I’m back at my desk after a long weekend — long in the sense that most Americans had Monday off for Memorial Day, but also long in that a lot happened since Friday. In my studies of time, I’ve learned that the more memories one has of a given unit of time, the longer it appears in retrospect.
One thing that happened: We now have a permitted driver! My husband took the 16-year-old to the DMV on Friday and he got his driver’s permit. So now we need to teach him. We’ll drive around a bit in the driveway and parking lots, and I plan to sign him up for driving lessons this summer too. You need to log something like 65 hours, including in a variety of conditions, to test for your driver’s license six months after getting a permit. It’s all very exciting.
On Friday, after running with a friend along the river, and shuttling children around, I then drove an hour or so to Princeton for Reunions. No, it is not a milestone year. Princeton really gets into reunions and my class always does a happy hour, and since I live just an hour away, I went. I enjoyed chatting with people and went out to dinner with friends. I’ve been to a lot of reunions in my life and it is always interesting to reminisce about Ol’ Nassau, as they say. My first experience of Reunions was working as a food server for the 15th reunion when I had just finished my sophomore year. It was fine as jobs went — I’m not sure I thought too much about what my life would look like at my 15th. But that has come and gone many years ago now. I think my 20-year-old self would be happy with my life…though it becomes increasingly hard to remember what I was thinking then!
In the meta-memory category…each week as I archive my time logs, I look at my time log that has the same name — which in this case was 6 years ago (so Monday May 22 was both 2023 and 2017). It turns out that was the week I went back to my high school to give the commencement address. So I looked at those activities on my log, and reminisced about a time six years ago when I was reminiscing about a time 20 years prior…phew!
Anyway, I didn’t go out partying at Reunions, partly because I was driving back that night and also I wanted to get back relatively early because we left at 8:20 a.m. to drive to Cape Cod to visit cousins. Cape Cod is a long ways away, but we survived the 6-hour drive both ways. The 3-year-old is going back and forth on potty training, but he wanted to go while we were on the road (I had him in a diaper just in case) and so I got to see the inside of some really exciting gas station bathrooms. I mean, like the kind that are outside that you have to go ask for a key for…
I know my older kids loved hanging out with their cousins. We went bowling (others bowled – I chased the 3-year-old around and tried to keep him from grabbing bowling balls and dropping them on himself!). The kids played in the pool, we went out to lunch, we went on a short hike, and made s’mores. We drove back on Monday and ended the weekend with the two little boys playing outside on a log pile for an hour (Time Outside After Dinner). They created a restaurant that served wood shavings and leaves on bark. It was very creative!
Then it was up early this morning for a 6:30 a.m. radio interview with BBC Scotland. I was talking about whether you can make yourself a morning person, which I guess is another meta-topic there…
With Memorial Day in the rearview mirror it really does feel like summer is starting. I think it is going to be a good one. I hope you had a good weekend too!
In your state they don’t allow a learner’s pemit until 16?? Here in WI they can get their learner’s permit at 15 now!! (Used to always be 15 1/2 until a year or two ago.) My son is still only 14, but turning 15 next month, and he already did the drivers ed classroom portion recently and took the temporary/ learner’s permit written test…. so on his 15th birthday we just have to go turn in the paperwork and test results to pick up his learner’s permit and he’ll be legally able to drive! (with us, of course.) Then at 16 (and after X # of driving hours logged with parents + X # of hours with an instructor), he can get his regular, independent license. Seems so young, but, I have heard a lot of good feedback re: the change to allowing the kids a full year with the permit before driving alone/ independently. In WI I guess one perk is that having the permit for a full calendar year = they have the chance to practice in all 4 seasons!
@Grateful Kae – yep, you can’t get it until you are 16 here, and then it’s 6 months on the road before you can test for your license (with a certain number of practice hours). I understand the graduated licensing, though I’m quite ready to have another driver in the house!