I had a 10AM appointment to get my teeth cleaned. The dentist was already running pretty late. My mother and I debated cutting out of there and getting my “drivers” license renewed while we waited, but thought better of it. This proved to work well enough when, despite reaching the license center at a very busy 11:30, we swept right on through due to some computer glitches that made the new license line slow and the renewing license line quick. Not quite quick enough for me to chuckle when a kid lamented that he missed math and English. I stood in that line five whole years ago. Pretty heady stuff.

It was five whole years ago, too, when I discovered that my vision was not perfect. Mr. Ratajczyk, my high school driving instructor, had each student take a practice eye exam in the standard machine. I couldn't read one of the columns. Judging by the way I felt, my impaired sight might well have been caused by a blow to the head from Mortality himself. Yet I almost never wear my glasses, which only correct the left eye and even then only slightly (and often surprise folks when I do!), because in most any practical situation my eyes work rather well. I'm required to wear them when I drive, but the frame obscures more of my visual field than the lens corrects, so I bring them along in their mildly weathered case in the event that I am pulled over and must place them in their legal location.

On a lark, after I'd already worn my eye-crutches to pass today's eye exam, I peered into the machine without them. One column was fuzzy, but I could make out the letters. Too late. I must remember to try it au naturel first, next time.

Thus armed for some more years of modern travel, I went with my mother to the Olde Country Buffet, a place we'd visited in my high school days. She was limited in her choices by her diet (the same one that worked so well for me), and the food was not special. And the topic of school came up again, and I still don't feel that I am making myself understood. But I got to have lunch with my mother.

I drove by HPHS and found that they were on spring break. To date, since I graduated in 1997, I've not managed to be in Highland Park when high school was in session. Aargh!

Later, Peter and I hit Jack's (introduced to me by Danny) to relax a bit, he between interviews for summer work and pressing school assignments. He's not planning to accept an offer in Chicago, interestingly, because he will be working in Boston this summer. I plan to be working in Boston this summer too. How nice that would be.