Crane in New Hampshire

• Location: Michael’s craft store in Concord, NH
• Date: February 23, 2008
• Description: Blue crane with a pinkish dove folded in the middle and a border saying “Extend the olive branch — practice peace.”

Today’s crane made it to New Hampshire via my friend Leah, who requested a crane to be mailed. I get so excited about these things — my first picture from a mailed-out crane! It’s just been a weekend of excitement for me.

In addition to having road rage, I have grocery store rage — or I did today. For some reason, I grumbled at the people meandering down the aisles, and inwardly rolled my eyes at the ones who didn’t look before they turned corners and cut me off. I really need to let things roll off my back. It might’ve had something to do with the fact that I was hungry. I can get quite fugly when I’m hungry. Lesson of the day: Don’t get between me and my food? That sounds ominous. How about this: Don’t mind me when I’m hungry and I cast menacing glances at you and your grocery cart.

Once again, I have decided that leaving a crane at the local high school is a bad idea. I know I came up with this conclusion before, but here’s another reason why: When I was in third or fourth grade, I wrote a love note to a boy. It was an anonymous love note, and I decorated it with purple chalk, and it was kind of antagonistic (what can I say? I was 9). I left it in his desk. Well, the kid it was meant for showed it to his friend, who thought it was from me and tried to force my hand by telling the principal about it, who happened to be our emergency substitute for the afternoon. It was a bad chain of events, because then the principal confronted the class. She said it was a very serious offense to leave anonymous notes, and she would be taking further action to find out who left it. That put me off leaving more anonymous antagonistic love notes.

I had a lapse in memory today and thought maybe I’d head over to the high school, pretend I lost one of my books, and poke around until I found a good place to leave a crane. It’s a good thing my repressed embarrassing childhood memory saved me from going. I could’ve gotten caught — again.