all right already....pass me the bottle

I was in need of the Pacific. I had been away the better part of April...and while we visited beautiful...wonderful...awe-inspiring locales....I needed MY ocean. Early yesterday morning I walked over. To one side...in the early light of dawn...I saw an odd glimmer.


A huge pile of bottles...each with a message inside.

Suddenly.... from the distance I heard the rattle of keys...and then that haunting, melancholy piano melody known only to those of us who have had the misfortune of being imprisoned in deep, dark, dank, dungeon of Blogginham Castle.

Knowing what fate would befall me if I did not act quickly.....I pulled my laptop from my backpack. I had been tagged for The Message In A Bottle meme sometime in the late 1980's by her majesty Queen Mimi. I was in big trouble. Half the known blogosphere had complied and the special weblog established for this purpose had overflowed onto my beach.

And although I can righteously claim a multitude of reasons and excuses....in many ways I put this one off. The entire concept has been forever tainted in my mind by the book "Message In A Bottle"...it seemed only fitting to draw my message from that work.

"If some lives form a perfect circle

others take shape in ways we cannot predict

or always understand.

Loss has been a part of my journey.

But it has also shown me what is precious.

So has love...for which I can only be grateful"

as said by Theresa Osborne in the novel "Message In A Bottle"

by Nicolas Sparks.

Here's the gig:

1. Compose a message to place in your virtual bottle

2. Right click and Save the graphic above (the empty one)

3. Use a graphics program of your choice to place the message on the picture

4. Return your anonymous "Message In a Bottle" to Mimi via email at sendmessageinabottle@yahoo.com

5. Your virtual bottle will remain afloat in the Blogosphere Ocean for all blogernity. You may post the virtual bottle on your own website as long as a direct link is placed back to the Message in a Bottle blog. The graphic may not be altered. Your submission will be numbered and dated. Send in as many as you'd like. If you choose to remain anonymous, no identifying information will EVER be disclosed to anyone. You can also choose NOT to be anonymous in which case Mimi will post the name and url of your website.