I can think of hundreds of times in my life that this is an awesome gift. And I could list those hundreds of times while I planned dinner, did grocery shopping and worked on a couple of blog posts in my head at the same time.

It seems as though I am always rushing. Rushing to get homework done with the kids, rushing to get dinner prepared, rushing to get enough things done so I can justify lunch with a girlfriend or an evening with a couple of my gal pals so we can catch up on our “me time.” And the “me time” is never enough. I’ll go home wanting more because by the time our evening of fun is over I have just started to relax.

I am about to do something completely out of character. I am attending the Groovin’ Sisterhood weekend in Sturgeon Bay, April 28 through May 1. Last year, I watched @sarandipity’s tweet stream and followed the hashtag and was envious of those women. Imagine, a weekend away.  If only …

Well, enough dreaming! I’m doing it. And so are a couple of my twitter pals …@einley, @sp0on, @sawaboof and I think I’ve convinced a couple of my IRL friends to come along, too!

I’ll be staying at the Stone Harbor Resort, although there are many lodging options available. Groovin’ Sisterhood’s 2011 boasts sessions including glass blowing demonstrations to a dinner cruise, cookie decorating demonstrations to fashion accessorizing tips and techniques and so much more.

Details regarding the weekend are still coming together! You can follow @groovinsis on twitter and watch for the hashtag #grvnsis. Be sure you “like” the Groovin’ Sisterhood facebook page in addition to the Sturgeon Bay Door County facebook page. Consider subscribing to CandidCarrie.com via too because I will be posting more exciting updates as the plans unfold!

A series of unrelated and otherwise unspectacular events has me looking backwards at my childhood and the twelve years of school that followed. I had been hoping to find you and let you know that the warmest memories from those first eighteen years involved you as an individual and an educator.

First of all, I could always count on you for a smile. Always. As indicated, I wasn’t a stand out kind of kid. I had a life full of adults I couldn’t count on, but you were there.

And before I go on … when you smiled you meant it. There was nothing flimsy about it. It was a genuine smile that caused your eyes to sparkle. Early in my life I learned how to read the validity of a smile. Yours was sincere.

I remember your lessons on poetry. The shortest poem ever? Fleas. Adam had ‘em.

I remember a relaxed classroom, a patient young teacher who wanted to be teaching.

I remember you knew our names and you used them when you spoke to us.

I remember you tried to convince me that I could write. That was the first time I recall an adult believing in me. The assignment was to write twenty five lines of poetry. I got an A. Probably my first.

Don’t worry if you don’t remember because I do and I am about to dazzle you again.

I hope today

Within my lunch

I have a carrot

On which to crunch

I’ll walk down the halls

And loudly munch

Just me, my carrot

And my lunch

Sorry, I can only remember the first portion of the lesson but I’ll never forget your empowering belief in me that impacted the rest of my life. As an attempt to forget life outside of school, I over memorized things about school such as locker combinations, classroom numbers, seating assignments, etc. Yes, I remember the names of all my teachers but I remember what you taught and how you taught it. And the smile. And the eye contact.

I would love to tell you I grew up to be a teacher, that would be quite a tribute to you. But I didn’t. I grew up to be a writer.

Another very special educator has “discovered” my writing and my original intent was to sit down and write a letter to thank her for her interest in me but at that point I realized that you have been too long neglected and I hope this letter today adequately shows my gratitude and appreciation.

Anyway, when I was doing my Internet search to find you, I was glad to see a current picture of you. The smile is exactly like I remember. And the sparkle of your eyes is exactly like I remember. And I am confident you are still empowering others and encouraging them to dig deeper and find out what lies just beneath the surface just like I remember.

Thank you so much for being exactly who you were at a point in my life that I needed it the most.

With great respect,

And warm memories,

A continued admiration,

Me.

Rescue: free from confinement, danger, or evil.

I rescue.

I rescue kids, dogs, cats. I didn’t set out to be a rescuer, it just happened. I’ve done foster care for humans and canines and felines. After my seven year old daughter died in 1996, I was grateful for her existence and vowed that whatever was put on my porch I would take care of from that moment forward. I started doing foster care and ended up adopting a sibling pair and and then a second sibling pair. I also did some feline foster care and ended up with way too many cats.  Canine foster, same story. I always answered the call, rescuing everyone from danger and evil.

