I'm looking for patterns . . . I don't know of what. Everywhere I look I want to see a rhyme and reason for it. Sometimes when I get an explanation, I reject it.

Every time I teach a lesson, I say, "What is the pattern here? Can you see it?"

I'm looking at my life for patterns. How very Virgo of me.

In my age I think I'm becoming more Virgo all the time. I'm not sure I like that. I always think of the worst traits first (also Virgo of me.)

Here's a possible pattern.

I got an email from Kerrie S. I met Kerrie in 1st grade. I don't actually remember this, I'm not sure she remembers it at this point. Here's my first memory of Kerrie. My brother, Michael, and I were at the community swimming pool. He had found some friends to hang with and I was bobbing up in down in the deep end clinging to the wall after a death-defying jump from the high dive.

Suddenly, there was a strange little girl next to me. "Hi Shannon."
I said, "Hi!" Even at the age of 7, I appearently had no talent for remembering names.
She said, "Remember last year, in Mrs. What's-her-name's class? How, whatever-his-name-was peed in his pants and it got all on the floor?!"
"Yeah." We had a good laugh about that one.
"Remember how Mrs. What's-her-name used to hit people on the head with a marker?"
"Yeah! She never hit me!"
And off we went to play in the shallows and the deeps.

Sometime later Kerrie moved to my neighborhood, and as I was just being phased out by my old best friend she became my new best friend.

How fortuitous. Well it made sense. We were, after all, the only white girls in the neighborhood. (There were these two other white girls in the 1st lot, but they were dumb and nobody liked them--- ever.)

So, we were best friends. And our brothers were best friends (being the only white boys in the neighborhood.) We were all BFF until my mother and I moved to FL.

Kerrie and I wrote for a while, then we didn't . . . like it goes.

About 4 years (or more) ago her brother ran into my oldest brother and somehow my information was exchanged and Kerrie got ahold of me. She wrote and I wrote then we didn't . . . like it goes.

Then, last month I got an email. From non other than Kerrie S!

Lost the pattern?

I went to a dollar store last night because I wanted to buy something, but being on a tight budget I didn't have much to spare. I'd never been to that store because I don't normally go that way, but on the drive home I had missed several turns.

I was walking through when I saw "Dad's" cat food. I thought 'Well, that's a funny name for cat food.' After a moment of considering how that name could have come about, I had a flashback to the year of the field trip (aka 3rd grade) when we had taken a field trip to the "Dad's Dog Food" factory. And the guide had eaten some dog food, and he asked if any of the kids wanted to taste it and they did! (ick! and I was grossed out) And I remembered my brother used to live down wind of "Dad's" and that was not a good place to live.

So, wondering if my memory was correct I picked up the box to find "Dad's manufactured in Meadville, PA." I was correct.

Last night I dreamed of Meadville, and water. It was dark and cloudy and I was standing on the edge of a body of water. It was turbulent and at first I thought it was French Creek (how many times do I have to explain that it's really a river!) but I realized it was far too big for a river and I concluded that it must be Lake Mead. Which sounds like a good conclusion except that Lake Mead is not near Meadville, PA; it is closer to Las Vegas, NV; and not to say the two cities are not similar . . . but . . . they're not!

So, the pattern is Meadville, or childhood, or water, or dog food, or Las Vegas . . . Whatever.

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