The Only Thing That Matters: Kindness

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." -- Maya Angelou

There is a song that we used to sing when Patrick was a tiny baby.  It's called "Hands" by Jewel and it is a mesmerizing song.  It has a haunting melody and beautiful lyrics that get to the heart of what matters.  Her line that often repeats, like a prayer:

In the end, only kindness matters.

That's it. Six small words and that's all you need to distill all the wisdom of every religion down to a single sentence:

only kindness matters.  

When we were holding fragile, baby Patrick those words became our mantra.  It was all we asked for from each other, all we expected of our kids, all we hoped for the world to give our son who was labeled with "down syndrome", "mental retardation" and assorted other limiting words sprinkled on him only hours after birth. 

And like some sort of slide show, I remember the incredible acts of kindness bestowed in those beginning days.  I remember returning from the hospital to a house still in the ruins of a remodel to a front door that was decorated and welcoming us home.  That loving act of kindness still brings tears for it was the first time that I pondered the idea that Patrick might be welcomed by others...and he was!  I remember a dinner being brought over to my house by a mom I didn't know since Jack was a brand new kindergartener and we were new to our town. Mostly, I remember the bottle of wine she gave us...as if we were celebrating.  And it dawned on me that we could be celebrating, should be celebrating -- instead of being afraid of the unknown.

I remember vividly our gentle, kind parish priest, Father Dan, holding tiny Patrick right outside of church and giving him a blessing and then blessing all of us.  I could feel his grace and his welcoming kindness.

I remember a friend coming into our hospital's Pediatric Cardio Intensive Care Unit with a giant over-sized stuffed puppy that was also named Patrick.  Seeing that giant puppy given from my hard-working friend in her business suit made me believe that someday our Patrick might be climbing all over that silly guy and having fun...outside of hospital walls and hard times.

In the end, only kindness matters.

And no, it's not just in the intense dark days that this matters.  Kindness matters every single day. It is the extra deep breath and calm reaction to whatever mishap in the kitchen has occurred -- the proverbial spilled milk.  It is the extra thirty seconds of listening to someone speak, really listening.  It is the way we say goodnight and the way we say good morning to those who share our space.  It is the smile of recognition and welcome for someone who's new.  It is the caring text, checking in.  It is the phone call, the dinner served, the extra kid who tags along because he needs a ride too.  It's our reaction when our spouse says he's got to go out of town, yet again.

You see, I'm not writing this to tell you I'm doing all this.  I'm writing to remind myself.  To remember what it feels like to receive such kindness and by remembering trying to live it.  It's a process and a slow one...but that song still rings true today.  Perhaps the words are even more important today.

Piggybacking onto Jewel's song is this poem...one of my all time favorites.

It, too, serves as a daily reminder for me.

Kindness 

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho lies dead
by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

So, it is with kindness that I send this out to you...hoping the ripples will make their way into some space within you that needs a bit of kindness...hoping that those ripples will continue to find others who need a dash of kindness like they need a spot of tea.   That this kindness can be the way we treat each other, including those that we love most and those we don't even know. The "size of the cloth" is pretty big, and it is the only thing that makes sense.

Let's Start A Smiley Revolution

"Today, give a stranger one of your smiles.  

It might be the only sunshine he sees all day." 

                                           -- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.                                             

  This...just never gets old, does it?   

I don't know who taught her this.  This smiley face tucked inside the letter "O" but I absolutely love it.  And trust me, if I could somehow place two eyes and a curvy upward smile into my computer "O" I'd be all over it.

I received this envelope just the other day -- at the end of a long day.  I perked right up with those smileys.  I started thinking about where she might have seen those decorated "O"'s and wondered who was blessing her with smileys, besides me.

Back when Patrick was in kindergarten, in 2005, I decided to travel to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for a conference for educators who believed in full inclusion in Catholic schools.  It was the first time I had ever really travelled alone and I was going to a place where I knew no one.  It was a whim.  I felt an urgent need to affirm to myself that including Patrick in our local Catholic school where our other two older children went wasn't just a nice idea.  I wanted to believe that it was happening in other places.  I wanted to meet other people who felt called to this mission of actually living what we know at our very core: all kids deserve to be educated together -- no matter how hard or uncomfortable it might make the school community.
We all deserve to sit at the table.

