She sat there in her old orange chair, the dog on her lap, the ugly pink, orange and green blanket that she was knitting in a laundry basket by her feet. On TV, Richard Karn yelled about how it was time to play the Feud. She laughs heartily. The day hasn't come where she'll willingly miss Family Feud.

"Where you headed?" she asks as I walk through the living room. I have on the new shoes I'd bought at Nordstrom Rack the other day, a pink Happy Bunny t-shirt that says "Hi, loser" and capri pants. My hair is brushed and washed and shiny, and I look nice. And I smell good, too...green tea body mist.

"Off to Ami's," I casually announce. "And then we're going to Sweet Old Bob's for karaoke. See you later."

I walk down the steps of the front porch and round the corner, off Desmet and onto Lee. The sun is setting, and the sky is cotton candy pink and tangerine orange. It's a gorgeous night, and I feel no guilt about what I'm about to do.

I count my steps as I walk down Lee, past Lorraine's house where I stop to pet the dogs. Simba and Peanut put their paws up on the gate as I walk past and eagerly await head rubs and ear scritches. The yellow dog a bit further down the street barks excitedly at me as I walk past, running up and down the fence line, trying to keep in time with me. I reach over the fence and rub her soft head, and she rewards me with a sloppy kiss on the back of my arm.

Time for a stop at the grocery store, I think. I walk in, say my hellos to Logan and Chris and pick up a bag of chili cheese Fritos, a pound of hamburger, some of the brambleberry Tazo that I like. The check is overwritten by ten dollars the way that I usually do, and with a grin, Chris hands me over the ten. "See you later, Corrie," he says as I walk out.

As I make it to Ami's, I open the gate and knock on the door. Just once.

Ami comes to the door, long dark hair loose around her face, still in a red night shirt and printed pajama pants. "Oh, hey, Corrie," she says. "Come on in. Did you bring food? That was nice of you."

I put the food away in the kitchen, except for the Fritos and the two sodas. Those I carry upstairs. The cats give me suspicious looks. I'm sure they know what I'm up to.

One knock on the door.

Just one.

And then I see him.

6'2, my high school jock fantasy ten years too late. His hair and eyes are dark, his smile is warm. "Nice...shirt," he says, his eyes not leaving my chest.

"Thanks," I murmur, stepping past him into the bedroom. The Scottish flag hangs over the bed, the Rush CD I'd gotten him for his birthday is on top of the stereo, sitting on top of the dresser.

He moves over to the bed, begins to pull his shirt over his head. Sits down, his back against the wall, legs spread-eagled so I can sit in the middle. I want to memorize everything about him, about this moment. Everything is perfect. It has been so long. It has been too long.

I slide the ring off quickly.

And he pretends not to notice.

It happens quickly.

Fast and dirty.

We lie back together, my head on his chest. Casually he plays with my hair.

Only a few minutes pass before he gets up and gets dressed again.

"Thanks, darling," he says casually, "that was great. You're amazing."

I hear a cell phone ring on his desk. He walks over and answers it. "Hey, sweetie," he says to the woman on the other ehd. "No, it's not a bad time. You know that. Yeah, I miss you too...I'll stay over next weekend. I love you too."

I slip downstairs as not to disturb his phone call. Can't make her think something's going on, he says, this is our secret. Ours and Ami's. No one else needs to know about this. About us. Especially not her. His real girlfriend. Her.

I spend the night on the couch.

The streets are nearly deserted when I let myself out at 7:30 the next morning, not surprising for this early on a Saturday. I walk back in the opposite way that I came.

And I slip my key into the lock and walk in.

She is sitting there in her recliner, waiting. It's like she's been there all night, just...waiting. To call me out. To tell me that I'm a liar.

"Karaoke fun last night?" she asks. I pick up a hint of acid in her tone.

"Yeah," I answer, "it usually is. We stayed up all night talking and I couldn't get any sleep because the roommate had his kid over watching cartoons at six in the morning. Figured I might as well walk home."

My mother-in-law knows I'm lying about karaoke.

And I don't care.

We all try to convince people that we're happy when we aren't.

Let's admit it, we all try to convince people that we're having a good day when all we really want to do is rip the face off of someone. That happens at least somewhat frequently in my line of work.

