Code Red

Four of my five drops made it into buckets yesterday. Not bad considering I spent 35 minutes in my car, lost and looking for the Chili's Bar and Grill (apparently located less than 7 minutes from campus). And, that was WITH my GPS! No, Monday wasn't winning any awards.

What I don't have in sense of direction, I like to think I make up for in my sense of fun. Raindrops in buckets are fun, it is true. But, raindrops written in code have to be the equivalent of red galoshes, deep puddles, splashing, and singing in the rain.

We'll keep yesterday's rainstorm going, but today we would do it while wearing red galoshes. Today we'll write our raindrops in secret code.

So many codes, so little time.

How about Ray Latin:
If the first letter of a word is a consonant, move it to the end of the word, and add the letters ray. If the consonant sound is made of two or more letters, like sh or ph, move all of them.

• blog = logbray
• phone = onephray

Silly Spaces:
Put a space after each vowel rather than after each word.

• A re we ha vi ngfu ye t?

Dots and Dashes
-.-- --- ..- -.- -. --- .---, .-.. .. -.-- . -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. .
Code for, "You know, like Morse Code."

Of course you can use the old, twist-a-piece-of-paper-around-a-pencil-then-write-the-note-and-unravel-the-paper trick, as is pictured at the top of today's post. The only thing the recipient needs is her own pencil to decode your message.

Or, you could use our code of choice today - By the Numbers. Here we write out the alphabet and then, beginning at an agreed upon letter (for us it will be "R"), each letter is assigned a number. I'm using dashes between words.

• 16 18 5 14 - 18 3 - 10 - 6 17 18 1 21. Code for, "Give it a whirl."

So excited am I about red galoshes, I'm going to do two things:

Right this very minute I am going to pull the names of three people from my Random Acts of Kindness Bag. If your name is drawn, you will receive a coded message from me in the mail late next week. Once received, decode your message and post in the comment section for that day's post. Be first and you will win a prize. And the winners are:

• 22 18 2 3 8
• 14 1 18 12 10
• 12 1 18 2 3 18 23 14

Second, I am going to suggest that today we send one another coded rain drops. Pick another reader and use our By the Number Code to send your message. I'll start...

12 17 10 24 3 18 12,

8 24 4 1 - 14 10 1 21 8 - 22 24 1 23 18 23 16 - 25 24 2 3 2 - 10 21 6 10 8 2 - 17 14 21 25 - 2 14 1 - 10 - 23 18 12 14 - 3 24 23 14. 3 17 10 23 20 - 8 24 4!

Think this is fun? This book is $6.00 at Barnes and Noble (cheaper if you have their membership card). Think of the fun you, your kids, your neighbors, and co-workers could have!

2 18 16 23 18 23 16 - 24 15 15 - 4 23 3 18 21 - 3 24 22 24 1 1 24 6...