Rescue was my destiny, my  talent, my forte. Until yesterday when I literally turned my back on a creature that was sitting on my porch.

I live in a large wooded lot in Sheboygan. It is like being on vacation three hundred and sixty five days a year. I have a deer herd of about six that the woods to stand in while looking both ways before crossing the street (true story, they really really do look both ways). I have a decent-sized red fox that lays in the sun at the bottom of our lower driveway. We’ve got more turkeys sucking gravel than you can count and our woods indicate that there is quite a night life for the wildlife (based on the after-party poop we’ve found).

For a city girl like myself this is very cool in a really creepy way. I find the deer to be the most disturbing. How can something that weighs like two hundred some pounds just be roaming and reproducing? If the deer and the antelope roam, what’s next, feral cows?

After living in the woods for a few years and I thought I was learning to coincide with nature. I’ve certainly been blessed with an odd assortment of bugs in the house, not to mention the panic that comes with an open door that just screams “all mice are welcome” and we all know from watching Disney’s Rescuers that mice can read.

Yesterday, life as I knew it came to an abrupt halt. There was a four inch toad in my front hall. I thought it was eight to ten inches in diameter, but Man Across the Street indicated that it was more like four inches.

Here’s the deal, I have had a toad living on my front porch. I ignored it. I didn’t offer it food, water, shelter, not a single thing so I thought it would go away. It didn’t. If I put a bag of garbage on the front porch to take down to the trash cans, it would be under the garbage bag when I picked it up. I have a couple of vintage crocks on the front porch and it sits between the crocks, facing the yard. For me, this has been just as scary as any movie that had ever been created. I swear its unblinking eyes follow me wherever I go.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon at about 3:30 I asked my youngest daughter to bring in all the shoes from the front porch and put them in the shoe basket in the foyer. She dutifully counted eleventeen shoes and put them in the basket just like she was told, such a good girl.

Maybe ten minutes after that the boys decided to go out and shoot hoops. They dash to the shoe basket only to produce a blood-curdling, eardrum-shattering scream. MOM, THE TOAD IS IN THE HOUSE. That sneaky little amphibian must have harbored himself in a shoe or sandal knowing this was a way to get his webbed foot in the door.

First of all this scared me so much that I had to pee really bad, so I did that.  I then ordered all my humans outside to keep an eye on the toad by looking through the front door. I quickly fixed my hair just a little and sprayed on a dot of perfume and applied a dash of lip gloss. I set out to do the only thing I knew how to do in a situation like this: act pathetic and find a man to help. Sorry, but it is a true story and I must stick to the facts.

I sauntered my way across the street to the nearest home that showed any sign of life. Now this neighbor is pretty cool and laid back. I don’t know his name so I always refer to him as Man Across the Street. He’s a smoker so he is often in his garage smoking and watching television and from observing his vehicle patterns I could tell he was on vacation this week.

I sashay up to his garage and say “excuse me” and this apparently scared him as much as the toad scared me because he bolted out of his chair and stood up. Man Across the Street must have forgotten that he was in his garage smoking and watching TV wearing nothing but his unders since he is adjusting the front of them while I am trying not to look but I can’t help myself.

Man Across the Street: Hi.

Me: Hi, I hate to be such a damsel in distress but their is a giant toad in our front hall and I need to have it removed.

Still startled and adjusting, Man Across the Street: Are you sure it isn’t a snake?

Me: I am pretty sure it is a toad, a giant toad (I’m batting my eyelashes now) and this toad really needs to be leave.

Man Across the Street: If you are sure it isn’t a snake, I will help you. Let me put some real pants on and I will be right over, but if it is a snake I must leave.

Me: I’ll meet you over there.

True story people, you can’t make up a conversation like this.

Man Across the Street comes over in just a few minutes and one quick glance tells me that he does now have on real pants. I invite him in only then he can’t see the toad because it has kind of camouflaged itself in a Speedo sandal.

Man Across the Street: Where is it?

Me: Right there, he’s in the Speedo sandal by the rim of the basket.

Man Across the Street: Sure enough, at least it isn’t a snake.

I gave Man Across the Street a big Tupperware bowl to throw over the top of the basket and he heads out the front door with the basket, shoes, and toad in tow. Once outside the front door, Man Across the Street prepares to release the toad.

