An open letter to The Car

Car,

You are no doubt aware of the care, attention and money that Ben and I have poured into you. The way we washed and buffed you in an attempt to bond. The way we changed you from a young hoon's doof-machine to a clean respectable vehicle. The way we tried not to lose our minds every time you decided to stop running for no apparent reason in the middle of heavy traffic.

I have less than four months now in which to successfully learn to drive and get my provisional licence.

Do the math. Your days are numbered.

Regards,
Dee

Learning about learning

I admit I haven’t driven in Crunk even once since we got back to the city, but I was making some nice progress for a while there. I’m starting to get the hang of the 3-point turn. Becoming more familiar with reverse. Actually using the handbrake. If only all the driving test involved was getting from Mum and Dad’s place to the swimming pool and back, I’d ace the thing. And with car ownership comes other random tidbits of basic knowledge that escapes the licence-less, like knowing how to fill up with petrol. I’d never used a petrol pump until a couple of months ago. Wild, eh?

My nerves in the kitchen are getting their exercise too – the further I go along with this, the more I think I have a proper phobia. When I think things are going badly, my heart sinks with titanic momentum. If the instructions don't make sense, I break into a dizzy, anxious sweat . It’s not just nerves about getting a meal right. I have some serious issues here. I thought that if I kept experimenting, kept trying, this would improve – and in a way, it has. I’m at ease with the meals I’ve practised a lot. I’m very good at chopping. Similarly with my scrapbooking epiphany, if I can’t see how the whole meal is going to pan out, this becomes a problem. I put my faith in recipe books and halfway through, realise these recipe books were not necessarily made for panicky kitchen-inept types such as myself. I need to be told exactly what to do. Cooking for dummies. I fall into traps where I interpret things wrong, and when I am right, I second guess myself. If somebody else is there, watching, this somehow drains any faith I had in myself at all. All this ‘learning’ makes me feel very childish sometimes, which is sort of the opposite effect of what I was hoping for.

It confuses me that I do not feel this way about baking. Flour, eggs, buttering cake tins… this is a different, friendlier and more familiar world. A lot is to be said for having spent so much of my childhood with a cheeky finger in the mixing bowl. I have a lot more instinct for it, and this more than anything makes the gulf between baking and cooking feel very wide and real. Because I like cooking. I’m just not very good at it. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that if you mess up a cake, you don’t get dessert, and that’s not really a big deal. Even a bad dessert is generally kinda good. But if you mess up dinner, then everyone goes hungry and is grumpy and hates you. That terrifies me.

Anyway, I’m a pro at schnitzel now. Roast vegetables make a good side, or mashed potato, and I can do both of those confidently. I’m getting the swing of chicken saltimbocca (although I can never ever remember what it is called). I can probably put risotto under my belt. I’m on my way to perfecting pasta bakes and sausage cassoulet, but they are a work in progress. Not unlike my maturity, perhaps. Look ma! I can feed myself and my husband! I’m almost a grown up!

Dee vs Crunk

Since a friend gave Crunk a once over (explaning everything the garage did wrong and what glitches we may still have to contend with), my piece of mind has been somewhat more at rest. At least we now know that he should, in theory, make it all the way out to the sticks and back for Christmas without anything breaking and leaving us stranded on the side of the road.

Newly invigorated, Ben is coaxing me back behind the wheel. He discovered an industrial area where we could practice driving on a quiet circuit and get used to changing gears. A big deserted carpark proved a good place to learn how to get the clutch and accelerator to speak to each other again. Mostly I am fine with changing up, but get a bit flustered changing down - it's trying to do this just before turning into a corner, for example, that makes my brain go "oh ok, that's just way too much to process all at once, so uh, I'll be over here singing early 90s TV themes if you need me. 'Kay? ". Thanks, brain.

Ben probably deserves a medal for stepping into Instructor boots with no prior experience. It is kind of nice to do this in a car that doesn't belong to the driving school, and doesn't have a second set of controls. I can be confident that I am directly responsible for everything the car is doing, and I can experiment in my own time. Yes, I had to stall the car 28 times before I figured out the magical clutch/accelerator combo again, but now I know I can do it. Of course you can take your foot off the break when you leave your other foot on the clutch and want to start moving. That's kind of the whole point. But starting and stopping fluidly is my largest hurdle at the moment and small milestones feel very big.

My curbside parking leaves a lot to be desired, but that's another milestone for another time.

But...but... we've got immunity...?

