Kyoo 148

I really tried to be in bed 2 hours ago but then I remembered that I had a letter to write!

USAA has a pen pal program that I just signed up for so now I get to exchange letters with an area fifth grader. I know nothing about him other than his name, school, age, and teacher, but I'm pretty excited about getting letters at work (hopefully)! So, I just wrote a pretty sweet letter and enclosed a picture from my canyoneering trip last fall. Hopefully he'll think I'm cool enough and write me back. If nothing else it will give him an opportunity to look up things like canyoneering, rappeling, Idaho, Utah, and persistence.

It's kind of hard to write to a fifth grader cause I'm not sure where his reading level is and what words he'll understand. Do you think persistence was too big? Maybe....

Shoot, I'm out of white out.

I'm sure he'll have access to a dictionary.

In other news, I made a complete fool of myself behind a "stick-shift" today. Yup, that's right, I can't drive a stick shift. My dad has tried in futility more than once to teach me and it will never work until I HAVE to drive one everyday. And I don't see that happening ever.

The story:

My roommate's truck was parked behind Casper which made it impossible for me to pull out and head for lap swimming today. Obviously, the truck had to be moved. My roommate was covered in dirt from the garden and didn't want to get in her truck so the task fell on me. After retrieving the keys and positioning myself behind the wheel, I glanced down and realized there where 3 pedals. Not good. After trial and error, I discovered which one was the clutch because pushing that one and turning the key resulted in the engine starting. I was making progress! Until I let the clutch up. It likes to take things slow.....if you know what I mean ;)

Round two commenced, I eased up on the clutch, and the engine continued to purr. Then I had to manuever the stick into "R". No problem there. I backed slightly out of the driveway and turned the wheel to prepare to pull back into the driveway on the other side of my car. This is where it got embarassing.

At about this time, the truck was very much in the middle of the street and cars where approaching on either side. Approaching, and, now, waiting, for me to pull back up into the driveway. This was not an ideal time to realize that I didn't know how to get the stick into "1". (Yes, I know it's 1st gear. I'm trying to sound as ignorant as possible).

So, there I was, wrestling with the stick and cursing under my breath whilst casting apologetic glances at the drivers sitting impatiently on either side of me. This continued for about two minutes until my roommate sensed a disturbance in the force and waltzed from the backyard heralded this precious advice: "Push the clutch and THEN try to change gears."

It worked. But only after I killed the engine. Twice.

Sufficeth me to say, I was humbled. And very thankful to climb into Casper and move with such ease and lack of mental exertion.

The last bit of news is that I drove 8 hours to spend 26 hours with my dad in Fort Worth this weekend and it was worth it! I know he's reading this so I won't get all mushy but I do love my dad and enjoyed the time we got to spend together.

Have a great day :)