Me: Damn it, not so close to the front door. Let’s shoot him off to the lower woods portion.

Man Across the Street: Are there any snakes in that portion?

Me, as I start to sense a serious fear of snakes: Not that I am aware of (Man Across the Street hesitates). No, no snakes at all (I add reassuringly).

The shoe basket is now laid on its side and the toad is gently encouraged to leave by Man Across the Street continually smacking the sides and bottom of the basket. Man Across the Street points the toad towards the west so it can hopefully understand that it needs to live on a different property.

I thank him profusely yet appropriately and offer to walk him home. I don’t know why I did that, he seemed weak from the anticipation of snakes I guess. He reassured me he was fine.

I re-enter my now toad free home only to find a big puddle of toad urine. What the #&*%? I carefully fold a piece of Scooby Doo paper toweling into fourths to absorb the urine. Apparently the toad got the pee scared out of him, too.

If rescue means to free from confinement, danger, or evil I may have still done my best. That toad would have had no quality of life with our family. Yes, he had been confined to our home and was definitely in danger of being stepped on which may have been interpreted as evil.

I did see my way through this and realized that I did not fail to rescue, but successfully re-homed the toad.

Now for authenticity, here is a picture that I took of the toad and watch how his creepy eye follow you no matter where you are in the room.

** Originally introduced July 2008.

It was the summer of 1973, I was fifteen. I saw my first James Bond movie. Live and Let Die. Roger Moore. Very scary. And there was a guy named Ken. He was a cousin to my friend, Jan. We were all meeting at the theatre to see Live and Let Die. I stood in the pre-arranged meeting place and waited for Jan and Ken to arrive.

I had limited information about Ken. I knew he was from “up north.” Jan said he was popular, a year older than we were, and he was going to try to kiss me. Sure, I was scared but with my sixteenth birthday right around the corner I was a little tired of hearing that “sweet sixteen and never been kissed” crap and I was anxious to get this kiss ordeal done with so whenever the cliche was mentioned I could just laugh Inside My Head at their expense. Wasn’t I the clever one?

Anyway, what Jan eliminated from the description of Ken was that he had one leg two inches shorter than the other and as a result he walked with a very obvious limp, not that there is anything wrong with that but even thirty-five years later I still don’t understand why Jan would not have worked that into the conversation before introductions.

Ken was also significantly shorter than me. Not that there is anything wrong with that either, but this was the kind of short that people would mention to their friends. I think he was as tall as my shoulders. As an adult, I maxed out at five feet four inches tall, I have no clue how tall I was that summer, but I do remember that Ken was what short people would call “really short”.

In addition to these unfortunate shortcomings, Ken seemed to have the longest trunk of any human being on our continent. Certainly there is nothing wrong with this, but I’ll never know why Jan wouldn’t mention these things to me.

Now, the truth is I am not even sure if Ken had thighs. He might of had just had a trunk and then some knees. I am not sure. Back then handicapped parking hadn’t been invented but this is the kind of guy that would certainly warrant it.

Now I understand all of those things were beyond Ken’s control. So as Ken approaches me at our meeting place in front of the theatre, he smiles and says, “Carrie, you look just like Jan described.” All I could say back to Ken was, “And you have kind eyes,” and it was at that point I noticed the left eye wandering.

So Jan had explained to Ken how I looked? I just could not comprehend this. Well, perhaps because Ken was the older cousin, he may have few years of suave-ly-ness under that extremely low slung belted trunk of his and told Jan to describe me in more detail than I had ever asked about Ken.

There were many things going on with Ken, and through no fault of his own he could not do much about his appearance. He was certainly chipper and in my defense, both eyes were kind even though they rarely focused as a team.

Ken offered to buy me a soda and I accepted his offer. In hindsight (with my eyes looking backwards in the same direction) , I might have agreed to do just about anything Ken was asking because I was so desperately trying to be sure my attention was directed to the correct line of vision.

Once we got in the theatre, the true Ken literally rose to the occasion. Because of his extraordinarily long trunk, he gave the illusion of being remarkably tall. I felt protected, safe just being in his shadow.

