Author Mariane Pearl describes getting behind the wheel in the NYT's New York Observed column [editor's note: harrumph] last Sunday. It's what prompted her to start driving that got my attention.

I have been a resident of this country for three years, and it is my green card that motivated me to become a driver, or rather, it was being stuck in Los Angeles without wheels. As I was walking in Beverly Hills, I was spotted by a police officer in a squad car. “ID?” he demanded, extending an enormous hand out the window. Driver’s license? Clearly, he found it suspicious that anyone would walk in the neighborhood. As soon as I returned to my West Village apartment, I booked lessons at the Professional Driving School of the Americas.

When Silverio learns that my mom is Cuban, he wants to know what will happen when Fidel Castro dies.

‘’You should buy real estate in Cuba,” he says. “Turn right here.”

“How?”

“Just buy it.”

“No. How do I turn left?

“No,” Silverio says gently. “I said right. Just signal.”

Pearl has had a good month: a byline in the New York Times and the news that Angelina Jolie will play her in the adaptation of Pearl's book, A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl.