Lesson Learned-"I'm lovin' it" Style

Today I had to return a library book to the Lake Oswego library. It was overdue. I kept waiting for an opportunity to go that way, since I did not want to waste gas on a single errand so far away. But nothing came up and I realized that every day I didn't go I was racking up overdue fees. So today I went.
We passed a park and I took note of the fact that it wasn't raining and thought perhaps we could stop there on our way back. Letting Charley run around and play would redeem the trip a little. Later down the road we passed a McDonald's with a big play place. Charley noticed it too.
I thought since it was lunch time and we don't have a play place like that by our house, we might as well go there. You know to redeem the trip.
So after the library stop we hit the McDonald's. Let me just say that when a mother is saying things like, "You have to eat two more french fries drenched in ketchup before you can go play in the play place," it's a rough life.
After the nuggets had been gnawed on, orange soda spilled and playtime thoroughly enjoyed, it was time to go.
"Charley, time to go home. Come down the slide now please."
"No! Hee, hee, hee!" Gleeful, rebellious giggling ensued. After me standing at the bottom of this colorful structure for awhile trying to coax, bribe and threaten my daughter down, I realized I was going to have to go up.
Now the way up was not a simple set of steps like the one shown here, or even a ladder, but this was a crazy angled back and forth set of floating stairs-for lack of a better description. You climbed up on one and turning and ducking you went up the other-sort of like an over/under thing that went vertically. Did I mention it's made for little kids and is therefore scaled down to little kid size? But I'm flexible, I could do it. It wasn't that it was difficult or complicated, it's that it made me look and feel ridiculous. Also, did I mention I was wearing a skirt? A mini skirt no less! It was mostly grammas in the room who were very impressed with my physically being able to do this. However, there was one dad to whom I wanted to say, "Dude! Come on, I know this is probably the most entertaining thing you're going to see all day, but don't be a perv and make me uncomfortable! Please look away!"
Anyway, all in all I have to say I think I retrieved my kid in the most ladylike manner that the situation would allow. Plus I was wearing leggings so that's one reason to be thankful it's cold outside I suppose.
Okay, so I get it now. I know why we wear the grubby sweats and the workout clothes. It's because we have naughty, sinful children.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

At the start of the third year of Chehalem Valley Academy's young life, two things happened, I became a senior and we got a new vice principal.
This is Dale Hosley. He replaced "Mr. Hamilton" whom had been there the previous two years. Mr. Hosley or "the Hoz" as we fondly referred to him as, couldn't wait to get his feet wet. He was ready to jump right in, anxious to give this administration position his all, get to know the kids and be our fearless, likable, leader.
Early on, during one of the orientation talks that take place during the first day or two I saw an opportunity and I seized it.
See, since we were a new, small, private, start up school with kids attending at different levels and with different educational backgrounds, sometimes the school had to supplement a student's class schedule with an "independent study" class. This was simply to help fill in the blanks for cases where a student who was a junior maybe never had a Health class that all the other juniors took the year before. Or say maybe you were a senior needing to graduate but there was a time conflict in which you needed to take two different classes that were going on at the exact same time. Say, like Geography. That was me. I needed Geography, but Geography was a Freshman class and since the school didn't even exist when I was a Freshman, I hadn't taken it. And Geography happened to conflict with Senior English. "Independent study" here I come! This translated into one thing. Paces.
These are paces. They are made by a homeschooling curriculum called ACE (Accelerated Christian Education). One year of paces in just one subject meant you had to complete about twelve little booklets. The format was identical for every pace. You read several paragraphs, answered a couple questions about what you just read, and after about seven pages or so there would be a checkup. This would ask you all those same questions again, maybe worded a little differently. After you answered these twelve to fifteen questions you would start a new section in the pace that was identical to the first. There were three checkups per pace and at the end of the pace there was a self test. This was all the questions from all the checkups combined. You did this, you studied it and then you took your pace into the office and said you were ready for Geography test #1. You sat in the office while you took your test, which was identical to the self-test, turned in your test and then received a new pace-pace #2 and then you started all over. This was tedious and time consuming and independent so you had to be disciplined to stay on course and ensure that you completed all twelve paces and tests by the end of the year. We hated paces. So much reading, writing, re-writing, memorizing and testing!
One morning at the beginning of a class that "the Hoz" was teaching, I think it was junior/senior Bible, somehow paces came up. He asked if there were anymore questions about paces. I raised my hand. I told him that Mr. Hamilton had only required us to do the checkups and tests and that we didn't have to do all the meaningless, mundane writing in between. This was a lie. "So, is that okay if we do it like that again this year?" He thought that was fine and responded as if I had just given him an inside tip into how things were run. He seemed to appreciate the tip. "Listen up," I heard him say as he explained this "standard" way of doing paces to the rest of the school at the start of the next chapel in which everyone would've been gathered. Most students thought this was a new way of doing this paces year and were excited about it. A few students who had heard me "ask my question" new this was bunk. They must've either thought that Mr. Hamilton had been giving me special treatment since they all had always answered all the questions in all the paces, or they thought they were stupid and had been doing extra unnecessary work the previous two years, or they knew I was lying. But they also would've known that they were going to be benefiting from this lie, so they kept their mouth shut. I sooo wanted to tell everyone "secretly" that I was the mastermind behind all this and that they could all thank me for my brilliance and lack of conscience. However, I knew it would never stay hush-hush and I'd be outed, punished and eternally bound to doing paces every Friday night of my senior year. So I kept quiet. So did everyone else, no one asked, no one told. Not even Donna, the faithful, loyal and much loved school secretary who had the mundane task of correcting most paces asked questions. It went over like...like...whatever the opposite of a lead balloon might be. It went over like a hot air balloon, which was fitting since that's what it was, hot air.