So, there I was on an airplane journey that had a layover and a long wait in an airport.  You should know this about me, and perhaps you do, I'm a talker.  I love to strike up conversations with strangers.  I love hearing their stories, commiserating over cold coffee or weird TSA agents or sharing the latest book I'm reading. I am comfortable making small talk, actually, I'm good at it.

So it might come as a surprise when I reveal that for two different airplane rides, one multi-hour layover in a strange giant airport not a single person made eye contact with me or made conversation with me.  It was so unnerving that on the second leg of my journey I started to have real doubts about this whole thing.

It went a little like this:
"Beth, what in the world are you doing?"
"Why are you traveling all the way to South Dakota on a lark?"
"What are you thinking leaving your three small children and your husband and just going off -- this is crazy!"

Honestly, by the end of that second plane ride I had convinced myself that if my ride to the tiny (yet gorgeous) retreat center way out in the boondocks of rural Irene, South Dakota looked at all suspicious I would just pack it all in and declare failure.

Off the plane I went searching for my ride and there he was: an older man with a kind smile holding a sign.  All it said was Welcome -- NICE Conference.  And in the center of those two letter "O"'s were, you guessed, the smiley face.  It sounds funny now but as soon as I saw those smileys I knew I was in the right place.  I knew I was with the right people and I knew it was going to be a worthwhile adventure.

All it took was that international symbol of goodwill and welcome.  The sunny smiley. :)

Seeing how the world is right now with outrageous hatred toward others of different cultures or faiths or classes I want to start a worldwide smiley revolution.

I'm not trying to be trite or trivial.

Can you imagine how powerful it would be if we all just held up signs that said "Welcome" with a smiley in the center?  How sinister can we be if we hold up signs that say "love" with a smiley tucked in there...how about the powerful "Thank you"?

I believe we could change the world with a smiley revolution.  If every single person received a smiley, regardless of status or age or wealth or race, we could change a worldwide mood of hostility and simmering anger to one of care and inclusion.

Hey...how about the word "inclusion" holding that smiley too???

Yep, we all deserve to be here.  We all deserve a smiley and while we're at it, let's throw in a heart or two.  It can't hurt and it just might help.

Your job today: pass out 10 smileys and 5 hearts to those you love.
Tomorrow pass out the same amount to strangers.
The next day: try to pass them out to those who you'd rather not give them to, those who bug you, get under your skin or make you creep out.

Imagine the ripple.

Who's in?

Lucky Number Nine

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; 

what is essential is invisible to the eye." 

-- Antoine de Saint Exupery (The Little Prince)

Patrick with his heart cake today, 9.9.12

Thirteen years ago God graced us with a baby...a tiny baby boy with a broken heart and an extra chromosome.  The doctors who know better checked his heart immediately and found that indeed Patrick had one large chamber when he should have four.  We were introduced to fancy terms and potential surgical procedures and a whole host of predictions that just don't seem to fit into your brain when you are holding a tiny piece of perfection.  Predictions that included "heart failure" and "open heart surgery" in a matter of weeks.  I remember watching him breathe effortlessly still sleepy from entering this crazy world and wondering how any of it could be true.  Like a small child, I leaned down  close to his chest and tried to hear anything that might indicate the dire predictions...I always wonder what I expected to hear (an ambulance siren? a tornado warning?) but all I heard were the sweet sounds of a baby slumbering, perfectly at peace.

My world was the opposite.  I grappled with a newborn facing massive surgery at any moment -- the date depended on the best guess of a pediatric cardiologist who acted casual and perfectly normal as he described cracking my newborn's chest open, cutting through the electric field within the heart, creating chambers with Dacron patches and reconfiguring life sustaining heart valves.  Sure.  No problem.  It's all fine, really...NOT.