I work for Sears, doing online technical support and sales. It's not always the most glamorous job in the entire world. There are certainly times when I don't enjoy it - like when I have a customer screaming at me on the other line about how they've been waiting three additional weeks for a tool bench that they ordered off the website on the pretense that it would arrive faster that way.

Back when I started my job in August of 2008, Allen (the overall head of the department that I started in) read us a beautiful story about recognizing the people who pack your parachute.

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason

I took a call last February from a woman in California. She called me trying to find a countertop water filtration system - nothing out of the ordinary. It was a day that my computer was being uncooperative and difficult, and it took fifteen minutes (at least) for anything to open. While I waited for my page, I listened to her talk.

I learned that she was a nutritionist, that the two best natural diuretics were (according to her) alfalfa tablets and lemongrass tea. That whey protein is better for you than soy protein. She suggested reading The Fat Flush Plan by Ann Louise Gittelman if I wanted to lose weight. She talked and talked and talked, and I listened intently. I completely forgot all about the water filtration system, and so did she.

"I'm originally from Joshua Tree," she said. "Do you know where that is? Oh, being from Arizona, you probably don't. I do love Arizona though, the heat is so nice! I miss Joshua Tree so much sometimes, it hurts a little. I had to leave a few years ago, though, when I got sick..."

Her voice trailed off.

I could see her in a big, spacious house in Murrietta, tall and slim with bobbed silvery blonde hair, wearing one of those Battenburg lace overshirts that I had admired in the Spiegel catalog as a teenager with a tank top and expensive jeans, pink painted toenails. I could see her padding barefoot across the tiled kitchen floor, getting a glass of water.

The conversation never got back to the water system. She talked and I listened. When I told her that my husband was the one who had done some voice work on Ann Louise Gittleman's podcasts, she was suitably impressed. "You know, I've LISTENED to those!" she exclaims. "And I thought, who IS that guy? I love his voice! I'd better stop, though, you'll think I'm trying to move in on your territory!"

Before I knew it, an hour and half had gone by and I knew that no matter how much I loved talking to her, it was time for me to wrap it up.

"I hate to have to do this," I say, "but is there anything else I can do for you today? I could talk to you all day, but I don't think my supervisor would like it if I did."

"Thank you, Corrie," she tells me. "You have no idea how much better you've made my day. I wish everybody was as wonderful as you are. My...my husband and I aren't happy, and my daughters and I aren't close. I haven't been a very happy person lately, so I just wanted...wanted to say thank you. Thank you for making me smile."

I don't know who packed the parachute there, whether it was me or her. Either way, we both benefited from it in the end.

And that's really all that matters, after all.

We've all heard it. If it wasn't from our parents, it was from a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, some older neighbor or family friend. "You kids don't know how easy you have it."

"When I was your age, we didn't have CDs. We had to listen to records, and you know what, they were big and awkward and they'd get scratches on them."

"When I was your age, we could get gas for a quarter and I could fill up my tank for five dollars. And you want ten dollars to last you through the end of the week? Ha!"

"When I was your age, I could get a hamburger from McDonalds for ten cents. And sometimes, that was all I had to eat all week but you know what? I WAS THANKFUL THAT I HAD IT."

"When I was your age, we called sandwiches Flat Breadies and they cost four playing cards a bite."

(OK, so the last one is one of Grandpa Simpson's phrases from Simpsons Road Rage, but you get my point. Carrying on.)

Every generation has it so much easier than the one that came before. I mean, to hear my grandfather tell it, he had to fight off six hungry sisters to get dinner and was always the first one to get blamed for throwing change down the vents in the house when his parents had company. And it was a quarter - yes, a quarter! - to go to the movies. And you could ride the bus all day for the same price. (And about the change? Aunt Margie blamed it on Grandpa. Grandpa blamed it on Aunt Margie. Aunt Margie is dead now, and somehow I sense it was Grandpa all along. My Aunt Margie was a SAINT!) Oh, and did I mention that he used to swim all the way from the island to the beach at Loon Lake every day during the summer? No exceptions. EVERY DAY. Even during thunderstorms. Did I mention he was wearing a metal hat while doing it?

