License To Ill

When our daughter was first learning to drive a few years ago, we asked friends and neighbors for recommendations for behind-the-wheel training - and the same name kept popping up. To protect the instructor's identity, I will refer to him as "Steve" and his driving school as the "Hello" driving school. And feedback we received about Hello Steve were not so much endorsements as resigned, "well, everyone seems to use him, he has availability, and his pass rate is extremely high" comments.

As we are big proponents of mediocre-to-fair instruction for the next generation of drivers, we enrolled our daughter with Hello.

A couple of weeks later, Hello Steve appeared in our driveway, looking like an aging hippie with his long, gray hair and faded Hawaiian shirt. Our daughter hopped in the car with a few of her contemporaries and off they drove. It turns out their instruction from Steve consisted less of driving rules and more of him sharing rumors and gossip about other students who had previously enrolled in his school. Our daughter noted that every time he drove into a neighborhood and they passed a house of someone Steve had instructed and assumed the students might know, he'd dive into the salacious details the student had naively confided in him. 

Something else she learned during a subsequent lesson was that if they provided Hello Steve with Crumbl cookies or other treats, they would receive higher scores on their skills assessments. 

They may not have learned the finer points of parallel parking, but the teen drivers were certainly getting many life lessons under Hello Steve's tutelage.

Probably the most puzzling Hello Steve story occurred toward the end of our daughter's instruction. He began the lesson that day by requesting our daughter drive to the grocery store four miles away so he could retrieve the shoe (singular) he had left in the store's parking lot. He asked this nonchalantly, as though things like this happened often...and to everyone.

She obliged, they found and retrieved the shoe, and later that day, Hello Steve gave her a passing grade in the behind the wheel class.

Avoid Oakton roads,

Brutalism

A completely unrelated driving school photo. 

Pot Luck

While in Virginia Beach recently to celebrate my Mom's birthday, she suggested we go to a new event she had recently learned about: a backyard concert. This was only the third week of this recently-launched event, which is much more elaborate than it sounds. People show up with their lawn chairs, bring food to share, BTOB, and are rewarded with some amazing musical acts. It's a really nice evening and the homeowner/host/lead musician is a former neighbor of ours who has numerous musical awards, did a stint in Nashville chasing his musical dreams, and now coordinates this event to bring other talented musicians together on Saturday nights.

When my Mom asked if I remembered this neighbor, I had to share that it was a vague memory. He is six years older, so when he lived across the street, he was a cool high school kid and my sister and I were still elementary schoolers, so we were not contemporaries. However, I did vividly remember the aftermath of a party he had. It was a rager, and the next day, we found two small pot pipes among the discarded beer cans and other party debris in our front yard. 

Rather than throw these away, I washed them and included them as game tokens in a school project I was working on about avoiding drug usage. As I recall, the game board was a giant hypodermic needle fashioned out of blue poster board and I was excited that the pot pipe game tokens added a touch of realism to my 4th grade health project. 

On the day my project was due, I trotted off to school and happily presented the project to my class and my fourth grade teacher. 

One would think this resulted in a call home, a visit to the Principal's office, or at the very least, questions about why those were in my possession. But, alas, these were Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Not only was this completely accepted, I also received a A+ on my project. 

Game tokins'

Brutalism

Taking A Page From The Dilettantes

You may recall I was founder and member of The Dilettante Club back in the mid 2010s. During the time that club was active, I and the other three members managed to try almost EIGHTY unique activities. Doing some quick back-of-the-napkin math, it would appear we did every available activity in the DMV area and there is nothing left to do, amen.

Do you really think I'd give up that easily? 

After failed attempts to get involved in activities in preparation for my daughter going to college, I decided to revive the Dilettante Club. This time, inviting one friend to accompany me to each activity. (So "club" is not really an apt descriptor, but being able to coordinate with even one person's schedule feels like quite the achievement. Leave me alone.)

And so far this year, I've managed to try something new every month. I'll keep track of the activities here by updating this post each month and am cautiously optimistic I'll end 2025 with 12 new activities under my belt. Here's hoping one of them is not "Don red robe and rename myself Oftim." 

The activities?

JANUARY - Paper quilling, Trupti's Craft, Oakton Elementary School, VA

FEBRUARY - Blacksmithing, Lawless Forge, Sterling, VA

 

  

MARCH - Making hammered brass earrings, The Grounds of Livev, Oakton, VA

APRIL - Real Roots Meetup, Salazar, Washington, DC

This is a meet-up for women to get matched with a group of like-minded women in their city (in my case, in DC, as there were none of these scheduled for Northern Virginia). A facilitator guides conversations designed to build lasting friendships. If you love your group, you can continue with a six-week series together. Even though this was way out of my comfort zone, I went and am glad I did. The women were accomplished and very interesting, and the facilitator did a great job of getting our group to know each other in about 2.5 hours. Will I continue with the group for the next six weeks? TBD, but doubtful. Did I swap info with several of the women with the intent to meet up at some point in the future? Yes. I liked it and would definitely commit if it was more geographically desirable. 

