Backwards driving

I always love the scene in Cars where Mater shows McQueen how he can drive backwards (You mean you DON'T know the entire movie by heart?! Horrors!) because I can do that, too. The first time my father took me out to teach me how to parallel park (my father, never my mother, I think she is still scared to get in a car when I am driving, despite having had my licence for, oh, 15 years now) we were both shocked when the first time I tried, I did it perfectly, and then again and again...I'm guessing it is related my aptitude for spacial relations in some way, but seeing as science isn't so much my thing, I couldn't possibly explain why that is. At some point I also figured out that, oddly, I am easily able to drive a car backwards.

Anyhow, the reason I bring this up is not because we watched Cars for the two hundred millionth time, (we didn't, it was a cold but beautiful weekend, so we were outside as much as possible) but because of the SCARIEST DRIVING EXPERIENCE I have ever had, and hope to ever have.

On Thursday I went into NYC to meet a close friend who was visiting from out of town, and since I had limited time with her before running back for carpool, I decided to not waste too much time looking for parking. So, after the requisite 15 minutes of circling and getting honked at, I pulled into one of those underground city lots. I drove all the way down the narrow tunnel, underground, into the lot and at the end of the driveway was a car, parked horizontally across the entrance to the lot. I waited 5 minutes and no one came, no one was in the guard booth, and no one was moving that car. I got out of the car and yelled "Hellooo, anyone here?" and heard from far away a faint "Lady, this lot is closed."

And so, I had no choice but to drive BACKWARDS, up a steep (and I mean steep) incline that exited onto a sidewalk before ending up on a busy New York City Street. Yes, backwards up a steep incline in a minivan with a four month old baby in the back seat. My heart was pounding, I was shvitzing and tears were running down my face and I got out of the car (with the emergency brake firmly on) and ran up to the street where I asked a mail carrier walking by to make sure that no one tried to cross as I came up because I was petrified of hitting someone, especially since I knew I would have to be going pretty fast to get up that incline backwards. So, thanks to the kind mail man, and my weird driving skills, I made it out of that parking garage. And then drove around the block to another lot, which was thankfully open and no backwards driving was needed, and spent a lovely 2 hours with my friend and her adorable niece.

In other news, Amira's baseball team won again, 13 to 8 (this time they actually fielded well, too!), and she made it on base twice. Yaakov very sadly missed his first T-Ball game due to a thankfully brief throw up bug of some sort and very happily got to try Gatorade (it just became Kosher and I let him have it after he threw up), or as he calls it "Gagorage." And last but not least, Aaron now giggles and it is the cutest sound in the world and is guaranteed to make all of us laugh, too. He also had his four month check up and now weighs 12 lbs and is 24 inches tall, and when I told Amira that, she asked me how tall Yaakov was (39 inches) and then very excitedly told me that now in our family we had: 2 ft (Aaron), 3 ft (Yaakov), 4 ft (Amira), 5 ft (Mommy), and 6 ft (Abba)! Loll!

2 ft, 3 ft, and 4 ft