And then there's my father. He only had two sisters and not six, and he was the oldest, so it was a little bit easier for him to keep his belly full. He could eat at McDonalds for under a dollar. He was able to fill up the tank of his old aqua and white Bel Air for $5.00. It was only a dollar and a half to go to the movies. Now that must have been the good life, back in the golden days of yore.

Anyhoo.

Now where does that leave ME?

Gas, when I was in high school, was ninety-nine cents a gallon - if you looked in the right places. Most of the time it would hover between a dollar five and a dollar seven. It was six-fifty to go to the movies. A combo meal at McDonalds was about the same price as said matinee, by the way...but only if you got the medium size. A large would bump you up another dollar and make your life three years shorter, but as a chubby teenager who was craving salt and starch, I think there are times I would have sold my soul for those fries.

I don't have kids yet. Just dogs. I imagine sometimes that if dogs could talk, Cooper and Rascal's parents may have had conversations like this with them. "You know, boys, when I was a wee pup, we had to run miles to bring back a ball. We couldn't just run across the back yard and fetch it. And when we chewed up our toys, our humans didn't just leave for ten minutes and then come back with new ones. Let me tell you, pups, you don't know how lucky you are."

Now when I do have kids, what am I going to tell them?

I mean, it's scary just to think about it. Not the having kids part, because I can't wait for that, but my "when I was your age" lectures.

"When I was your age, we didn't have flying cars! We had to go ON THE GROUND and stop at traffic lights!"

"When I was your age, Google wasn't a verb! It wasn't even a WORD!"

"When I was your age, we didn't have computer microchips implanted into our brains at birth. You know what we had to do? We had to TURN ON the computer and open a browser and THEN find what we were looking for, and sometimes we had to wade through pages of porn to find it! And stop looking at me like that, it is NOT FUNNY!"

"When I was your age, we actually had something called change and paper money and we sometimes had to pay for things with it! And we had this thing called a penny, which was mostly just a huge pain in the ass and took up a lot of space in little dishes on convenience store counters all over the world. DON'T YOU MAKE THAT FACE AT ME, BUDDY!"

It's a little silly, really...but I have to admit that I'm looking forward to the eye-rolling and the groans that come along with those tales of years long past.

I think it's as much a landmark for us as the "older generation" as it is for the next generation coming up. Us to tell them about how easy they have it, them to just roll their eyes and wait for us to shut up.

and I'd appreciate your support.

If you didn't have a chance to read this week's entry on empty gestures, you can find it here.

Also, there are so many amazing entries this week, including my husband's, which you can find here, so please, go read and go vote!

I'm in tribe photodiva (#5) and finding_bliss is in tribe apisanthrop (#1)

And to thank you for your consideration, here is something amusing. Also, since I thought of eriksangel15 when I saw it, I want to make sure to wish you a belated happy birthday as well. :)


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Coyote Ridge Corrections Center is in eastern Washington, in a small town called Connell. It's about an hour's drive from Spokane, about forty-five minutes from Medical Lake, where I grew up. You can take the freeway the whole way there, stop at Zip's in Ritzville for a sundae on the way home.

You have to stand outside to get in. Even on a nice day, it seems to be chilly. Connell is cattle country, and you can smell the pungent fragrance of fresh manure as you wait outside for a CO to open the door and allow you entry into the inner sanctum of Coyote Ridge. And make sure that you already have your ten dollars in change in a see-through recloseable plastic bag. No paper money is allowed inside.

( Today is my last visit. )

I was born a poor black man...



No, wait a minute! That was Steve Martin as Navin Johnson in The Jerk. There I go, getting confused again.

I'm thirty-one years old.

I laugh at the most inappropriate times.

I always have my crocheting out on my desk at work.

I'm married to the man of my dreams.

Grocery shopping day is my favorite day of the week.

I tried to chug ranch dressing out of a small plastic tub at karaoke tonight.

I named my dog after D.B. Cooper.

I can be connected to Gary Larson in two degrees.*

I got out of a terrible first marriage to find refuge and peace of mind in my second.

I make the best damn tropical banana bread you will ever have.

