30 session on Grand Island. Just one problem: no driving class. There was a classroom that we could see, about the size of our living room, on the ground floor of an ersatz building a block away from my office, with stairs, leading up to who-knows-where, attractively decorated with kitty litter boxes and dog food bags.
One other kid-in-tow parent showed up minutes before 9. They left when it reached Lost Cause O'Clock, and I called the main location: Oh, you should have gotten a call because there was only one student who signed up so we had to cancel. Erm, no call; I just checked the caller ID again to be sure that a voicemail hadn't been deleted, and none had. Still, though, there was that second-half-of-next-month part, so their reply, when I hesitatingly asked when their next class was at the main location? How about now?
"The main location" is on Bailey Avenue about a mile over the city line, overlooking the fabulous Veterans Hospital. Also, a location that took about 15 minutes to get to from where we were and was one which, unless J.J. Abrams just bought it, still left the Island in about the same distant location it was when we started all this. So I broke any number of traffic laws getting her to, and me then from, the driving class location. In the end, despite us both being late, both she and I passed our classes today. We will not be going back to these clowns for her pre-road test lessons, however. Fool me once and all that.
As for my adventures in exhorting, they went fine once I actually got there. They'd split the original big group from January into two separate sessions, and then today's still-large one into halves for actually giving our sermons. Last to arrive was last to go, but the comments I got on it were generally favorable and I was pleased with the effort despite the gremlinish attempts to kabosh the whole thing. (I will not bother or bore with posting it here; if you want to read it, comment and I'll send it or refer to a link to it that I'll toss up someplace. I am quite sure, though, that it's the first time Douglas Adams ever got quoted from that pulpit.) Presumably I have to await some formal certification, but that's been promised.
Meanwhile, Eleanor had to deal with a Wegmans full of pre-St. Pattys Day revelers, and at least one Customer from Hell. Go read there if you want all that.
We're now all home, chilling, planning a Geoffrey Rush film for the evening and much less confusion in our days tomorrow.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 01:32 am (UTC)