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Would it be too much to expect a little feedback? A "jolly good" or "brilliant turn"? I would even accept negative comments such as "you bloody idiot, I said turn left". But Mildred remains silent, unless she is "recalculating". Mildred, being our borrowed GPS system during our travels this weekend to yet more college auditions for Lauren. Mildred, if you haven't noticed, is British.

Could they not make these systems a bit more entertaining? I mean, you're in the car for hours sometimes. Could Mildred not tell me a joke? Perhaps chide us for not trusting her and taking another route that makes me more confident? "What, you don't trust me?" I trusted her yesterday, taking a "short cut" that took me off the highway and onto state highways, twisting and turning, and turning again. In the dark. No, Mildred, you don't always know best. Still, Lauren punched buttons and fed back to me information such as our arrival time, and it did help when we mistakenly put in the address at the 500 block instead of the 5000 block. Mildred got us out of the inner city.

Sometimes, we would change Mildred into Lola. "Recalulando!" Now, in Googling this, I see that one can sometimes record voices and sayings into the GPS. One guy programmed Karen, his Australian guide to say "Oh dear! You have gone astray". Well, I have to return this to it's rightful owner when our travels are over, so perhaps I shouldn't fool with it. What a surprise it would be to my mother (Mildred's owner) when Mildred cusses her!

I did not take Eugene (our aging van) on the trip, fearing it would just be too much for him. Instead, we took dh's car "Rex" with a manual transmission. Now, I've owned sports cars before with a manual transmission, so I wasn't completely out of the water, but was not thrilled to run into Friday rush hour traffic in a larger city and negotiating around three accidents. The constant shifting was getting to me. Less than subtle, I nearly popped a wheelie one time, throwing Lauren into paroxysms of laughter.

In case you were wondering, my dear daughter is auditioning to become a piano performance major and is doing quite well, thank you. We've enjoyed traveling together, comparing the schools and our insights into what it would be like to attend there. Not allowed to watch the auditions nor having to take placement tests, I have confined my observations to the quality of their coffee and toilet paper and perhaps how I like the buildings. From college to college, they are so very different. More on that another day.

Notes
Happy, Happy Birthday to my Baby Boy! You have brought nothing but joy to us!