Every time I watch Pretty In Pink, I get all excited during the scene where Blaine asks Andie if she knows who she is. EVERY TIME.

My three favorite songs are American Pie, Different Drum and Only The Good Die Young.

Contrary to popular belief, my favorite book of all time is Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

If you find me wandering the streets lost and confused and lonely, please play me some Harry Chapin, give me a cup of English Breakfast tea with cream, and bundle me up in a warm blanket.

Hi, I'm Corrie.

I'm all these things and more.

Join me on my third LJ Idol adventure.

I can't guarantee that it's going to be worth your while, but I'll do my best to make it so.

Are you up for it too?


*Gary Larson and my mom went to Washington State University together. She said that he was a nice, quiet guy who kept to himself and was always drawing. Looks like that worked out well for him.

Come on in, invite your friends and make yourself at home!

There are cookies, coffee and other yummy things spread out around you, so help yourself, pull up a chair and get comfortable. Also, feel free to go check out mac_arthur_park's friendzy as well!

A little bit about me...

Hi, I'm Corrie. I'm a 31 year old transplanted Washingtonian now living in the desert with her amazing husband of just over a year, two chocolate labs named Cooper and Rascal (that's Cooper in the icon) and two great in-laws. I work in retail support for Sears, love to cook, crochet, read, write and go thrifting. I don't comment unless I have something to say, and I'm not one of those people who will unfriend you if you don't comment on every single post that I make. I like to think that I'm a lot more interesting than this makes me sound, so come on over, take a look at my LJ and see what you think.

:)

I hereby announce that I am doing LJ Idol again this year.

A little elaboration into what actually happened this morning.

I had decided to drive Mike to work today because I needed the car to run errands. My plans were to go to KMart and pick up some groceries and then head over to JoAnn's and get some yarn because I'm almost out and want to make a blanket for my mom.

The sun is shining. It's a beautiful day. The classic rock station is playing.

I'm a renegade who had it made they finally found me...

And here comes this guy in a Tahoe.

Cuts me off by maybe...a foot? At least. I have to step on my brakes to avoid being hit.

And all I can think is, "My God, what's wrong with this guy? Who DOES this?"

He spins out into the median, comes back around and plows right into the front of us.

And that's when I start screaming.

And that's when I look up and see that he's still going.

THAT SON OF A BITCH HIT US AND HE'S STILL GOING DO YOU SEE THAT HE'S STILL GOING WE COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED AND HE'S STILL GOING.

I hear a tap on the window.

"Miss, are you all right?"

We have two witnesses who were on the road at the time, and then another couple who was in their yard with their son and saw the whole thing.

Everyone's answer is the same. "He looked like he was gunning for you."

If I had reacted differently, I would have been dead. He would have hit my door and I would not be here. I could have been killed. I literally could have been dead right then and there.

It's taken all afternoon for that to finally sink in, for the Xanax to wear off and for me to accept that.

We call Gary & Deanna, they show up with a camera and get some photos.

Photos of the bumper hanging off the car, of the damage to the front end, of the tranny fluid all over the ground. Glass and plastic all over the ground.

Tranny fluid looks like blood.

If I had reacted differently - even a little bit differently - I would not be here right now.

Recognizing your own mortality is a terrifying feeling.

Now I can understand - at least somewhat - how Chan must have felt when he got shot.

I wish I didn't.

But I am glad to be alive.

Because if things had gone any differently, I wouldn't be.

I'm never going to forget that.

We are all only human.

Life is truly a gift.

One careless, stupid act can take that from you or from someone else.

Please never forget how lucky you are to be here.

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Help me reach a thousand comments!

Spam me, amuse me, leave random useless bits of trivia, comment with every icon you have...let's see how long it takes me to get there.

Invite your friends, it's public! Let's get this ball rolling.

*crosses fingers and waits*

Well, it has been a truly amazing run...and I made it further this year than I did last. I sure can't stick my nose up at that!

This has been my second LJ Idol season, and like the one before, I have treasured the time that I spent competing and the people that I've gotten to know through Idol...I wish that I could name each and every one of you by name and thank you each personally.