This theatre has recently been renovated as part of our Historic Downtown. At the time we were there to see the movie it was just plain old run down downtown. I am sure there are tremendous theatrical terms to describe the ceiling; however I am not privy to them so I will describe the ceiling to the best of my ability.

The ceiling was meant to be beautiful. There were tiny holes punched in jagged shapes that gave the illusion of twinkling stars. You knew you had to take your seat when the over head lights went dim and the stars became very bright. The next phase brought the stars dimmer and dimmer and eventually almost completely invisible. Romantic, right?

Except that in our city’s pre-historic days, we had bat problems in our downtown theatre. When the over head lights were dimmed, it signaled the bats to begin their swooping. Which made me shiver and shudder and obviously that was a signal for Ken to make his move.

Remember describing how safe I felt in his shadow? Well, as he raised that arm to move up and around me, my nose came directly parallel with Ken’s armpit. I have no scenario to describe that odor except to wonder if he lived so far up north that they were unable to deliver deodorant during the off season.

I can sympathize with the wandering eye, the internationally award winning elongated trunk, and the short leg, but a man’s got to keep himself pretty tidy to overcome those strikes.

I leaned as far away from Ken as I could while his arm was perched up on top of the back of my seat. We drank our sodas in silence as the starlight diminished and the theatre hushed. Jan smuggled in Ju Ju Bees and I declined. Ju Ju Bees were not going to make up for this fiasco.

The bats settled, previews began and at the very last moment an usher seated an appropriately proportioned man directly in front of me. I was thankful for his abundant love of Brut cologne because that was my salvation. I leaned forward in my seat, inhaled the average man’s cologne and sipped my soda. I was anxious for the movie to begin.

There had been a tremendous amount of hype surrounding the Paul McCartney and Wings song and I couldn’t wait to hear it blasting away at me in Dolby Stereo. I knew all the words and I was prepared to sing the theme song loudly In My Head.

The theatre rumbled as the music started and Ken’s newest pitfall presented itself. Apparently the fizz of the soda was causing Ken to burp. Did he try to hide the burping? No, the burp was more Dolby than the Dolby Stereo.

When God grants so many of life’s challenges to one individual, you think God might have been omnipotent enough to up the ante in the self awareness department regarding personal hygiene.

What kind of man would eat onions prior to a date? Ken from up nort’, that’s who. Yes, I swore I wasn’t going to tell you this part because it would seem like I was mocking him but he said he was from up nort’, like with a silent “h”.

Uh huh, just when I think it can’t get any worse than under arm odor I was confronted with bad breath from raw onions. Seriously, it is one thing to be in the kitchen with someone who was frying onions and have that scent remain on your clothing. Even at fifteen I could comprehend second hand kitchen odor, but to knowingly serve yourself a slice of raw onion prior to a date? After you declared that there will be a kiss attached to that date?

My first thought was not only did this guy smell like body odor and raw onion, this man reeks of self-confidence. Yes, I was young and my heart was an open book, but not young enough to have that thought linger in my head too long. I had a fleeting thought that this might be the smell of arrogance. And by fleeting, I mean faster than bat crap can fall from a theatre ceiling, fleeting.

And my next thought was the most accurate thought. In My Head, the guy just plain stunk stupid.

I needed a plan. The movie was extremely sophisticated with an incredibly intense sound track. I was unable to follow the plot line because it involved the forbidden world of tarot cards, voodoo, drug lords, heroin all woven together with hungry crocodiles, turbo-charged speedboats, perhaps an airplane or two and way too much Caribbean accent. Besides, I was already going to hell because I was at a movie with a boy and my mom didn’t know it. I detached myself from the on screen action. I needed to think. No way was I getting kissed by Ken from up nort’. I didn’t care how close I was to sixteen.

The movie ended, no one moved because Paul McCartney was on the giant screen singing the theme song, an incredible moment in music history.

I looked at Jan’s well focused eyes. She was doing the eyebrow raising thing as if to say, “So, what do you think?”

“I need to call my mom, I’ll be in the lobby.” I scooted out quickly hoping the balcony traffic hadn’t been released yet. I fished a dime out of my pocket and placed it in the payphone. I called my house and told my mom I needed a ride home, I said that Jan’s mom was a nurse and had to go into work and Jan’s dad refused to pick up more than two people.

