Personal faults

I believe that everyone is entitled to one personal fault. One simple thing they cannot and will not overcome.

For me, it's driving stick shift.

I know, I know... millions of people do it everyday. Whole countries do it as a rule. But me and the clutch do not mix.

My hatred of the H-shift began at sixteen when I tried to learn to drive Stinky, the CJ-7 Jeep that I shared with my brother. I sucked. I once stalled over and over through an entire green light, all the while being heckled by a van full of third grade boys. Even the mom laughed at me.

I was lucky to get another car and successfully avoided manuals until just after college. I was going to visit high school buddy AP in Maine, and we planned a road trip to PEI and Nova Scotia. She warned me that I would have to learn how to drive stick.

A week before I left, I practiced on Husband's old car Bubba on country roads. It wasn't pretty, but I could do it if no one else was watching.

I started off OK, driving through Maine and even pulling off for gas. My second shift took us across New Brunswick to PEI. But it was in Anne-of-Green-Gables-land that I fell apart. I had eluded the evil stick shift, and now it was time to pay. AP drove us all the way up Nova Scotia and all the way back down again (i.e. a very long way).

It got to the point that on the way back, AP stopped on the on-ramp and we hopped out and swapped places. She'd driven for the last three days and there was no choice. I carefully made my way down the New Brunswick coast, dreading the evitable: the toolbooth at Saint John.

I started sweating at 100 km, watching for the "Toolbooth ahead" signs and trying to psych myself up. Finally there it was on the horizon. I slowed way down and eased in, so I didn't have to stop behind a car. I fumbled for the change, hands sweaty, and ignored the cheery greeting from the tollman. Focused intently on getting out of there without stalling, I slammed my foot on the gas. The car lept, the tires squealed, and the toolman yelled "Ride 'em cowboy!" at my jerkily departing form.

As I finally put it in fifth and let out my breath, I thought, yeah, everyone's entitled to one fault, right? It's not like I'm afraid of heights or hate puppies. I can give myself permission to fail at this.

And so I've never operated a stick shift since.

As you like it

Potpourri Day!

Book: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Read the first page and if you can stop, do. If not, continue blissfully along.

Random info plus new vocab word: Merriam-Webster tracks which words are looked up most for a given year, and they offer sort of a microcosm of the issues that plagued the nation that year.. This year: natural disasters (tsunami, refugee, and levee). We also appear to be pretty tired of incompetence (insipid, contempt, and inept). Last year was all about the election (incumbent, electoral, and partisan) and Iraq (insurgents and sovereignty). 2004 also had "cicada" and "blog" and "defenestration," and a new vocab word! "peloton" (the main body of riders in a bicycle race).

Kittens: still pesky. To be fair, I crushed Cadbury last night because he was sleeping in the crook of my arm and I had a dream I was swimming and attacked by eels.

Knitting: a cat toy. Realize this mixes two scary personas: knitter and cat lady. But it's OK! Only one toy.

Recent mishap: Losing a needle inside my favorite down pillow. Luckily, crisis averted. Also getting stuck in the snow trying to pull into the garage from the alley. Luckily, nice boys out shoveling for cash rescued me.

Up next: winter sports extravaganza. Anyone looking to ski or snowshoe knows who to call. Also, risking of life and limb (and tooth): broomball starts this weekend. Also: Christmas recaps, then it's UK ho!

Thanksgiving

My freshman year of college, I sort of... forgot… to make female friends.

I'm not sure how it happened.

I made a lot of female acquaintances, I had guy friends, and I had a great boyfriend, but I sort of missed the part when you spent hours giggling and telling secrets with a gaggle of girls.

I had never had a shortage of female friends before, so it took me almost the whole year to realize that I didn't really have any good female friends.

Throughout the rest of college, I'd make lists of women I wanted to get to know better. I eventually made a few good friends my junior year, then got the hang of it and made camp friends and Japan friends, then reacquainted high school friends, and finally work friends and post-college friends.

So many girl friends that when entertaining a camp friend a month or so ago I effortlessly put together a cracker jack pub quiz team of female friends. I realized that to my camp friend, we probably looked like a regular group of girls, the kind that I used to gaze at in the cafeteria at college.

As I sat there, perched on my barstool sipping Guinness, surrounded by my smart and gorgeous friends, I remembered those sad little lists. And how glad I am that I don't have to make them anymore.

Stilton takes after Husband

Who doesn't love a cat with a martini shaker? This photo could have been one in a series (cat licking beer bottle, stealing nip of vodka tonic, tasting wine) but I had exercised restraint until I saw this just hours after shooing him away from a Summit Winter Ale.