I have been honored to share the stage with a group of amazing writers, from Ro to Ashlee, to Amy to Kizzy, to SHT to Kizzy, and being amongst their ranks was a gift that I was very fortunate to receive.

Thank you all for your support, for your friendship, and for giving me the motivation and encouragement to keep on.

My $20 donation will be going to the Humane Society Of Southern Arizona.

See you all next year!

♥

Poll #1359752 LJ Idol, Season Five – Week Twenty-Two: Achilles Heel
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 874

The Ballot:

It's LJ Idol voting time again!

(I know, I know...the middle of the week, seriously!)

Please go here to vote for me and give me at least one more week.

VOTE NOW!

(Also, here is the charity donation poll, so you know I didn't forget!)

Poll #1359898 LJ Idol Top 20 Charity Is...?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 66

Which charity should I donate to since I've made the top 20 (and now the top 15!) in LJ Idol?

I wake up on a typical sunny Friday morning in Tucson, take my sleep mask off of my eyes, and I smile. The next twenty-four hours are mine, and I don't have to do anything that I don't want to do. I anticipate playing with the dogs, reading a book on the back porch, listening to music, maybe watching a movie with my husband. And then at 6:00, we bowl.

League bowling is one of the great joys of my life. My husband and I are on a team with his parents; his aunt, uncle and grandmother are also on our same league. I love the feeling of finding my mark, of placing my fingers inside my green Monsters, Inc bowling ball, (I didn't know that it was a Monsters, Inc ball until after I got it; the big eye on it was what won me over, although the smiling faces of Mike and Sully, and the sneering purple mug of Randall don't hurt too much either.), seeing if I can hit my 109 average or even better.

Tonight we're bowling a team we bowled with last year at Lucky Strike - Steve, a balding guy in his mid-forties who reminds me a bit of David Crosby, his wife Sue, a sweet-faced woman with glasses and curly silver hair, Sherry, a petite, white-haired lady with a whispery voice that makes her sound a little like Marilyn Monroe. That night, their fourth is out.

"So, we're bowling you guys," Steve says, taking his ball out and placing it on the return. "Cool."

"You're gonna be nice to us, right?" my husband asks.

"Good luck with that!" Steve retorts.

I laugh and finish my cheeseburger.

Over the loudspeaker, someone at the desk announces that we can start our ten minutes of practice. After throwing a couple of good balls I stop...you don't want to sabotage the rest of your game by throwing all your good balls away during practice. It's sort of like wearing your sexy underwear when your SO is out of town...you can do it, but what's the point?

The game starts out slow...I've got something like 45 in the 4th frame when lo and behold...I throw a strike. A perfect, beautiful, strike. I'm doing what my mother-in-law calls "shaking hands with the headpin", and right now it's working perfectly. Quite possibly, it is the most beautiful strike I have ever seen. Half the time when I pick up, you'll hear me say something like, "Well, that was messy as hell, but it worked." If bowling a strike is an art, this strike was a Degas ballerina; Renoir's boating party...it was truly that perfect.

Four more follow. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.

And now it's the top of the 10th. I look at my score...178 in the seventh frame and my other strikes still haven't been added in yet. Holy crap. Holy crap. I'm bowling with the big dogs now. Holy crap. Pretty soon people are going to think that I know what the hell I'm doing! I can't say that my placing second in all events during the women's city tournament a few weeks earlier was a fluke, now they're going to think I'm some sort of bowling Rain Man (or woman.) Oh, boy, what the HELL did I just get myself into?

So I throw again.

Nine.

And out of the seven of us bowling in this lane, there is a collective groan. Well, a groan from our team, and perhaps a sigh of relief from Steve, Sherry and Sue, who have been beaten like a redheaded stepchild caught shoplifting.

The pin that's left is the ten pin. Man, I hate that little bastard. There he is, looking back at me all smug and self-satisfied. I try to do that thing from The Waterboy where I imagine that the ten pin has done something to really piss me off, like say that I'm bowling with a little kid's ball or that it's a miracle with only one of my eyes looking at the lane, that I was able to get a five-bagger tonight. Well, screw you, Mr. Ten Pin, I'll show you what I'm made of.

And there's the curve that always seems to show up when I don't want it there.

The tenth frame is markless.