Yes, I was a good Catholic girl and I had no experience in lying. Jan’s mom was not a nurse; I don’t even know why I said that part. I don’t know why I said Jan’s dad would only take two people. What kind of dad would say that? I’ll tell you what kind, the kind of dad who had a daughter named Jan who had a cousin from up nort’ that stunk stupid. That’s who.

Ken and Jan approached the payphone. I wrapped myself in the safety of the silver umbilical cord that attached the handset to the wall-mounted portion. “He’ll never get past this,” I rationalized. I waved at them to go on without me, but they kept approaching. I waved them on with more animation and added an angry head shake and what I hoped look like an evil eye.

I blame that after movie behavior on the power of big-screen voodoo, I got lost in it. That often happens with the extremely innocent.

Ah, the evil eye worked. Jan grabbed Ken’s fat hand. Alright, I didn’t tell you his hands were fat but now you know everything. Yes, there was a left hand and a right hand and they were attached to the appropriate limbs. Honest, that is all there is to tell you about him. He wasn’t a complete freak, you know.

Basically, I am not a rude person except for what I just said to you a second ago. I don’t even think God gave me the gene that allows me to be rude. I just knew that I had to make sure that kiss never happened. Even if that meant lying to my mother and rudely dismissing a sixteen year old boy that had one leg shorter than the other, an unnaturally elongated trunk, a vagabond eye, perhaps a unibrow and definitely fat hands.

Besides, very soon I would another chance for that first kiss with Al.

Now, take a quick trip back to 1973 with me.

And thank you.

My name is @CandidCarrie and this past Monday night, I was the recipient of a Social Media Miracle.

You see, at 10:50 p.m. on June 7, 2010, I put out this tweet. I was alone and I was scared. I needed support. According to the police, my fifteen year old wasn’t actually “missing” as much as she just wasn’t where she said she was going to be … they did their best to reassure me that this is age appropriate behavior.

She was returned home shortly before 11:30 p.m. Once she realized she was in trouble, she added more to the mix by staying “missing” even longer. Sneaky doesn’t change not matter what decade we live in, I guess. My biggest fear Monday night was the kind of danger you can get in while you are being sneaky during this decade. The officer reminded me that he was once fifteen and sneaky and that I was once fifteen and sneaky. I bit my lip and tried not to say, “We weren’t fifteen during 2010.”

Now back to my Social Media Miracle. Once I tweeted my situation, I received a barrage of support.  The twitter responses were in the hundreds, literally in the hundreds! Between the visible responses and the direct messages along with the texts and phone calls I was overwhelmed. I had to stop responding because I was now crying tears of gratitude. And I couldn’t see straight because I was exhausted beyond belief. And now I feel guilty because I quit responding and I hope to make it up to you all by this public thank you.

I began tweeting out of peer pressure. A blogging friend insisted I would love it and she was right. Twitter opened career paths for me, introduced me to several hundred people that I know am proud to call my friends in real life, and then I’ve got those of you who I have never met but your warm thoughts and well wishes wrapped around me so I was no longer alone waiting for my daughter to come home.

Just one tweet, one single tweet and I was surrounded. I remain eternally grateful.

It takes a great deal of effort to be an attentive driver and I really do try hard to do my best. My idiopathic fear doesn’t involve me driving, it involves a stationery or almost stationery vehicle.

Scenario 1: Providing someone on a bike with an untimely death. I picture myself in a freshly parked vehicle , arranging my purse, making sure I have my keys and opening my door (I guess in my head the vehicle is always a van because the door is really huge) … and into the open door flies a speed demon bicycle rider. You know the kind, they are hunched over their handlebars because their skin tight clothes will not allow them to sit straight. These serious biker-types are a unique breed. Did you know that they even sell bike shorts that have gel packs in the butt region so their rear ends ___________________. I don’t know what purpose the gel insert serves. Just choose one of the items below to complete that sentence.

* Don’t fall asleep.

* Remain supple.

* Don’t stay in the shape of a bike seat when they get off.

* Absorb residual gas odor.

I just don’t have time right now to understand these gel inserts and I don’t want to get side tracked.