On 9.9.99 at 9am at 9 weeks old and 9 pounds 9 ounces,  I handed my sweet baby over and prayed like crazy for the next few hours.  Anything goes with heart surgery. All sorts of really bad things can go down.  We all know it but nobody talks about it...until it happens.  

Believe it or not, this was a time before the internet and incredible connectivity was really possible.  I knew next to nothing of what to expect.  I saw no pictures of babies who might have gone through something similar.  I didn't know what would happen afterward or how nursing would go or if I would ever get my baby back.

Patrick came out of surgery at around 2pm and I remember feeling the most afraid I'd ever felt.  Seeing him wasn't scary, waiting for the other shoe to drop was what made me crazy.  We brought our favorite music so that we could envelope Patrick in our blanket of love and hope, our way.  We held our breath and watched and waited...for what we didn't know.  He had tubes and wires coming out of his body and I remember unease, nausea and fear creating 

tentacles that gripped me.  I got good at finding my way to random isolated corners of the hospital and crying and crying and crying...as if that would help.

Patrick for the first 18 hours was really out of it but then the pain came crashing down.  They tried the heavy narcotics that relieve almost anyone else, increasing the morphine regularly but it didn't work. An entire day later, they tried Fentanyl and my baby finally stopped fussing.  To this day, that drug is emblazoned on my memory and should Patrick ever be in severe pain again I know what to say and how quickly to act.  It doesn't help that now I know that he has an incredibly high pain threshold and that when he is suffering, he really is suffering, in an excruciating way.

For five days, Patrick recovered.  But those words mask the terror and the fear.  We watched a young boy who was Jack's age at the time -- a darling six year old -- die right in front of our eyes with every amazing surgeon and doctor and nurse laying it all out there to save his life.  It wasn't supposed to go that way.  It wasn't expected. And it's moments of complete futility and heartbreaking effort that underscore what we all know but never acknowledge: all the important stuff is out of your hands and out of your power.  All you get to do is wait, hope, pray and acknowledge the gift if it goes your way.

So...every September 9th we pause and acknowledge the gift.  It went our way.  Those Dacron patches worked.  Those valves continue to do their job day in and day out.  Thirteen years later, I have a teenager with a scar on his chest -- his badge of courage we call it -- and that is it.  No heart issues at all.  We had talented surgeons, truly terrific nurses and nothing but good fortune on 9.9.99.

We are forever grateful.

It seems the least we can do is make a heart cake, dig out the red plate and celebrate Patrick's lucky number nine.

My boy with the biggest heart I know can indeed see rightly.  He knows what is essential.  Thanks to him, I do too.

The Tenderness of Teachers

Fresh crayons and pencils awaiting their students.

"One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings.  The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child."  

-- Carl Jung

My kids have started school, just barely, and some of my student teachers from last year have classrooms of their own -- these bits of my heart are in classrooms all over the place -- and I want to acknowledge the beginning point.  We've got clean slates right now.  No huge transgressions have happened, no bad choices, no impulse control issues.  That is the beauty of the new year and I am grateful for it.

I'm grateful for the fresh pencils, the stacks of construction paper lovingly ready for art projects, the tubs filled with books or crayons and the clean desks.  I'm grateful for the fresh start of every single new year in school...it's one of my favorite parts of teaching.  We all get to start over, make new goals and create new dreams.

Caroline is in first grade this year.  She's pretty easy going and pretty non demanding...after all she's fourth in line in her family so she's used to waiting her turn and helping herself.  The third day of school though, life was hard for Caroline.  She was scootering to school, fast and frenzied, the way she likes to do it and she bit the dust...full on wipe out.  The girl is quick on her feet and pretty steady on a scooter so she was shocked, sad and hurt.  We ditched the scooter and I carried my crying girl the rest of the way to school.  We stopped at the front office and I cleaned up her scraped knee, placed the ever-crucial band aid and walked over to the first graders lining up just outside of their classroom.  

Caroline tried to get it together.  Her red face and tear stained cheeks gave away that it had been a rough start but she was trying to calm down and then, she saw her teacher and the tears started all over again, and the quiet sobs.  So sad.  My mother's heart was aching with the wish of whisking her away but I knew I had to keep with the routine and get her to class.  Her teacher came up to her and wrapped her arm around her while I told the story of the sad scooter wipe out.

