GPS sucks. Or at least mine does.

Driving is one of those annoyingly essential skills that I can't seem to master despite how hard I focus or how much I practice. I hate to reinforce the stereotype for all my Asian sistahs out there but I admit that I am a female Asian who should probably not be allowed behind the wheel of a tricycle, much less a vehicle.

The thing is, my problem with driving is completely mental. I can perform the basic functions of operating a car just fine (except parallel parking, U-turns, and turning on my lights at night). But my lack of confidence translates into nervous, panicking decision-making.

You know when you walk into a test that you know you're not prepared for? Suddenly every innocuous little bubble in the scantron starts to look like a portal of death. Your eyes flash over questions and answer choices at lightning speed but you don't understand any of the words and your hand is shaking and you're about to vom and everyone else is just scribbling or bubbling away happily and you consider feigning unconsciousness to get out of the situation without totally humiliating yourself?

That's how I start feeling every time I turn on the ignition. "Dear society, here comes fail."

Last night I had a particularly scarring driving experience - this time involving GPS. I've never actually used a GPS because I rarely drive anywhere that I haven't been to at least four thousand times before. So I was pretty excited to have a friendly voice tell me where to turn and map out my route to a friend's house that's located in the heart of Potomac, a 20-minute drive. "I'll be driving like a pro in no time with this handy little roadmaster!" I thought gleefully as I backed out my driveway (narrowly missing my mom's minivan). I grossly miscalculated that prediction.

First, the GPS took like 10 minutes to wake up. And I was freaking out for that entire 10 minutes. "I'm supposed to turn left here, right? If I keep going I'm gonna crash into that house! Please say turn left please say turn left pleaaaaaase oh god" Mind you, this was all in my neighborhood. I kept just stopping in the middle of the street, panicking and shaking the GPS like a polaroid picture. "WORK FASTER, SLAVE!"

When it finally beeped to life, I was sitting in a driveway about 500 yards from my house, clutching the steering wheel and sobbing. Well not really but you know what I mean. I continued on my way, wary of my new possible foe or friend and listening as hard as I could for directions. The GPS worked okay. I mean, I already knew most of the way to my friend's house. But whenever the GPS didn't confirm the next turn I would start to freak out. At several points I was literally talking to it.

"I'm supposed to turn here, right?"
Silence.
"Here, RIGHT?????"
"Turn right at Piney Meetinghouse Road."
"Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!"

Finally, I turned onto the road where my friend lived. The GPS told me to keep going about half a mile in, which I did, and then it said "Arrived at desination." I looked around and there were NO HOUSES near me. Just some roadkill and a golf course. I wound up driving around that neighborhood for about 20 more minutes and stopping to make several frantic phone calls before I finally found his house, an hour after I left mine.

When I got into my car again later that night and saw the shiny GPS trying to beep to life again, I unplugged it and threw it into the passenger's seat foot area. I wasn't taking any of its crap anymore.

I was still a bad driver, but in the very likely case of an accident, I wanted to make sure at the end of the day that it was me, and not a stupid GPS device, that ultimately screwed myself over.

Cat names

Over the weekend, my mom, sister and I visited the Montgomery County Humane Society after we fell in love with my friend's dog Charlie (well, my sister not so much) and were still on our animal high. We've been to the shelter many times before and have always walked away rather depressed, empty-handed, and smelling like dog poop. But this time my sister and I managed to convince our mom to fill out an application for a 4 month old tabby kitten named Pueblo. Here's a picture of him from the website:

I guess this was taken a while ago or something because it's a horrible picture/doesn't really look like him. Or maybe he's just not a photogenic kitty. In real life, he looks a lot more like his brother Sioux:

Adorable, right? Gah, I love tabbys (tabbies?).

The dinner conversation tonight was about what we would name the cat. Some hilarity ensued, especially when we went through all our favorite Harry Potter characters. Here are some of the suggestions:

Snarf (suggested by me) after the Thundercats character. Downvoted because my sister said it sounded too much like barf and my mom said it was too hard to pronounce.

Winston (suggested by me) because it's such a classy, baller name. My sister liked it but Mom thought it was too hard to pronounce (noticing a pattern here?).

A lot of Harry Potter names. Crookshanks, Remus, Dobby, Harry, and Dumblydore were all mentioned but the funniest ones were Hagrid and Snape.

Zhong guo ren (lol) ...I'm not sure why, I think we were just being silly at this point.

Tokyo (suggested by me) and London (suggested by Mom)

Charcoal (Mom)

Lots of food names: Sushi (me), Pepper (me), Tuna (me), Sesame (Maria), and Wasabi (Maria). We eventually ruled out Wasabi because both Maria and I hate the real thing so much.

Lady GaGa (me). This one still makes me chuckle.

Tommy and Tiger (both Mom)

Me: Tiger is so cliche...so many cats are named Tiger.
Mom: But what about Tiger Woods?
Me: Tiger Woods is a man, Mom.

We eventually all decided we liked the name Sesame a lot, so for now I think that's what we're going to name him. I dunno though, I still think Lady GaGa suits him pretty well.

The red wine's got him gaga

Quick Entry

I'm home!

Three great things happened today:

1.) I ate food that I didn't cook myself, hurrah!

2.) I got to meet my BFF's adorable dog! Charlie the yellow lab fits right in with his loving Asian family. He is playful, friendly, and will make a great meal one day if the economy keeps going at its current rate.

3.) My dad surprised me with a Pre! Yesssssss. I never get presents from my parents. "When I was your age all I owned was a rag and a dead cat." So this is pretty neat. I just have to call Sprint and see if I can switch my phone number over to this handset. If I can't, expect a Facebook group invitation sometime in the near future...apologies in advance.

Home is awesome. My bed is huge and I don't have any responsibilities. Those are pretty much the two criteria I need in order to be happy these days.

OK, I'm going to watch Law and Order: SVU until my brains fall out. Bye for now.