Scenario 2: Improper use of the parking break and causing an untimely pedestrian death. I am usually parked facing the down side of a hill, I hop into my vehicle and release the parking break but my vehicle has so much pent up energy from sitting that way for a long, long time that it lunges forward with a life of its own and I strike down the innocent victim crossing the street. Usually the innocent victim has waited for the stop light to turn green in their favor and they are within the yellow lines of the crosswalk. Once in my mind the car rolled backwards down a hill which wouldn’t have been bad but in my head I thought it was winter and the car careened into a group of sledders politely waiting their turn.

Generally, the law is lenient with those that commit unintentional vehicular manslaughter, but that will stop when it is my turn. In my head I will be used as an example for the rest of society and they throw the book at me. I receive a punishment that is so severe that they have no choice but to feature it as a “ripped from the headlines episode of Law and Order” and I make a cameo appearance at the end of the episode telling people to use alternative transportation such as the bus or trolley where they will only be ten percent accountable for someones untimely death because of the fact that they were present at the time and not solely responsible.

First of all, I have overcome my fear of escalators by not using them and if you will notice by my not using them they are becoming obsolete.

Anyway, elevators scare me big time. It isn’t the stomach-lurching ride equivalent to the worst thing Six Flags has to offer. And it isn’t the cable-grinding noises of metal grating on metal while it stretches trying to determine if we’ve reached maximum capacity. I am not worried about being trapped between floors and doing gymnastics of Olympic proportions while scaling to safety.

I worry about being the designated caregiver to those that are left behind once the elevator fails. Selfish? You bet. My role as Perpetual Rescue Woman (ta ta ta da) might become apparent in the event of an untimely emergency.

I can’t help but picture the following scenarios:

Hey Perpetual Rescue Woman, stay here with Dying Man That Doesn’t Have Enough Oxygen To Make It Out Of The Elevator Shaft. We can’t save him so maybe you could pray with him and you both will know you are riding the big elevator to the sky. Ba-Bye.

Hey Perpetual Rescue Woman, please stay here with my son. He is Obese Wheelchair Boy and there is no way we can both make it out. He’s tied me to that wheelchair long enough and I want to be free at last, free at last. I’ll tell everyone how brave you were today. Ba-Bye.

Hey Perpetual Rescue Woman, you like animals don’t you? I can tell because you have cat hair all over yourself. Don’t lie to me Perpetual Rescue Woman, I know you like animals. I’ve seen your blog. I’ve got cats to feed and a dog to let out so bend over, I can use your back as a ladder to safety. Ba-Bye.

Hey Perpetual Rescue Woman, you have six kids right? Cut the crap, I’ve read your blog and I know you’ve got six kids. Now stay here with my sextuplets and their big ass stroller. If the seven of you get out of here alive it will make a great blog post in the future. Look me up, my name is Doe. Jane Doe. Ba-Bye.

And this is why I take the stairs.

It was a Monday like any other Monday but the plans were already in motion to change the course of history. I was going to skip school. My friend and I were actually going to go through with it this time. To hell with the rules baby we were going to skip school, punch out, cut class or whatever the really popular kids were calling it back in the day.

We phoned in each others’ absences by reading a well-rehearsed paragraph off of lined 3×5 index cards. We chose our words carefully, used our best penmanship as we wrote out our scripts. My friend and I even practiced the phone conversation several times on Sunday afternoon. We couldn’t use identical phrases because we didn’t want to tip off the feds and we were cautious not to stumble over our statements right at the onset of our premeditated crime spree. We synchronized our watches and called school to report in a matronly voice that an illness had fallen upon our child.

So here’s the skinny, my friend had a pool in her back yard and we were going to lay in the sun and get the tan of a lifetime. We were seniors, life was grand, and as far as we were concerned we were committing the perfect crime. Move over Oceans Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, and Thirteen Point Five. We were now wanted felons. Criminals. We were seventeen and truant. We told a lie. We faked our parents voices and we were so cool.

We slathered ourselves with Coppertone and suited up. I vividly remember that swimsuit, too. I got it at J.C. Penney with my babysitting money. It was a red one piece Speedo that was identical to the ones they were wearing in Montreal at the 1976 Summer Olympics. So, by 7:40 a.m. we are poolside and ready to soak up the rays. I had my spray bottle of lemon juice so that I could spritz my hair and obtain golden highlights as a token of this illegal adventure.