Rescue 911

The other night I called 911 from my cell phone. We were on the freeway driving home. It was dark and somewhat rainy. Devlyn and I both noticed the car in front of us swerving. Swerving a ton! It was only going about fifty mph while the speed limit was sixty-five, but it couldn't decide which lane it wanted to be in. It was mostly driving on the shoulder one second and then veering to the far left the next. It was really scary to watch. The brakes would get tapped, then the left turn signal would come on while the car would veer right and then the right turn signal would come on immediately followed by the hazards. We were following at a bit of a distance in the right lane, it was mostly in the right lane. Cars in the left lane would hang back until it seemed somewhat stable and then bravely step on the gas to pass it.
"We have to report this." Devlyn said. So, it being dark, me not having a phone book and being in a hurry, I decided 911 was the best route to take. I dialed and pressed send. Then my phone made a noise I'd never heard it make before. Weird. "Clackamas Emergency," a recorded voice said, "if you need help, say 'help' or press 2." I did nothing since all I could picture was a person with a broken leg somewhere saying "help." I didn't feel like I really needed help, that just wasn't the best description of the situation so I waited, assuming that there would be other options.
"I'm sorry. I didn't get that, if you need help, say 'help' or press 2," The voice repeated. Okay....it looks like this was my only option. "Help," I said. Shortly after an operator came on and asked what my situation was.
He (or she, I really can't remember what gender the operator was...weird huh?) patched me through to the Oregon State Police. As I was being transferred, the car in front of us pulled off the road. Devlyn pulled off right behind it. He got out without hesitating (I would have hesitated). As he was approaching the car, a woman got out looking around nervously and anxiously. They walked to the back of the vehicle, squatted down and started looking at the car. I wondered if she was trying to tell him that her car had a drinking problem that was apparent when you look under it.
Meanwhile, I was telling all this to the officer on the phone and feeling really stupid. Um, I'd like to report a drunk driver, Um yeah, hi, we're actually pulled over now and my husband is talking to her. Yeah, they are looking at the back of the car. No, they aren't getting aggressive. Yeah, I can read the license plate number. Oh, call back if I have any more info? Okey dokey, rodger dodger! Click.
While I had been on the phone with the officer, I had been watching Devlyn and this woman standing on the shoulder only about three or four inches from the white line, talking back and forth while huge semi trucks roared past. They weren't looking at me while I was on the phone, but I was waving my arm almost like a reaction, motioning for them to "Get the heck away from the freeway where cars were speeding past!!!!!"
Anyway, Devlyn came back to the car and the women got back in her car. "What's going on?" I asked. Apparently the back left tire of the car was a spare. Oh, yeah it is only half the size of the one on the other side and I'd only been staring at the back of the car for ten minutes. I must've been distracted by trying not to visualize my husband being taken out by a semi-truck!! I wanted to say, "Remember when you were standing on the white line talking to some lady about her car while semi-trucks roared past you!!!" But I didn't. I showed amazing restraint. I must've said something about it though, because he said, yeah she kept leaning backwards while I was talking to her and making me nervous. He said she seemed a little incoherent but he couldn't smell any alcohol on her. Devlyn found out where she was headed and told her how to get there using back roads. She needed to get off the freeway and keep it under thirty-five miles per hour. She got back on the freeway and we followed her most of the way, since it was on our way home. She still swerved. The spare tire was pulling the car to the left and she kept over correcting to the right. Scary. I felt a little silly for calling 911 but then realized weather she had been drinking or not, she really was unsafe on the road.
