this is my pal S
she lives next door to me now.
last week she came over.
well, she comes over a lot.
to say hi
or borrow salt
or introduce me to her friends
or to escape family members who are being weird.
and when you are 10
they are almost always all weird
all the time.

but last week she came over
and she looked at my scrapbooks
and declared,
"miss cara! you are so good!
if you taught a class,
you would make a
million dollars!"

i tried to tell her that
the lovely and talented
miss elsie flannigan
already has that market cornered
and that i will happily settle for being
a good psychotherapist and her cool next door neighbor
who wears fleece lined slippers in the middle of august.
but she is 10.
and none of that really means anything to her.
she remains convinced
that there are none above me
and that if i would just get my marketing act
together, herb and i would be rich
from all of the money
i would make from teaching
my one little class.

and for that,
she can come over anytime she wants!

and on this particular day,
she made her first ever scrapbook page.
she didn't have any pictures,
so i told her to think about a word
that she wants to be able to use
to describe herself by the end of 6th grade.

she is such a cool kid.