SLC DMV

So I decided to get a Utah Driver's license... largely because it gets me locals-only deals on lift tickets.

So I finally cleared my busy unemployment schedule to dedicate what I assumed would be a long & frustrating afternoon at the DMV. I've heard that people who commit suicide are reincarnated as hateful DMV employees. It rings true, for the most part, at least in Massachusetts. Here, everyone at the DMV was surprisingly pleasant, cracking jokes, smiling. Chipper as hell really. Maybe it's just a ruffle in their magic Mormon underwear? Maybe it's because their office is located on the state fair grounds?

Anyways, I had to take a 25 question, open book, multiple choice driving test to get my license. Rhys did it a few months before me and came home bragging he got 100% right. So, I'll be damned if I get one wrong. I wound up spending an hour answering the stupid quiz - 100% right, first A++ they had that day! BOOYAH!

I was then awarded my giant, notebook size, temporary paper license. Extremely ridiculous. You'd think if they ultimately fit all that same information onto a license-sized card, that they could do the same for the temporary license rather than force you to fold this thing 8 times before it's wallet sized and then cram the now half inch thick wad of paper into your wallet.

Anyways, I look like a battle-axe in ruffles. I'm not sure if it's better than my very butch MA ID photo that is now full of holes to tell the world I'm officially not a New Englander anymore! =(

Also, I totally lied about my weight.

Flush

Is it just me, or is it like really weird to talk the on the cell phone in he bathroom AT WORK in a COURT?!?

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Screen Grab

I was looking for a sound effect to add to my Kalari post, you know that cartoony twang sound made from some sort of stringed instrument, the sound you'd think would go with both of my hamstrings tweaking at the same time?

Anyways, I couldn't find it but I did find this:

Kalari

I've been going to yoga pretty regularly for the last month (I Groupon) and the studio I'm attending offers a whole bunch of classes I've never heard of before... They also incorporate a level of chanting, incense & fruitiness that my pre-law self would probably not be comfortable with, but after law school broke my soul, I consider myself more open to fruity things. Isn't that kind of ironic? Law school made me feel less up tight? Maybe I just feel less up tight right now after 90 minutes of kalari.


I'm pretty sure I pulled both of my hamstrings in the first 2 minutes of class.

Here's why.

Learning to Drive Stick Shift in Downtown

I never knew how to drive stick shift.... until now.

Most of my friends don't know how to drive stick either, and the few that do were usually forced into it.

It's a valuable skill that would have saved Erin & I about $200 on our one week rental car in Sardinia. I'm pretty sure we rented the ONLY automatic on the entire island.

The nice Italian man at the rental agency offered to teach us, Erin being the elected driver given my history as BR Class of 2001 Worst Driver.....despite her being a far scarier driver to share the roads with!

(Highly paraphrased direct quote "will you just look for me and tell me when I can merge on this highway onramp while I speed up to 70 mph cuz if I look I'll turn the steering wheel with my head and bad things will happen...")


He brought us out to a big open roadway, in an industrial looking part of the harbor, there was no traffic and lots of space, like the Raynham-Taunton Dog Track parking lot, perfect for learning.

I think Erin was behind the wheel for a total of 5 minutes, while I tried unsuccessfully to muffle my laughter as we bucked violently to a halt time and again. There's no way we should be driving on winding, narrow mountain roads in a car we can't get into first on flat ground. And of course, when in Rome- and we were just a few hours out of Rome- you must drive like the Romans, which means drive like you're evading terrorist gunmen pissed that you captured one of their top men in their evil plans to overthrow the Bolivian government.....

So, we didn't learn that day. But now that I'm in Salt Lake City, and I'm forced to learn. Too daunted by the 500 foot elevation gain between downtown and my house to bike commute, there's no choice but to drive Rhys's manual Subaru.... that I've nicknamed Bobo, much to his chagrin.

I tried to prepare for the inevitable, and perhaps avoid or decrease the possibility of Bobo-induced fights, by taking driving lessons in our family friends' manual before moving out here. Unfortunately, Kim's car was awesomer than Bobo in that it didn't have that hideous "rolling backwards to your doom" feature that most manual's have. So, I never practiced an E-brake start before moving out to my hilly new home.