But lo and behold, I look up at the screen and there's my score.

206

I have bowled one hundred pins over my book average of 104. ONE HUNDRED PINS. Over one hundred pins, actually. I have effectively carried my team to victory and, as my husband would say, spanked our competitors.

I feel weak in the knees as I sit down and take a long swallow of my cherry coke.

"Wow," I murmur when Mike is done bowling. "Do you think they'll announce this over the intercom tonight?"

Five minutes later, I hear it.

"Congratulations to Corrie Wise on Lane 15, who just bowled a career 206 game! Way to go, Corrie!"

The applause is deafening. I feel like I've just won an Oscar. I feel like I need to have an acceptance speech. "I'd like to thank Kolb Mixers, for Mike, for encouraging me to bowl my best, for Uncle Edgar and Aunt Phyllis for cheering me on, for Gary and Deanna for letting me bowl on their team..."

When my husband's uncle comes over to shake my hand and tell me that I've bowled a good game, nothing else in the world matters. This is a man who doesn't spout out meaningless compliments. And if he tells you that you bowled a hell of a game, then you can be sure that you bowled a hell of a game.

Tonight I got to bark with the big dogs.

And there is nothing else that could even come close to matching that.

Hey all you lurkers, readers, shy folks! I really wanna know ya!

Here's an invite to those who might feel like they need one... COME ON IN! All are welcome! Friend me, introduce yourself and welcome aboard!


Bottom line - if you are a regular or semi-regular reader and not on my f-list, just drop me a line in this post and let me know you're out there.

Be well.

She's a liar.

You never touched her, you told me.

You said that if you did, it was an accident.

You said that she asked you to play the "monkey and snake" game that she learned at school.

And you said that you never touched her.

"I know she's lying," your mother said. "She wants attention. She told me once that she was going to get taken away from her mom and dad and taken to Hutton to live with the other girls. She's lied about that, why wouldn't she lie about this?"

"I SWEAR TO GOD THAT I NEVER TOUCHED HER," you screamed on a cool spring evening, face down on the bed. "I DIDN'T! I WOULD NEVER LIE ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THAT."

And then it was July.

The day before, we sat in the front yard on lawn chairs and ate Jamaican jerk chicken that I'd had marinading all day. Potato salad. Iced tea. The sun set behind us and we looked out at the back forty...the Yugo, my Reliant K., your mother's green Escort. I could almost see Lorraine's roses from where we sat that night together.

It was the last night I would spend alone with you.

You watched television in the attic. I read in bed.

I prayed, not for a not guilty verdict, but to learn the truth.

The next morning, the phone rang.

Your lawyer.

Your mother hired the best.

She made me stay in hell for another two years to help pay him off.

"They reached a verdict," you say, taking a bite out of a soggy grilled cheese sandwich. "We have to go to court."

I look down at my left arm.

I see "AMANDA IS A LIAR" carved into the soft skin under my arm. I see it ugly, angry and red. It stares back at me, challenging. I can almost hear her. "What if I'm not the liar, Aunt Corrie?" she says in my head. "What if I'm not?"

And the three of us left the house.

Only two of us came back that afternoon.

"It should be fine," she chattered from behind the wheel. "You didn't do anything wrong, it'll come out, she's a liar, she's a liar, we know you didn't do it, we'll go to Old Country Buffet to celebrate tonight."

Because an all-you-can-eat buffet will heal eighteen months worth of open wounds.

On the third floor, the Greek chorus sounds.

"Guilty."

Thirteen times.

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

I hold you and kiss you goodbye.

Tears soak your blue polyester polo shirt.

I am an empty vessel.

I sleep alone.

Your cat meows at every noise outside, convinced you've returned.

She circles me warily.

Friends support me, hold me up.

For a month, I believe you.

After a month of waiting in county jail reception, the truth comes out through a glass wall on the chi-mo floor.

"She asked me to. Don't hate me. I love you."

She asked me to. She asked me to. She asked me to.

It rings in my ears.

Finally the truth has come out.

No one left to blame but you.