MAY - Trying Durian Fruit, Oakton, VA

Click here for YouTube video of the experience. 

JUNE - "Not Another Home Movie" Film Screening, Vienna, VA

A professor at George Washington University who teaches storytelling courses and workshops screened five of her students' short films on a weekday at the Vienna Community Center. I asked my daughter to go with me, as I could drop her at her job after - and both of us were so glad we went! The films were poignant, sweet, profound, and silly. And gave us so much insight into each filmmaker in just a few minutes. Bonus: I'm now talking to the professor about how I can potentially help promote her annual film fest and just drafted a Comms plan that I'll help implement. 

JULY - Visiting the first Buc-ees in Virginia, Rockingham, VA

Disclaimer: I also saw Beyonce in concert this month. But the trip to Buc-ees won out because it was ridiculous, while the Beyonce concert was AH-MAZING! 

With half a day at our disposal and armed with the information that the first Buc-ees in Virginia had opened just three days prior, we headed toward Harrisonburg to check it out ourselves. Takeaways: gas was so cheap, it would almost be worth the two-hour drive to fill our tanks, bathrooms were huge and clean, and the rest was a convenience store on steroids. Fun to check it out, and bonus to walk around the JMU campus where I went to college. 

AUGUST - 

Identity Crisis

Last weekend, our college kid attended a fraternity formal with her boyfriend. They enjoyed a nice dinner and dancing at a winery about half an hour from the university. 

At one point during the night, she bellied up to the bar to order a beverage. A quick scan of the drink list drew her eye to peach sangria, which was listed along with the prices for a glass and a pitcher, thusly:

                            Peach sangria  10/26 

With the unbridled confidence of an underage, hopeful drinker, she asked the bartender for a (and I quote), "Peach sangria ten twenty-six." 

Having obviously worked college functions before, the bartender promptly retorted, "ID, please."

Gentle reader, it was a peach sangria-less night. Alas.

Pancakes...all exciting at first...

Over the weekend, a friend reminded me of a story I shared with her from when my daughter was young:

I've always been a little overprotective, which has manifested in an assortment of ways throughout my daughter's childhood that she can unpack through intensive therapy. It didn't help my neuroses when a friend shared a story about a friend of his - an adult woman who choked to death on cottage cheese when she was home alone several years ago. This horrific story lodged itself in my brain and has haunted me ever since. (Aside: the guy who shared this makes a living as a comedy writer, completely disproving the old adage that tragedy + time = comedy.) 

Hearing that one story made me realize that even though we fully trusted our daughter to be at home by herself from the time she was about 8 years old, I did not trust her to eat when she was there because God Forbid she would choke on something. Thus was the impetus of the "no eating when home alone" rule.

I mean, she was allowed water and clear broth...I'm not a monster. Just nothing that required chewing.

Having become familiar with my nonsense, she rolled her 8-year-old eyes but obliged without too much resistance.  

Until one day when I was at my office and she had just returned home from school and texted me to let me know she was home safely, but was very hungry. I was not focused as I was finishing up a work call and also realized I was about ten minutes late to a meeting with a financial planner my husband had scheduled. So....when my daughter casually asked if she could make pancakes, I distractedly replied, "Sure. Just text me when you're done."

I then finished my work call, hopped on to the financial planner call, and when that was over it occurred to me that about an hour and a half had elapsed since my daughter asked about pancakes and I had not received the promised text from her. 

Slightly concerned, I texted her. She did not reply. I then called her. Also, no reply. I panicked. And continued to try and call her. Nothing. 

This is when the terror set in. I was already processing how the one time I was distracted and let her eat when she was home alone, she had choked on pancakes and was wondering how I'd ever live with myself. This was happening while I was hurriedly shoving my laptop into my backpack and heading to the elevator in my office building while continuing to ring her phone. I raced the four miles home WAY over the speed limit, continuing to call her phone and continuing to receive no response. 

When I finally reached the house, I pulled into the driveway and flew into the house screaming her name at the top of my lungs. I apparently sounded so panicked and looked like such a depraved lunatic that when she finally emerged from the guest room downstairs, wiping sleep from her eyes while trying to figure out what was going on, she burst into tears. 

To be fair:

1) the kid had never taken an afternoon nap before

2) she had also never not replied to a text and ESPECIALLY a phone call

3) I'm a lunatic

Brutalism

P.S. The post title is stolen from comic genius Mitch Hedberg. RIP.