I think it was the December of 2003 that we went camping for New Years, somewhere out near Tathra. As a glaring reflection of the pop culture at that time, an unintentional game of Survivor played out. I was in Team Shakira. Team Aguilera didn’t stand a chance. Carly’s Mum had thoughtfully provided the immunity: a hideously ugly belt made of seeds and shells, a gift from a recent trip to Thailand. At the end of the trip, we decided there was no more worthy recipient of the immunity than Mr Bump, Carly’s car. He had taken quite a beating traversing the dirt trails and ditches, and done a stellar job of getting us back out again. Despite his age, Mr Bump delivered us many hours of carefree motoring.

Last month, Mr Bump succumbed to the great big scrapheap in the sky. Yesterday, we received the immunity belt in the mail. Thanks Carly-le!

There has been a whole lot of stuff going on with Crunk that I have not blogged about. At this point, I’d like to say “one of which times ended up like this” and insert a picture, but technology is not my bitch and the photo in question will have to remain on my tantrum-throwing phone (sooo getting an iPhone for Christmas). Let’s just say that the roadside scenery 55km south of Canberra is lovely at this time of year.

Immunity has found a new home with Crunk, and I am placing what I know is a farcical amount of faith in it. I attempted to drive the car back from choir practice yesterday, but an unfamiliar car, in the dark and hilly backstreets of Petersham, is not a good combination for someone who has pretty much forgotten everything she has learnt. Then we saw that it was leaking something.

I hate you, car.

In other news, the choir are singing at Leichhardt Community Church (cnr Lord and Foster Sts) at 7pm-ish this Saturday 18th December with some other acts. Now, for anyone scared of walking into a church, don’t panic. Apparently there were drag queens performing last year. So I think you’ll be ok. Besides, we’re not half bad, so if you’re interested please come along! Plus I just found out that that the show is also a fundraiser (as with all things choir, the details were classically vague but I’m sure it was for a good cause), so in your face, challenge Number #2!

And that was the weekend.

On Saturday morning, I woke up quietly buzzing. Wow! We’re going horseriding! And we’re driving there in our new car! And we’re going to hang out with Jaimi! Our lesson had been bumped forward to 1pm which meant more time to check out Jaimi’s hood and still fit in a well-deserved BBQ afterwards. I tried to piece together a suitable wardrobe, aware that my yoga pants were perhaps not quite as fashionable as I’d led myself to believe but wearing them anyway, and got out a notepad to plot a route northwards. It’s an easy journey but as only passenger and chief navigator I take my job very seriously.

We left late in the morning hoping the weather would hold out. I was secretly studying Ben manoeuvring the manual and chanting “2 to 3… 3 to 4…” in my head as the gears shifted. Then the oil light came on. And then the engine died. And then the power steering cut out. All this while we were going quite fast along Parramatta Road. Fortunately Crunk had enough steam and Ben had enough wits about him to idle into a side street without causing too much chaos. We knew there was nothing wrong with the oil – a new filter had been put in the day before. This is the second time this had occurred, but the first since we’d sold a kidney to pay for repairs. Ben got the car started again and we elected to head home rather than challenge the volatile teenaged wreck with our lives. The horses weren’t going anywhere (well, not out of the valley anyway).

So the car still sucks, and no horses – double whammy.

On the plus side, it freed up our afternoon to go and crash Carla’s birthday non-party. We fitted in a BBQ after all, just before a massive thunderstorm ripped through north Sydney, all lovely and humid.

The rain continued the next morning and almost washed out our gig. They cancelled all the acts right up to us and just told us to “sit tight”. I gave up and went to bed with my Danny Wallace book, but then it cleared enough for them to get the gear onstage, so I had to get my shit together. Thank goodness for that. It was only 3 songs, but it was such a treat to play on a stage with enough room for me to jump around on when usually we are trying to avoid giving each other concussions with our instruments.

Zoom zoom - Mach IV

You know it's going to be a bad driving lesson when you immediately forget which is the brake and which is the accelerator. That's all I have to say about that.

On the positive note, I bought new bike gloves and now I won't get blisters any more!

Also my first pair of Adidas shoes ever. Amazing.

The harbour walks thing is really difficult to be motivated about. Not because the weather isn't perfect, or the scenery beautiful, but because of the tediousness of travelling to and from each start and finish point. We considered doing The Spit to Balmoral today but when faced with the the 70 minute journey just to get there, the idea quickly lost its charm. A 2 hour walk suddenly becomes a whole day out. Nope.

Instead we took our bikes along the canal and did the 'Bay Run' around Iron Cove. Technically it doesn't count as part of Port Jackson but it is attached to the harbour so let's just consider it bonus points.