Silverwood is an amusement park set out in the "wilds" of the North Idaho panhandle. When you grow up in Eastern Washington, it's by and far the most exciting thing to do in the summertime - persuade your parents to take you, your siblings and maybe a friend or two to Silverwood for the day. There's a log ride, something called Thunder Rapids, roller coasters, that thing that looks like a closed-in Ferris wheel (the Scrambler, I believe it's called), and all sorts of other wonderful things. You can take a train ride through the park and get "robbed" by park employees who ask for your snacks and anything else you're willing to give them, including pocket change. Once year my brother Ken nearly gave up the lunch my mom had packed that morning to Black Bart and his gang of bad guys.

Despite everything at Silverwood, my favorite ride has never been a fancy one. I'm not even necessarily sure what the proper name for it is, but I've always called it the swings. You get in - with a friend, if you're lucky - and you slowly begin to lift off and take flight. You can see the sky above you, always the perfect shade of blue, the people walking around below you, the vehicles traveling by on the highway that just look like Matchbox cars. You lean back, the wind rushes past you, you stretch your feet out in front of you - curl your toes inside your sandals and hope they don't fall off - and lose yourself for a few glorious moments in time.

It was the summer of 1994 when Monica and I went for a youth group retreat. A group of us - redheaded Greg Safford, his little sister Pam, Andrea Smith (a former friend whom I tried to reconcile with a few years later; she told you that being friends with me took too much effort), Monica and I. The group of us rode together in an RV that Jean, Pam and Greg's bedraggled, slightly crazy mother, was driving. There were more of us in other cars - Matt, his brother Nate, Torrey, an awkward dark-haired kid who never quite fit in no matter how hard he tried, Jeremy Affeldt and his type-A sister Nichole. This was the highlight of our summer, this is what we'd been waiting for. This was what we had to look forward to.

Monica and I headed for the swings.

The two of us got on, squeezed into one of the tiny seats together, tilted our heads back, stretched our feet out and let the wind wash us away. We felt like we were flying, she and I did. Nothing else mattered. We were two teenage girls - thirteen and fifteen - and still had to experience broken hearts, the pain that came from not being loved in return, so many nights spent crying behind a bedroom door, scribbling in a journal that you hid under your mattress...afraid to put even your deepest thoughts in your own diary because you didn't trust your parents. The only thing that mattered at that moment was the two of us, the wind rushing around us, the sky clear and blue, speckled with creamy white clouds.

It was the most perfect day I could have imagined. Me and my best friend, young, without a care, soaking up the sunshine during the most beautiful day (that I can remember) in the whole summer of 1994.

And then, ten years went past.

I'm twenty-five years old, a quarter of a century. Monica is two years younger, newly graduated from Multnomah Bible College, considering going to WSU to become a vet. My life is in shambles - I live with my ex-MIL in a disgusting attic room that makes me cringe to remember how vile and repellent it actually was. My husband is in prison for molesting his niece. I'm going on my first full year without him home and am finally able to get a full night of sleep without waking up in tears, after the brutal remembrance of being alone. I put on a good front, though...I tell everyone that without my faith I would have cracked a long time ago.

Here we are at Silverwood again.

And it's another beautiful summer's day.

There are the swings, the yellow paint not as bright as it was all those years earlier, but they are still as familiar and comforting as my thirteen year friendship with Monica. I look at her, she looks back at me. And we share a smile.

"So, what do you say?" I ask her. "For old times sake?"

She smiles.

We get in line.

The two of us squish in right next to each other, fasten the metal bar over us, and I lean back, curl my toes up inside my sandals and close my eyes. The wind rushes over me.

For a few blissful moments in time, I am fifteen again.

And I am truly happy for the first time in a very long time.

It's almost 7:30, and my shift has ended a half-hour previously. I'm sitting out front in the lobby, the night security guard has on some soul music, and the two of us are each singing under our breaths along with Marvin and Tammi to You're All I Need To Get By.

And I hear crackling from Tish's walkie-talkie. It's the older security guard, a balding Mexican guy by the name of Ed. "...panic attack in Death Valley," he says, referring to the section of our department that sears.com takes their calls in. "Felicia called it in...wife is up front."

Immediately I know. I don't have to hear my name to know that it's him. It doesn't matter if the only people working in Death Valley tonight are all men, I know that it's him.

