Learning to Drive

So last Saturday I was laying around, as I am wont to do, and the dogs started barking furiously at the pool door. I let them out and they darted to the wall closest to the street. I decided to go fetch the mail, and when I got to the street, I saw my neighbor Evan walking in circles, looking confused. I called out to him, and he looked up. I asked him why he was walking in circles, and he motioned to the house across the street and slightly South. A SUV was perched on some coral rock, having clearly gotten there by a crash. Evan was fine. He had taken his daughter on her FIRST driving lesson, and forgot to tell her that one must brake before turning. So she took out a street sign and crashed onto the rock. She was in the back seat -- shaken but ok. I calmed her down, and told her she had gotten her first crash out of the way -- she would now be a perfectly safe driver! Our local trooper happened along, and seeing the street sign down, said he had to call Pinecrest police to report it. Shortly afterwards, the Pinecrest cop appeared -- a Cubana barely 5 feet tall, and not appearance challenged. I thought to myself -- a woman that tiny and pretty working as a cop -- she must be LETHAL. I fetched the assembled cold water. If the diminutive constable pulss me over for speeding -- maybe she'll remember. By now the whole affair blossomed into a neighborhood happening. The new neighbor Stephanie came out, also not appearance challenged, and at 23 newly married to her 52 year old husband. She had a friend with an auto body shop, who happened to be the same guy we used for Wifey's multiple vehicular peccadilloes. Neighbors Susan and Marie happened along, and I caught up with Marie about her long semester in France. Her former high school classmate is D2's Spanish summer roommate. Ah, the Miami connections... Even's wife Ellen came, a flat bed tow truck extracted the SUV from its coral rock perch, and then the homeowner Elizabeth came out. 5 years ago another neighbor, and elderly Japanese lady, backed her car into the other side of Elizabeth's house --taking down a wall. We joked that something about their house was car attracting, and maybe she needed a force field... So it was the msot exciting thing to happen in the 'hood since another neighbor gunned her car, hit a mailbox, and flipped the car over. Fortunately, no injuries there either, but her Boston Irish husband didn't take the event with much humor, as I recall... And so its Summer in Miami. I facechatted (tm) with D2 yesterday --loving Valncia already. D1 is headed to Houston on the 3rd, and we just finalized our plans for the Fourth. The Palm has a steak special -- $17.76 for a small filet that's usually more than $35, and we plan to go there with Norman, Deb, and Elizabeth, visiting from Orlando. We'll then retreat to D1's Brickell apartment, and watch fireworks all over the city from the 36th floor. And 2 weeks after than, I turn 52. I'm still trying to figure out how I went from 25 to 52 in 8 months. Maybe it's the same strange force of nature that caused Evan's daughter to crash her car.