As we got closer to home, I thought, "I just called 911 tonight, I don't think I've ever done that before." And then about two seconds later, I thought, "yes I have".
When I was about five or six years old, I was at my babysitter's house with my younger sister, my best friend Ginger and her younger brother Danny. Ginger was a year older than me and Danny was a year younger. My babysitter Ginny, had a playroom for us. At some point an unneeded phone was placed in the playroom for us to play with. However, the phone wasn't broken and as fate would have it, there was a phone jack in the play room behind the toy shelf. I plugged it in. There I said it! I plugged it in. Next, I wanted to see if it worked, so I called Ginny's number (it was written on the phone) and hung up. A second later Ginny's phone rang. I listened down the hall as she answered it, "Hello? Hello?" Click. Hmmm, no harm done.
Later I wanted to use the phone again but I didn't really know anyone's phone number. There was one number I knew though. 911. I knew how to dial 911. So I did and hung up. Nothing seemed to happen. A minute later when no one was watching I dialed and hung up again. I may have done it a third time, I'm not sure. I do remember being brave enough to listen to "911 What's your emergency?" once before I hung up. A little while later Ginny came in and discovered the phone plugged in. She asked who had dialed 911. We all looked at her bewildred. Danny and Ginger because they had no idea what she was talking about and me, because I was a good actor. When no one fessed up, she marched out to the living room and had us stand with our noses in separate corners. She said we were to stay there until someone fessed up. "Maybe it was Bethany?" I offered trying to use my baby sister as a scape goat. "She's not old enough." Ginny shut me down and probably began to grow suspicious of me.
Okay, so I'm standing here with my nose in the corner. This isn't so bad I thought. Not bad compared to what might happen if I tell the truth. I'll be in more trouble with Ginny, then she'll tell my parents with whom I'll be in even more trouble with.
"Danny! Tell her it was you!" Ginger screeched in a whisper to poor Danny. Of course, she thought it was him. It wasn't her and oh what faith she had in me to assume it wasn't me. I was old enough to know better. Danny was younger than me, but still old enough to know better. I couldn't let Ginger know it was me. How embarrassing that would be. She'd think it was dumb and be confused that I would do such a thing. No, I was fine standing with my nose in the corner. After about an hour, Ginger wore Danny down and he finally confessed under much pressure. I couldn't believe it. He fessed up to something I did and when Ginny heard, she said Ginger and I were free to continue playing. "I can't believe Danny did that!" Ginger said to me implying the dialing of the 911. "I know," I replied still shocked by his false confession.
Really that memory has haunted me. I never fessed up to it. I stood there while Ginny told Danny's dad what had happened. Danny was going to go home and be in even more trouble. He'd probably even try to tell his parents that he didn't do it, but they wouldn't believe him.
I couldn't sleep that night, the one that happened a few days ago. I felt like either a police officer was going to knock on our door at any moment and say, "We pulled that car over you called about and the driver was sober. You're going to jail for abusing the 911 system," to which I would have to concede. I had abused it and, officer, I had lied about it and, officer, I had let someone else, someone innocent take the blame and the punishment.
Lock me up.

