It's Time to Start This Mother UP!

(Yes, that is a Hairspray quote.  If you were friends with me in grad school, let me assure you that my obsessive love of that movie/musical has not waned over the years).

Hey guys!  I moved to Ecuador two and a half weeks ago!  Which means...

TILT THE MILK IS BACK ♥.

I started this blog when I was living in Ireland.  I rejuvenated it when I was going through the Mystery Illness ordeal.  And now I am breathing new life into it once again so that I may chronicle my upcoming year's worth of adventures here in Ecuador.

But before I start talking about Ecuador, I'm going to re-post a mini Ode to School Bus Drivers that I threw onto facebook a few days before I left for South America.  Here it is:

 Why I Love School Bus Drivers

14 March 2014

I love bus drivers! ♥ Out in the country near my house there is this Perfectly Formed Dip in the road where, if hit at just the right speed, you can get just enough air to make your stomach go WOOOOO (you know what I mean) without banging up your car. Yesterday while driving into town, I totally saw a bus speed up and hit The Dip just for the kids' entertainment. As they passed me I could see the bus driver with this giant grin on her face, laughing at what I can only imagine were the delighted shrieks of the children.

When we were little, there was this MONSTER bump out in the country, right before the pig farm towards the end of our bus route. We kids were methodical in our preparation for The Bump. As we neared it, all talking, fighting, and playing came to a dead halt. As if we'd been trained, we spread ourselves out evenly throughout the bus, rotating each day who got to sit in The Way Back. As soon as we passed the farm before The Bump, we all began bouncing up and down in perfect, methodical, probably creepy-to-see unison. We knew that if our bounces happened to coincide perfectly with The Bump, we could get AIRBORNE. It worked the same way that trampolines work; the way you could get super high air if someone double-bounced right next to you while you were already jumping. WE LIVED FOR THIS MOMENT OF THE ROUTE. I can't remember his name, but I can still picture the boy on my bus who, one time and one time only, got so much air he actually hit the ceiling. We hero worshiped him for the rest of the school year.

In middle school our bus routes changed. The Bump was, sadly, no longer on the way home. We did however get a new bus driver, who ended up being my favorite bus driver of all time. His name was Terry, and he looked a lot like Jay Leno. He was super sarcastic and sassy and delighted in not taking shit from any of us damn kids. I insisted on calling him "Uncle Terry," a title that he claimed to hate for the next five years. He pretended to be constantly exasperated by the exuberance of my brother, my neighbors, and I, but we all knew we were his favorite kids on the route. I think Terry was the first adult I had a mutually sassy relationship with. He picked on us, we sassed him back, and he laughed. It was an almost vaudevillian routine that we repeated twice a day, every day, for a substantial chunk of my adolescence.

Watching the bus driver hit The Dip yesterday reminded me of how much I loved my bus route and bus drivers when I was little. When you're a country kid, sometimes your bus rides home are a full 45 minutes to an hour long, a time frame incomprehensible to our fellow suburban City Kid Friends. Thankfully I had really wonderful bus drivers all through my life, and the relationships I had with them were both supportive and formative.

Every one knows how important parents are in the development of a child's life. And, although often under-appreciated, people at least recognize the essential roles that teachers play in the life of a kid. But good bus drivers are some of the Ultimate Unsung Heroes in the daily grind of those working their way up the K-12 ladder. So here's to YOU, Awesome Bus Drivers of the World! Thanks for being an adult that's not afraid to talk to kids for a living. Thanks for being a role model for those who don't have a lot of good adult role models in their life. Thanks for making us laugh, and thanks for making us sit down and shut up when we need to. Thanks for keeping us safe. And thanks for, every once in awhile, giving the bus a little extra gas when going over a big bump ♥.