Her teacher looked her in the eyes and said something so comforting, so simple and so brilliant: "Caroline, I have a special chair in my room for times like these.  You can sit in it and feel better.  I'm sorry that happened.  Come with me."

A special chair. 

 Even I, a veteran teacher and wise to the ways of teacher tricks, wanted to spy the special chair.  What did it look like?  Could I get one for at home?  Where is it?

Caroline composed herself and set off in search of the special chair.  She barely looked back.  And I had to be satisfied with the comforting and healing of the special chair.  I had to put my faith in a kind teacher and let my baby girl go -- skinned knee and everything.

As I walked back home with a scooter, I pondered the special chair.  We all need moments of tenderness and kindness.  For a teacher, we ache to soothe the owies and help our students but we feel the time pressure of so many needy students and we worry about anything taking away from class time.  The special chair is a beautiful way to give that tenderness and acknowledgement without skipping a beat.  It lets the student feel heard and helped and yet it takes nothing away from the others.  

When Caroline got home I asked her about the special chair.  She said it was the rolly, comfy chair that the teacher sits in at the reading table.  That's it.  No decorations, no fancy paint...just a chair...provided in a difficult moment.

And that's when it struck me.  That's the difference between great teachers and the rest of us.  They are regular people doing their job but they know when to pause and offer the special chair.  They recognize that not much learning can get done if the heart is wounded.  They find ways to reach the heart of the student before trying to teach the brain.  If a student knows and feels that the teacher truly cares, tremendous things can happen...crazy amounts of learning and incredible amounts of personal growth. If not, students stagnate or worse, they wither. 

Today I am grateful for the tenderness of teachers.  Beginning teachers, veteran teachers and even grizzled college professors, I'm blessed to know so many truly gifted teachers.  Teachers who offer the special chair at just the right moment.  Thank you for your hard work, your kindness and for taking the time to truly see your students.  You make the world a better place.

Savoring Summer

"Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world." 
-- Ada Louise Huxtable

Patrick flying a kite!

Who invented summer?  Who decided that school life should pause, that we need to be refueled and that a long unscheduled, glorious blank spot on the calendar should occur?

Can I kiss them?

Summer is such a sweet spot for me...such a golden time, that I always resist acknowledging the little sliver of golden leaves beginning their shake down and foretelling what must come in a few weeks: the end of leisure and schedule-free moments.

So filled with a full heart, from gobs and gobs of time together, I am savoring the summer and remembering my favorite bright spots.  Too many to count but here's a mini-scrapbook of my Top 10.

1) The gang's all here!  Yes...Jack came home and for a few months, he shed his cool college guy vibe and just became the big brother again.  I definitely wasn't the only one who enjoyed it. :)

2) BBQing at it's finest...no happier dad than John with Jack on the week-end teaching the young ObiWan the ways of the Jedi masters with some tongs.

3) Cousins, cousins and more cousins -- we got to have Lizzy all to ourselves for several days.  And if that wasn't good enough, we just had a whole host of spontaneous get togethers.  So fun!

Sweet baby Catherine Grace

Caroline and Lizzy...bubble girls!

The swimmers who wouldn't stop!

4) The first ever swim meet -- sometimes you never think it's going to happen.  You can't picture it.  You don't know what it looks like and so when you try to there is just a big black hole.  And then it happens and it all makes sense.  My favorite, favorite part of swimming: the focus on the personal best. For both Patrick and Caroline their first meet was a personal best, no doubt.

5) Unstructured time...Patrick and Caroline have delved into another layer of sibling hood.  They've become play partners like no other.  They have imaginary games that even the king himself, Jack, isn't allowed to join.  Sometimes I can follow along from another room, but most of the time the plot is too thick and the story too long.  But, it sure is fun to watch!

What, mom?  We're fine!


6) Watching Mary Kate travel with some kids from her high school to an entire other part of the world and grow and change and open her heart to the transformative power of travel -- meeting new people, learning about new cultures and sharing a bit of yourself along the way.

