Dear Kid,

You may recall that on your sister’s half-birthday the testing part of the DMV was closed, so no driver’s permit. Since there was no school yesterday, our plan was to take her for testing. Mid-day our text conversation went like this:

Pi: Temps today, right?

Me: Have u been a good girl?

Pi: Yes

Me: Oh good. Will you have the Lego room cleaned up by 1pm?

Pi: Surrrrre

Me: And will you have eaten lunch by 1pm? And owed Booker?

Pi: Owed Booker?

Me: Peed. Stupid Autocorrect

Pi: haha Yes.

Me: Then I’ll pick you up at 1pm. Can you grab a bar for me?

I go home, walk into the house, and there’s Pi. “Will this do?” she asks holding up one of my bras. “HUH?” “You asked for one.” I start laughing “I thought I typed ‘bar’ not ‘bra’!” She checks her phone. “Oh. You did.”

She is now the proud owner of a learner’s permit. And a little inconvenient dyslexia.

According to the City of Athens, OH, today is Halloween. Fabulous for college students and Athens residents, a little confusing for the rest of us.

I love that for today’s football game there is a Ghost Out (fans wearing white to haunt Miami back to Oxford). Then there is the parade, “a larger than life puppet parade.” While that may sound too family-friendly, you should think about checking it out because it turns out that Puppets Are Fabulous. (But I haven’t finished that blog yet, so you’ll have to wait for details.)

An estimated 10,000 to 30,000 costumed party-goers (mostly college students) will converge on Athens for tonight’s annual Halloween Block Party. The mega Halloween celebration in Athens began in 1974 when party partakers in costume halted traffic on Court for two hours on Halloween night. The party is now sponsored by the City of Athens and is well known for being pah-tay time.

This year there will be three stages for music, costume contests, and more music. There will be food, drink, DRINK, and lots, and lots of people. Especially lots of people. Mostly people not in studying-for-exams mode.

At orientation this summer, we learned all about how most of the drinking is done by students from other colleges who just visit for the weekend. Uh-huh. Probably everyone looks bad Sunday morning because they stayed out past their bed time and ate interesting non-cafeteria food. Right. Whatev.

Enjoy. Just not too much.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Monday was a bit of a disappointment for your sister. As I’m sure you have marked on your calendar, it was her half birthday. Which means she was old enough to take the test to get her learner’s permit. As luck would have it, my appointment rescheduled so I was free and on Mondays football is from 6pm – 8pm. So we had a window of time to scoot over to the DMV.

I zipped home, said hello to Booker who was 6 kinds of happy to see me in the middle of the afternoon, gathered the paperwork we would need to prove that she’s herself, and off we went, me driving, Pi studying.

Did she pass the test? No. Did she fail the test? No. Turns out that while the main part of the DMV is open on Mondays, the part where you take your “written” test is not.

Due to her football schedule, we won’t be able to go over there again until Friday.

In other news, the IRS is starting tax season late due to the government shutdown. I find it difficult to understand why something that has been on the books for years is so affected by a 16 day lock-out. Seriously? It’s going to take you three months to catch up??? However, in true IRS fashion, the filing date remains the same because who wants to miss a good birthday celebration? (Yes, as a reminder, my birthday is April 15th. But you knew that.)

Opting to follow our government leaders (ha) and go back to work, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART to those in the know) is running again after an agreement was reached with union leaders.

Hope all the initials in your day are good ones.

Love, Mom