At about 7:55 a.m. we were racked with guilt. We told a lie. We faked our parents voices and we were so going to hell. I think I started the hysteria. What if a teacher noticed that I had lighter hair than I had last week on Friday! How would I explain that one? Simple, it happened over the weekend my friend the voice of reason explained. Whew. Brilliant. This is why she had a 3.8 GPA and I only had a 3.5.

OH MY GOD! What if we got a sunburn!?! A sunburn would certainly look fresh enough. If it happened over the weekend it wouldn’t be as severe on a Tuesday. They could figure this out easily enough just by touching our cheeks. Sunburn was only hot the first day and a half, never longer. If this happened on a Saturday there was no way it would still be hot. HOLY CRAP, we were about to be busted. Even worse, we were sinners. On purpose.

True story, 8:20 a.m. we were in the Main Office of North High School asking if we could see the Principal, or the Vice Principal, or the Assistant Vice Principal. We wanted to turn ourselves in to the authorities.

We told the secretary what we did and she had some kind of a buzzer that summoned the Commander in Chief. I think it was the Assistant to the Assistant Guidance Counselor In Training’s Student Teacher. We once again recited our tale of how we faked our parents voices, lied about being ill and we would like to surrender. We couldn’t stand the gut wrenching ache that was so often associated with leading a double life.

I remember the stomach pain more than I remember the exact words of the Commander in Chief but it was something to the effect that since we were honest and forthcoming and could see the error of our ways the Powers That Be would be able to keep this off of our permanent records.

Thank you Sweet Mother of Jesus. Good things come to those that are honest. It pays to tell the truth. Confession is good for the soul. A penny saved is a penny earned. The cows will come home to roost. We were not going to burn in the fiery trenches of hell.

We went to tell the priest of our wrong-doings the following Saturday and asked to be forgiven by someone more powerful than the Assistant to the Assistant Guidance Counselor In Training’s Student Teacher. We planned our confessions about thirty minutes apart so that the priest wouldn’t suspect that when I confessed that I lied to my parents and my friend confessed that she lied to her parents that we had been co-conspirators.

Ten Hail Marys and an Our Father later we met by the bench at church to walk back to our neighborhood. Was it worth it? Hell, yeah. We never told our parents about our escapades and my mom quit reading everything I wrote several years ago so my secret remains safe. Sssh.

Amen.

** Don’t drink and drive. Ever. No matter what. Ever. I won’t lie, I did drink and drive in my twenties and I’m not quite sure why I never died. Or killed anyone.

** Do drink more water. The best formula for that is to take whatever you drank yesterday and multiply it by four … that should be enough.

** Do save the planet. Drink more water just don’t drink it from disposable bottles. Wait, filtered water in glass drinking cups. Unfiltered water is full of lead because for years we believed we could keep our children safe just by washing their toys, thus polluting the lakes and oceans with the powdered lead. Unfiltered water is also full of drugs because the industrial strength filters aren’t strong enough to get out the drugs that idiots keep flushing down the toilet when the cops are at the door. Somehow, by purchasing the install-it-yourself home filter you can eliminate all the unnecessary minerals and drugs. Good luck with that.

** Don’t be afraid of global warming. There are enough scientific studies out there to show evidence of climate trends, which is what I believe. I believe that because I am careful to hang around with like-minded people. There is also enough information on the Internet if you want to subscribe to alternate theories. Just don’t become paralyzed by other peoples’ right to free speech.

** Some people tell lies. And sometimes you won’t know they are lying until it is too late. Been there, done that, bought their t-shirt, had their baby. Practice safe-sex doesn’t mean just using a condom, it also means protecting your heart. And your soul.

** There are people that don’t tell lies. They are just harder to find but well worth the wait. Been there, done that, and I will live happily ever after, damn it.

** Some people suck the life right out of you. Try to hang around with the least suckiest people you can find because it is through these unsucky people and their friends that you will be able to change your attitude. Positive people through off a great vibe, glob on to it, that’s why they put it out there.

** You probably won’t trust me on this, but life is to short to wait to love yourself. Make a sincere effort to love who you are where you are right now. You might not be where you thought you would be, but make the best of it. Don’t wait to love yourself after you lose the weight or grow your hair out or fit into the perfect size jeans.

Very seldom do I preach, but when I do it is all same theme …

** At any given moment, just by being who you are can really make a difference. You just don’t know it at the time.