Zoom zoom - Mach III

Things I learnt from driving lesson #3:

1. Marrickville is mental.

2. The clutch doesn't need to go in every single time you use the brake. Wow! This makes pulling into curbs, slowing behind other cars, etc a whole lot easier.

3. Reverse parking: line up your mirror with the car in front. Look for your 45 degree angle marker by aligning something with the end of your wing mirror. Do a full rotation of the wheel. Back up. There was some other stuff but I've forgotten it now. So basically I can do half of a reverse park.

4. Commentating myself is helpful when I would otherwise forget what gear I'm in. "Two to three. Three to four. Four to three. Crap, what gear am I in?" The answer is three.

Apparently I am improving! That's what my instructor says anyway, and is reassuring since I felt pretty downhearted just before the lesson. Best gear changes so far. Only 2 stalls. Too many yellow lights. Busier traffic. More jerks on the road beeping their horns and cutting me off. So this is driving, eh?

Meanwhile, I've got some vegetables roasting in the oven and I don't feel very confident about them. Please be ok, little vegetables. Please be ok.

Zoom zoom - Mach II

Things I learnt from driving lesson #2:

1. It is definitely easier to see in the daytime.

2. The clutch comes off before the handbrake on a hill start.

3. When parking against the curb, try to line your car up with the one in front of you (sounds obvious, but it had never occurred to me)

It was raining this time, and I'm still driving at what is probably an annoyingly slow pace, and still have no idea where I am most of the time. I'm finding myself checking the mirrors out of necessity rather than because I think I should now; a handy development since before I wasn't really taking in what it was I was seeing. I stalled a lot more times during this lesson than the previous one though, which isn't so reassuring. I now remember the feeling of frustration I used to have when learning to drive - that "why can't I just do it already??" feeling. I'm not quite there yet, but it reminded me that the feeling exists and to probably expect it in the next couple of lessons.

Gears still don't make a lot of sense to me and I think that is my biggest hurdle. I think I can technically drive now, but knowing when to change and getting it done in time is a challenge to me. Funny how just about everyone I know can drive a car, and it's just a thing that people do, and yet I'm still struggling to grasp the concept of gears.

We're going back to the country next weekend so I'll get a chance to bust out the driving chops in a place with wide streets, no traffic lights, no roundabouts, and no hills. Exciting. My parents have an automatic car so it kind of defeats the purpose of me practicing the gears, but it is better than nothing.

Scatterbrained

Hmm, what to write about today. Forefront of my mind just now is the urgency of this Amazing Race application, which Jaimi is coming over to finalise tonight, and it is going to be kick-ass. Also, I have another driving lesson at 9am on Saturday morning – what was I thinking when I booked that? It compromises my Friday night somewhat. No matter, it will force me to actually be awake at a reasonable hour. I bought a $5 book on scrapbooking from the Bargain Basement store yesterday, because it occurred to me that I wasn’t really sure what scrapbooking was. It’s great! I’m actually looking forward to putting my scrapbook together now. It’s nice to have a craft-related challenge. It’ll be like Kindergarten all over again. I’m getting into ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ and finding myself drawn to the little girl Mick. She’s brilliant. I see myself in her a bit, except without the masses of siblings.

I’d also like to use this cheeky opportunity to cross-promote:

Upcoming Dusker gigs:
Thurs 16th September @ The Wall, Leichhardt
Sun 26th September @ Sly Fox, Enmore

Do the clicky to the website for more details. Sorry this blog was a bit dull but you can’t win ‘em all I guess.

Zoom zoom!

I drove a car yesterday, and I didn’t even hit any pedestrians or anything. So I did stall a couple of times, so what. And I may have gone over a traffic island with one wheel. But apart from that, I made some smooth gear changes, and went all the way to 4th gear without panicking, and manoeuvred through busy multi-laned traffic with success. Success, I tell you! The instructor was friendly and helpful, keeping up a constant stream of talk that was balanced nicely between reassuring instruction and casual conversation. It all came about as naturally as I was hoping, which is to say, it wasn’t a completely foreign concept or feeling. I had taken lessons previously, but that was, oh, maybe four years ago now, so it was nice to know I’d retained some of it.

Based on my first hour behind the driver’s seat in 2 years, the main things I need to overcome at this point are:

a) My general fear of speed.
b) Changing gears just before having to turn into corners and roundabouts.
c) The fact that I am concentrating so hard on the road that I have no idea of my surroundings (for example, I had no idea I was turning into my own street until the instructor told me to pull over)(in my defence, it was night time).

It doesn’t feel too weird, though. Like “hang on, I’m driving a car”. I was mildly anxious, but not stressed. It will be nice to have my next lesson in the day time.