A Kindred Spirit Story

There are friends who are more than friends, more than best friends even, they are kindred spirits. To an outsider, you may seem like two very different types of people-good friends-but very different. What they don't understand though, is that your spirits are actually made of the same stuff and this explains everything. This explains how unlike other friends, you two don't "grow apart" as you get older. You don't "lose touch" when one of you moves hundreds of miles away. You grow closer. I have a small handful of them. They are few, they are rare, they are instant and they are eternal.
I met my very first when I was around nine years old.
(She's the blond, not the baby).
Sarah Horst and I met at a weekday Bible study that our mom's went to. Both of us being homeschooled, we found ourselves together in the kid's building every Thursday morning. We lived blocks from each other for about two years. Then I moved and we've lived a thousand miles from each other for the past fifteen.
Sarah and I wrote each other religiously, emphatically and sincerely for years. I started writing her a letter on our way out of town, the pink ink spiraling across the pages as our car wound it's way down the California Grape Vine. I think she had actually mailed one to me before I had finished writing, and she never stopped. I would visit Southern California every year for weeks and towards the end of high school she began driving up to visit me.
During one of my winter visits I was staying with my dad who had recently bought-well, probably not bought in the typical sense of the word, but we'll say "came across"-an old VW Bug. In hind sight, I'm thinking it was very possible that someone may have actually paid him to take it. It was white-ish, blue-ish and gray-ish. The tired colors faded in and out all around the dome shaped body. The paint wasn't the only "issue" the car had. It had some trouble starting, and once you got it running, you had to work at keeping it running. It also had some "ghost" problems that came and went. We would soon discover some of these.
Shortly after Sarah came over, which was just about the instant I did, we decided to take the bug on a joy ride. My dad got it started for us then gave me his cell phone along with some pointers on how to keep it running, start it again should it die, stop, go, turn, etc. At first Sarah didn't want to buckle up. She wanted to be able to bail out at any time apparently.
"Buckle up!" I told her. I was driving and I didn't want to get a ticket should we get pulled over. She informed me that if we got pulled over, that would be the last ticket an officer was going to write-plenty of other things to cite. She was right.
It was dark when we took off on our adventure, which made it all the more exciting. We tore around the surface streets of the foothills, not really ever stopping at the stop signs-not just because we were in California, but because I was afraid of "killing it" and then having to try to start it again. We drove around with lots of yelling and screaming, some legit, some from the adrenaline rush and some just for affect. We arrived at Sarah's cousin's house and parked the car. We decided it would be okay to turn the car off since her cousin and his friends could surely help us start it again. Um, no one was home.
We were on our own. I opened the driver's side door, reached in and placed one hand on the steering wheel holding the door open with my other hand. Sarah put her hands on the back of the car and leaned into it with all 95 lbs of her body. We both screamed and ran until the car was moving. Once it picked up a little momentum, I jumped in, pumped the gas, held in the clutch and turned the key. After a minute or so, it backfired, spat out some smoke and roared to life. I tried to slow down a little as Sarah was chasing behind me down the street, but knew I shouldn't stop.
"Get in!" I screamed. Sarah, leaving her flip flops behind, sprinted to catch up and after I circled the block a couple of times, she managed to get into the moving vehicle. I was impressed.
We headed back towards my dad's house honking for people to get out of the way, laughing hysterical, nervous laughter and trying not to swear. We were pretty close to home when I found myself caught between a rock and a hard place. I came to a stop sign on a hill that I had to stop at. We needed to turn left on a very busy main drag. I had to keep the car running while at a complete stop, keep the car from rolling backwards into the car behind us, which was of course, a police car, and watch the traffic so as not to miss my opening. I sat there with the clutch all the way in, the brake all the way in and I had to ask Sarah to loan me her bare, left foot so she could continue to give the car a little gas to keep it from dying. I really don't know how we pulled it off-the successful, accident free left turn and the not getting pulled over-it was a miracle.

I'm not sure if we did things like this because we were kindred spirits or if doing things like this molded us into kindred spirits, but there is enough of these kinds of stories I suppose to serve as evidence for either scenario.

What about you? Who are the kindred spirits in your life?