You can take the girl out of Carolina, but you can't take Carolina out of the girl.

Whenever I forget where I am from and what I am made of, the universe lets me know. Thursday was one of those days. I woke up with a list of a thousand things to do; no time and a sick kid staying home from school. Thankfully my good friend BC was in town from North Carolina doing some carpentry work for us, so Sam was able to be home with him while I was running errands. BC and I grew up on the Outer Banks together and we both went to UNC.

I first ran to the Park Slope Food Coop http://foodcoop.com/ to do my weekly shop. The food coop is a member run organization with 13,000 + members with members working a 2 and 3/4 hour shift a month. It is Brooklyn and quite a melting pot. I quickly did my shop and got to the check out counter where a Hasidic man was checking me out and chatting a little too much for my taste. He asked where I was from. When I replied North Carolina, he was overjoyed. He had been the rabbi on UNC's campus from 1997-2001. We talked on and on about Franklin Street and the pit on campus.

Then I ran to the kids school for Parent Teacher conferences. One of Sam's teacher's family is originally from North Carolina and he attended UNC Charlotte. He mentioned how one of the women that lived in his co-op reminded him of me, sweet (?), fair skinned and from North Carolina.

I went back home to check on Sam and found him and BC watching the Carolina -Radcliffe basketball game on the computer. It brought a tear to my eye to see one of my oldest friends watching the game with my son. Both screaming and clapping.

Then I had to get ready to go out to meet Bud at the Four Seasons for a wine dinner with members of the New York Building Congress. Now this is not a normal occurrence. Neither of us had ever been to the Four Seasons and we were given tickets to this dinner and felt like we could not pass it up. That said, I always get nervous about what to wear, if I am going to be able to have real conversation, or that I will be bored out of my mind. Off I went, met Bud, had a glass of champagne and took my seat at our assigned table. A young woman sits next to me. I say hello and ask her what she did, thinking it is something with construction. She says that he is there with the wine people. We continue to talk and low and behold, her family is from Little Washington, North Carolina and she attended UNC four years after I did. At that, we clinked wine glasses and threatened to show the other guests how Carolina girls party. We talked the entire event, about how much we missed having our grandparents in NC, partying at Bub's and Trolls in Chapel Hill, Driving and Crying, the Cat's Cradle, and how all of us that went to UNC are connected.

I am grateful for all that North Carolina has given me and how it unites me to others I meet. You can take the girl out of Carolina out of the girl, but you can NOT take Carolina out of the girl.