I set a personal best this week at the California Department of Motor Vehicles.  I signed the papers, paid the driver's license renewal fee, took the eye test, got thumb printed and photographed -- all in an elapsed time of just over six minutes.  Clearly, the Earth is off its axis and pork is on the wing.

The fun part was the eye test.  As recently mentioned, it's time for a new prescription.  The examiner, seeing I did not currently have any restrictions on my license, asked me to remove my glasses and read line one of the chart hanging from the ceiling behind her.  I took one look and said, "That's not going to happen."  She smiled and directed me to the machine.

"With your glasses off, put your forehead on the button and look into the machine."

I did so.

"Please read line two."

"Okay, B...D...6...N...4...5...9...L...2...Q."  These figures seemed a little clearer than that stupid chart hanging from the ceiling over there back beyond the desk for boat registration, fer cryin' out loud.

"Alright, sir, there are no numbers in that line."  

"Oh."

She stifled her giggle until she heard me laughing, then she joined in.

I was then instructed to put my glasses back on and read another line which I did perfectly, but alas, I am old.  And going blind.  And now restricted.  The old lenses and optic nerves just ain't makin' the connections like they used to.

*****

Also this week was Amy's performance in a series of Shakespeare vignettes, the culmination of the latest session of the after-school drama club.  Over the past several weeks she's been learning lines from Macbeth, learning some music and choreography, and acquiring the basics of theatrical fencing.  As I've said before, it's a marvelous program that has done wonders for her.

It was a costume-intensive show, an aspect she loved.  And this aspect meant it was a schlepping-intensive show for daddy and a last-minute brainstorming and sewing-intensive show for mommy.  

The instructor for this session (the program is run by a group of actors that contracts with the school) was a good-looking fellow, and that's about as far as I'll go with that because to go into detail about how really truly good-looking a piece of A-1 perfect son-in-law type material he was would just be awkward.  His calm command of grade school kids made him popular, particularly among the moms, particularly when he was demonstrating how he'd taught their little Jasons and Jessicas to swashbuckle.  Actors and their swords -- they can make mommies swoon and gush.

Honestly though, we were amazed by the performance level of the kids.  They knew their lines and delivered them with enough grade-school anxiety and hamminess to fully coat the critical eye with a golden film.  It's that parent thing.

And it was with fortunate coincidence that we stumbled this same week into some tickets to today's matinee performance of The Lion King at the Pantages.  On the heels of her own theater experience, this show just blew her away.  We had great seats, middle of the orchestra, and I spent a lot of time just watching her face as she took the whole thing in.  She was connecting, to both the story (with which she's extremely familiar) and the actors as new colleagues.  The timing couldn't have been better for this event.  She had some wonderful images and sounds burned into her memory today.

*****

I've been under the weather lately, literally and figuratively.  The rains of the past few weeks cut into my exercise opportunities and that in turn hunkers me down headwise, and this has mated with a weird brief flu-type bug that's gotten me down physically and has yet to buzz off.

Life is looking better though.  The weather ahead is clear so I can hit my running trails again.  And Amy did well in her latest OT/PT evaluation (this means the home program I do with her is working) so our schedule will not include twice-weekly visits to occupational and physical therapists.  Which is my roundabout way of looking the jinx right in the eye and saying I think I'm going to have more time to write here.  I've missed the time I need for being more careful in the observations of my own thoughts and feelings.  I've felt a waning of the confidence and comfort I get from making the connections found through quiet contemplation.  I'm looking forward to finding them again.

___________________________