"I'll send her back," Tish says.

I look at her. "It's my husband, isn't it?" I ask, my purse in one hand, every fiber of my being standing alert.

She nods.

And I run.

Despite myself, I fear that it may be a heart attack instead of a panic attack. I can't help but feel that way as I fly past a group of people gathered in front of the time clock and hear one of them - I think it's Joanie - say "Where is Corrie headed in such a hurry?"

I dash through the Parts floor, narrowly avoid a skinny guy with glasses who's wearing a trench coat and looks a little like Commissioner Gordon from The Dark Knight who is logging off his computer. "Sorry," I mutter under my breath as I swerve past him and take the stairs into Death Valley two at a time.

When I find him, he's sitting at Charlie's desk. Debbie, the short, dark-haired Jewish team manager stands by him on one side. Christine, thin, blonde and as chicly dressed as a Gap model, stands on his other side. He's got a bottle of water in one hand - Aquafina, I wonder if someone had ran upstairs to get it for him.

Anxiety has been a constant companion in our marriage for the past eleven months. It's the unwelcome third party in our relationship, the third party in the menage a'trois that I never asked to show up. Anxiety has caused him to see the doctor time and time again, anxiety has made him believe that every chest pain is a heart attack and that he'll die before his next birthday. It works his way across his shoulders and settles in his chest, making him feel like he's going to die. No matter how many doctors have told him that he's fine, no matter how many stress tests have come back perfect, no matter that despite his size, he's okay, he has a hard time believing that.

"It was stupid, hon," he says as I give him a kiss. I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that he's okay, even though I knew that he would be. "I was on a call and I knew...got them transferred and Debbie knew there was something wrong."

Debbie would know. She seems to have a sixth sense about these things. I wonder if it's a Jewish thing or if she really is just that good.

I continue to rub his back as the EMTs show up, and curiously, people peer around the corner to see what's going on. I'm still standing there, right next to him, rubbing his back, working that knot out of his shoulders...trying to do what little I can do to take it all away.

If there was something that I could do to take this away from him, I would do it. I would rather suffer through debilitating anxiety attacks each and every day for the rest of my life than to see him like this. I think of the night a few months before when he called the EMTs, woke the whole house up, and had a yelling match with his dad at 1:30 in the morning. I wanted to take it off his shoulders, to lift it, to carry it with me, to do whatever I would have to do to remove it from him.

"Looks like you're fine," the younger EMT says. "Everything looks good. Now we do have to tell you that you can go to the hospital and get yourself checked out just to make sure, but it looks like you're okay."

I look at him. Christine looks at him. Debbie looks at him. The EMTs have left the building.

"Nah," he says, "I'm okay. Anyway, it's karaoke night..."

"If I were you," Christine says, "I would lie low tonight. No karaoke, just go home with your beautiful wife and relax. Maybe go out to dinner, something like that."

She's right, relaxation is what he needs.

It's what I need.

It's taken this long for MY heart finally to slow down and begin to beat normally. I kiss him on the top of his head and inhale the smell of his tea tree shampoo and Old Spice body wash, and I can almost feel the anxiety release him from its chokehold.

"You all right to drive?" Christine asks.

"If not," I said, "I can."

"Thanks, babe," he says, taking my hand as we walk out of the building together.

The October night is warm but with a slight hint of chill in the air. I wrap my arms around him in the parking lot and give him a kiss. He has told me, almost ever since the first night we spoke, that I have the ability to calm him down and make him relax. I want to have that gift now when we both need it so badly.

I take his hand in mine and hold it. His is so much bigger than mine...my long, thin fingers are nearly dwarfed in his huge paw. "I wish that I could..." I say, but I can't finish the statement. He already knows what I'm about to say...about how I want to take the anxiety from him, how I want it to go away and leave him, to let him be the happy-go-lucky, funny, warm guy that I married. The parking lot lamps illuminate my face and his. His goatee seems to glow in the unnatural luminescence.

"I know that you do," he says, "I know."

For a few minutes we stand there, wrapped in each other's arms, and for a moment in time, there is nothing but us.

And we are thankful for that one brief anxiety-free interlude.

If only it would last just a little bit longer.

If only.