Mary Kate on the last day saying good-bye to her class.


Mary Kate's travel partners...enjoying time off!


7) The summer of 2012 will forever be remembered as the break out bike riding summer for Caroline and the summer of laughs with Junie B. Jones...Caroline's favorite thing to read and giggle about.  Most of our bike rides carried Junie B. Jones in my basket, along with a certain other friend, Teddy.

8) Summer means relaxing and having no where to go.  I'm grateful for the days when we didn't do anything we'll remember...a whole lot of nothing often adds up to something when it's summertime.

My personal teddy bear.


9) Moments of silence -- nobody rushing, nobody busy, just slowing down enough to see and hear the glorious life all around us.  So grateful for those quiet moments.

Nothing better.


10) I don't have a photo of the 10th favorite thing...but I've memorized it in my heart.  All six of us got to go to Sunsplash together.  Sunsplash is a waterpark with water slides, a "lazy river" that you ride on in innertubes and a wave area that is like a mini-beach.  Having Patrick be a strong enough swimmer to enjoy a full day of swimming and water adventures is a dream come true -- thank you Aquamonsters! His cousins, Chloe and Beau, came to show us how it's done.  It was a favorite day of Summer 2012 and one I know we will try to find a way to repeat on the hot days of 2013.


Today I am grateful for those beautiful months of long nights where even the sun wants to stay up, for time together and for the grace of unstructured time called summer.  So bittersweet to say good-bye.

"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet." 
-- Emily Dickinson

Silver Lake...so little and so much

Caroline enjoying the beauty of Rim Rock.

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." -- John Muir

In 1938, a tiny lady from the central valley of California sought refuge from the blazing summer heat in the woods near a lake.  She built a cabin from the surrounding pine and stone, intentionally setting the cabin up on a hill to enjoy the view, Mary Goni created a lasting legacy -- one that would continue for generations.  Her attention to detail was exquisite.  This cabin was no quick project.  She built a smaller cabin to house herself as she created her dream house.  She weathered the winter and braved the lack of electricity and basic conveniences all to create a space, a refuge, a haven from the work-a-day world.  Mary was an avid birder and her copious careful notes about the birds and animals around Silver Lake serve as a talisman to those early years.  She was a visionary and I often think of her as I enjoy the fruits of her labor every summer.  

Mary dreamed big.

Almost every summer since John was in diapers he has spent time there.  There are stories of his mom dragging the unceasing cloth diapers of a set of twins through the lake tethered to a canoe; stories of wandering for hours through the forests and climbing the famed cliff of huge boulders that borders one entire side of the lake.  John knows every nook and cranny to Silver Lake and the surrounding meadow, forests and hiking trails.  

When we were in college, John told me about his family's cabin at the lake and took me there one summer week-end.  I was expecting a small cabin: sturdy, spartan and stoic. I gasped when I got there. 

 Silver Lake is a study in contradictions.

It is elegant and roomy; bold yet unobtrusive.  It is is jaw-droppingly gorgeous and yet functions without electricity.  It has plumbing but the water is always precarious and requires use of an outhouse. It inspires and comforts.  Mostly it directs your eye and focuses your vision on the surrounding simple beauty of a forest and a lake -- unchanged and timeless.  Universal in its beauty and its simplicity.  Cloaked in the sounds of silence and nature, this "cabin" provides a retreat from the modern world that is unmatched.  There is no cell reception. No connectivity.  It is remote and isolated.  The nearest town is a thirty minute drive.  No Starbucks.  No television.  Nowhere to go but outdoors and into the forest. Nowhere to hide from your thoughts  -- nothing to do or notice but the natural gifts all around you. 

Since our kids have been going since they were infants, Silver Lake is something they beg for.  The teen-agers don't complain about the lack of cell reception.  They don't mind missing texts or catching up on Facebook.  They crave the quiet.  They stock up on books to read.  They beg for extra days.  They plan the multi-day Monopoly game and anticipate the fires that last for hours and the conversations that leisurely develop when you have nothing but time and no distractions.  Mary Kate is greedy with her time at Silver Lake...anxious to get back to the lake after an inevitable outing into town to stock up on supplies.  Grumbling she wishes we didn't have to leave, ever.

