This week, I am grateful for a couple of things. I went to my very first protest on Saturday. I was on the, I was on the fence. I, I tried to go scope things out in Ann Arbor the previous Saturday, and I missed that protest time. And so I felt moved to, you know, do something. And even then, it was tough. I, I personally have a hard time doing new things when I -- when there's uncertainty about how things work, especially the small logistics will get to me. Like well what do I -- where do I park? And what if there's not a lot of people there, and where do I go, and then what do I do when I'm there? I am always full of questions for myself when it comes to new things. Like, well, what do I -- where do I park? And what if there's not a lot of people there, and where do I go? And then what do I do when I'm there? I'm always full of questions for myself when it comes to new things. So a shot in the arm came from a former teacher co-worker of mine who was also going with a current co-worker of hers. And that's kind of what I needed to push me over the finish line, so to speak, to convince me, like, to know I had someone else there that I knew and that I could use as an anchor of sorts. And I have to say, I spent -- I was pretty -- I, you know, I can be pretty introverted. And so my approach to the protest was, this time at least, anyway, that I wanted to be someone who was there. You know, I kind of -- it's almost like every vote matters -- I kind of felt like you know, every person at a protest matters, you know, it's another person, and so I wasn't there chanting, I wasn't there -- I didn't have a sign with me, although maybe next time. But I can tell you that I probably spent a solid half an hour, and I feel so stupid saying this, about half an hour fighting back tears just to myself. I can sometimes get emotional when it comes to certain matters in life. I was grateful that I was wearing sunglasses so my…

Fast forward to my sophomore year in high school, and I was invited to go to this camp. I don't even remember exactly what it was, but it was with this group of people that I didn't know very well. And it was, I think maybe six of us. And it was two people's moms. So my mom was not there. But it was two people's moms. And one of them, one of the moms I knew like kind of, you know, the other mom I didn't know at all, really. And I was miserable, again, because we rode the horses, and I was having a really kind of severe allergic reaction, like, you know, my nose was running and just -- I couldn't stop sneezing. I think I even maybe had taken Benadryl or something, so I was like, probably like really tired because of it. And this mom like really wanted us all to go swimming, and she was so like adamant that we all go swimming. And we all had to go swimming. And I just kept telling her, "I do not feel well, I am not going swimming. I, I don't feel good." And she was so mean to me. I just remember her being so mean, but I stuck my ground -- or stood my ground, whatever you wanna say. And I said, "No, I am not doing this because I don't feel well," like I just -- she just kept saying if I got in water it would help, like help with the allergies, and like all this stuff, and maybe it would have. I don't know, like if I would have like, I feel like I should have maybe taken a shower, like that might have helped. I don't know, but I just, I was not having it, and she was really not nice, but like I said, I didn't end up -- I didn't end up going swimming because I just didn't feel good. But that was the last time that I've been on a horse, so that was when I was probably -- how old were you then? Like 15, maybe 14, 15, something like that.

When we go to Mackinac we always get a taxi from the -- where the ship or the boat comes in to carry our luggage and stuff because we always stay a week, and I always have food and stuff that I brought with me. And so we have horses that take us up there, and it's always interesting to see how the drivers handle the horses. I know one time when we were there, we rented a carriage, and it was a, it was a self-drive carriage, it wasn't somebody driving you around,  you drove the carriage yourself. Well, that was a joke. You didn't really drive the carriage, you got to hang on to the reins, and the horse knew the route it was supposed to take, and it just did its thing. And the horse we had, his name was Bill. And one of the things that I found very charming was as we were going along, anytime there was people who worked on the island along the road doing stuff or whatever, they say, "Oh, hi, Bill! How's it going?" Everybody talked to the horse and the horse plodded along, and we went along the shoreline road there, and then we turned at British Landing and went up through the middle of the island to go back, and as soon as we made that corner -- and they had warned us about that, they said, "Now when you make that corner, Bill knows he's on his way back towards the barn, and you're gonna have to hold him back because he will take off and, and hurry his way back. And if you wanna get your money's worth, you wanna hold him back." And sure enough, we turned that corner and boy, Bill just -- he had been just kind of plod, plod, plodding along, and we turned that corner and he picked up his stuff even though it was uphill. And he's doot, doot, doot up the hill. We got him slowed down again, and, and like I said, as we went along, everybody had to say hello to Bill, and then Bill took us back to the barn like we were supposed to be. So I thought it was pretty funny that it was self-driving, but it was actually horse self-driving, not people self-driving.

So I was in the school's prefect board along with some of my -- who I thought at the time [were] my best friends. So I went to an all girls' school. And we have like strict rules about interactions with boys. Right, so when I was younger, before this incident, I had a boyfriend and I had hung out with him while I was wearing one of my school's t-shirts, which is like a big no-no. So, one of my best friends who was in the board with me had a picture of that day where I was with my boyfriend, wearing a school t-shirt, right? So later on like several years later, um, there was an incident where one of those friend's sisters got caught doing something that was against the school rules, and then somebody had gone and reported this to the school, like the prefect board -- the head of the prefect board, right? And I don't know who did it. I don't know who reported it, but I got to know that she was in trouble. So I was in a position to like be -- or give a testimony kind of thing about her, because I was like a senior at the time, so my, like my level in the prefect hierarchy was higher. So I was able to -- like, people counted on me to like, you know, tell them whether this actually happened or not, and I had no idea what was going on. But apparently, one of my best friends, um, had spread the word that there was this picture of me in my school's t-shirt with my boyfriend and then, you know, "How is she getting away with it while this other kid is not?" Well, well, first of all, it happened years and years ago, and then second, I was not the one who reported the other kid for whatever she did. So I was really, really shocked at the time because I thought this person was one of my closest friends. Like I had helped her after her father passed away. I had like gotten her food, got her clothes, everything. So that was really cool blooded, I think, because if she would have taken that story about my photo to the prefect board, I would have been like kicked off, and then my whole future would have…

Some friends of ours had some chickens they wanted to get rid of, and, "Oh, sure, bring 'em down." And so we had these chickens, and they were kind of a motley collection of various kinds that had been cross-bred and what have you, and so I- I'm not even sure what kind of chickens they were. Um, I know they were -- there was, uh, Rhode Island Reds in it, but there were -- some were black, and what have you.  And, uh, another neighbor heard that we had chickens and she said, "You know what, we've got chickens and our neighbor's have got this rooster that keeps coming down and beating up our rooster. Would you mind having a rooster?" And I said, "Sure, I don't mind." Right? I just -- 'cause we didn't have a rooster, and I said, "Sure, bring him on down." So, the next time that neighbor's rooster came to beat up on her rooster, she caught him and brought him down to our house. And then she said later, the neighbor mentioned that their rooster had disappeared and she had no idea where it went and [name] just said, "Well, I just can't imagine where that rooster went." So anyway, we had a contraband rooster and he lived a very happy life here with his little flock of chickens.