Fortunately, though, Salt Lake drivers are not Boston drivers and the roads are wide, often double or triple-laned and rarely turn into surprise one-ways that you're now driving the wrong way down. I am still constantly lost, though.  All the roads are numbers and directions. My street, for instance, is 600 South, which means it's 6 blocks south of the LDS Temple. The road itself runs east west, not north south. The giant north-south running mountain range looming beyond the city tells me so.  I have enough trouble keeping my lefts and rights straight to now have to worry about my norths, souths, easts and wests....

So, I'm always lost. And I was driving downtown one day trying to find the place I was supposed to meet someone for a networking lunch. She told me to park in a guarded lot near 151 East South Temple. So, I turned into a guarded lot, that turned out to be a Federal Government Building where the USDA and Senator Orrin Hatch has offices. Not the fancy pants upscale club I was meeting someone for lunch.

I had already turned into the lot. The guard came out to ask me for credentials, which I of course didn't have and therefore wasn't even permitted to turn around in his lot. I had to *gasp* BACK OUT of the downhill facing driveway into TRAFFIC with cars already lined up behind me trying to rightfully get into their federal employee-only lot. I told the guard I was new to driving stick, implying I may roll through  the wooden gate and accidentally smash into the building.

(This is how I envisioned myself accidentally smashing into the Federal Building despite the slow rolling approach I'd take as I failed to get the car in reverse in a timely fashion.)

So, after describing how a handbrake start works, he proceeded to stop traffic on State Street, wave the other cars waiting to enter the lot out of the way, and made for a clear path for me to buck and stall out of the lot. I actually did it smoothly, which both of us were very excited about.

Something I love

Involuntary Blowhole.

New Beginnings, One Ply at a Time

Well here I am, a recovering Jewish law student from Boston plunked in the heart of Salt Lake City with my atheist/agnostic Australian boyfriend. (He claims atheist, but that's becuase we disagree about what agnostic means. I lean towards the religiously "noncommittal" point of view, which generally describes him well! Oh Snap!! And because I'm writing this, I win the debate.)

I meant to start this blog when I initially arrived here in Salt Lake City, now nearly 2 months ago. So, I have some stories stacked up to keep us busy in the meantime.

So, from the top:

After a long, hellish summer studying for the bar exam preceded by three hellish years of law school, I packed up my 27 years growing up in Massachusetts into 3 checked bags, a couple shipping boxes and a carry on and headed to Logan with a one way ticket to Salt Lake City. I guess I was flying on a wing and a prayer, as they say, with no job, graduating into the worst economic climate since the Great Depression, having just sat for essentially the wrong bar exam for someone moving out of Massachusetts, and basically stone broke. So, why not abandon my roots, family, friends and business connections for an adventure in Mormon Country. I probably wasn't going to get a law job in Boston anyways. I'll blame it on the Harvard kids.

So, there I am, at Logan with mom and dad, dad who fretted over the traffic and the break from his normal routine to bring me to the airport to the point that getting the ride, packing the car, going to lunch and killing time at a cafe all required varying degrees of arm twisting, consoling & cajoling. We ended up at the airport 3 hours early for a domestic flight, about an hour earlier than TSA says I needed to be there, and about an hour and a half earlier than I say I need to be there. Nonetheless, I was there and the long awaited moment of saying goodbye fell upon us. Mom & I had to convince dad that he had to go park the car in the short term lot and sit in the terminal for a few minutes to drag this out, reassuring him that traffic both "is what it is" and 15 minutes in the middle of the day on a Monday, isn't gonna kill their commute home.

So, we give our hugs, shed our tears, blubber, blather and walk away. With their backs to me and a few paces ahead, I call out to mom, both of us wet cheeked still, but me laughing now.

She stops, dad is still walking not noticing he's now alone, and I jog up to her to avoid having to yell,

And when we're about next to each other, I lean in, and whisper,

 "Check your back pocket..."