Mary Goni lived an astonishing 102 years, on her terms and in her way, but I so wish Mary could see her Mary Kate and know that she did it...she passed the torch.  She touched her heart and she created an environmentalist, a naturalist and a devotee to Silver Lake that will only, could only, get passed on as well.  Mary Kate isn't the only one by any means.  Siblings and cousins and uncles and aunts feel the same way about this treasure.  

Without electricity, we naturally get in the rhythm of the natural light and we find our way back to our roots...back to what matters.  Back to ourselves and back to our family.  Back even to our ancestors.

I wonder about this timeless treasure.  For how long can cell reception and the outside world be held at bay?  How will it be if the invisible circle of reception opens and the world pushes its way inside?  Will future generations ever know or understand the silence of wilderness? The sense of remoteness that is simultaneously haunting and freeing? 

I know we will work to delay the inevitable.  In almost 80 years, Silver Lake remains unchanged. I pray that it can stay unharmed, unknown and untouched. 

Today I am grateful for a stubborn woman named Mary Goni who dared to dream, sought it to fruition and kept it like a careful treasure. Thank you, Mary, for countless moments as a family, for helping me to see the beauty in natural light and the preciousness of running water and the gifts and glory of unabashed nature.  Thank you for this amazing gift: Silver Lake.

Thanks for the $114 Ticket, Really

"Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign his work."
 -- Anatole France

I don't know what the universe is trying to tell me...but like a message in a bottle, something is in here.  Perhaps you can tell me.

Yesterday, I noticed two meter maids looking over my husband's car parked on the street in the front of our house.  They really looked deep in conversation and although I thought it might have something to do with John's car, I was smug.  He had the correct parking pass (don't ask); he had just paid his car registration so I knew he was up to date there.  No, I insisted to myself, those two just hadn't seen each other in awhile and were doing the cooler talk over John's car.

Hours later I noticed a ticket -- it never pays to be smug.  $114. Crap.  What could possibly be the reason? No tags to prove an updated registration. Oh yeah, I remembered.  John's car had not passed the smog check and so he needed to take his car in.  And, whenever he takes his car in, because it's German and fancy, it costs a lot. Hence, the dawdling over dealing with it and the ticket.

"That's it." I fumed.  I will just have to take his car in tomorrow and deal with it.  I never drive John's car and because of this detail I believe (however erroneously) that I shouldn't have to deal with it when it comes to maintenance or smog checks.  That's his territory.  

So, taking his car in was a bold move.  I knew John would appreciate it (one less thing for him to deal with) but still I was out of my comfort zone.  Add to it that I dropped it off wearing a swim cover up because I was on our way to a water park with the kids and the whole event felt weird.  Nevertheless, I was proud of myself for tackling an annoyance that in my mind wasn't really mine to handle.

I gave the car guys John's cell phone should they need it and away I went.  A couple hours into it John got a call: 

"So, Mr. Foraker, it looks like you need a new catalytic converter."  

cha-ching 

"It usually costs around $3000."

 Damn those fancy cars.

"But it looks like you have a 10 year warranty on this part...and, it expires, um, tomorrow.  So, if you don't mind, we can keep it over night and replace the part for you free of charge."

The story goes that John couldn't keep his cool and literally laughed out loud and into the car guy's ear.  He asked him to repeat the good news.  The car guy was laughing at the circumstance too.  What are the chances.  John has owned his car for over 12 years.  The converter was normally under warranty for 2 years until someone did a class action law suit and the warranty became extended for ten years.  That's 4,384 potential days for repair and we showed up on day number 4,383. 

Frankly, I can't believe they didn't round up.

Who knows, maybe everyone -- including car guys -- can spot a crazy lucky moment gifted from the universe and honor it.

 The only thing I know...I need to go out of my way and thank those two over-achieving meter maids.  I owe them a cup of coffee (and maybe even a lottery ticket) at the very least.