B. the M. sends message-in-a-bottle to Barnyard's daughter Elsie

Bernie the Monkey sends "message in a bottle" to his long-lost friend's daughter Elsie on Dec. 23, 2014 Once upon a time, a long long time ago in a land far, far, far away, there lived a little monkey named Bernie the Monkey. One day Bernie the Monkey woke up suddenly in the middle of the night in his house in the forest after being tasked with executing a very important humanitarian mission with military-style precision. "Your mission, should you accept it, is to launch a message-in-a-bottle within less than 24 hours," read the cryptic request from his long-time friend and co-creator Barnyard Newman. "It will be a bit of a Hail-Mary Pass", admitted Barnyard, "since few if any "messages sent in bottles are ever received by a recipient at their destination." "This one is sure to reach its target" assured Bernie the Monkey", for your aim is straight, your purpose is pure, and your heart is in the right place on this one", Bernie the Monkey told Barnyard. "I can send it, but it is up to the recipient to decide if the message gets delivered in the spirit of goodwill, humanitarianism, fellowship and love in which it was launched. That is for her to decide, not me." "Your long-lost younger daughter may be asleep but according to my trusty, rusty "Message in a Bottle Guidebook and Pocket Knife", ANY MESSAGE LAUNCHED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HER BIRTH STANDS AT LEAST A CHANCE OF SUCCESS OF REACHING ITS TARGET", cooed Bernie the Monkey reassuringly to his evervescent interloper Barnyard. "Besides anyone who loves doing the dishes as much as you is sure to be missed at some point, if only once the sink is full. What I am trying to say is that "IF YOU FOLLOW YOUR HEART AND ALLOW YOURSELF TO REMAIN ON THE SIDE OF GOODNESS AND LIGHT, YOUR MESSAGE WILL BE RECEIVED IN THE POSITIVE SPIRIT IN WHICH IT WAS WRITTEN.", Bernie told Barnyard. And so it was on such an auspicious note that the latest Bernie the Monkey mission was launched. "I have scribbled a few words of congratulations on this slip of paper in honour of my daughter Elsie's 18th birthday", admitted Barnyard. "But she is in a far off land that I have not visited in nearly three centuries," Barnyard told Bernie. "Not to worry", I will use my trusty, rusty time-machine-and-pocket-knife as a rocket launcher to send your "message-in-a-bottle beyond the shallow eddies and into the middle of the Ocean of Love".' Here is the first clue for finding the hidden memne in the message in a bottle: Childress' Basic Message for the World: There is too much hurt in the world, so whenever we have the chance we should reduce the amount of hurt in the world. There is not enough love in the world, so whenever we can, we should do our best to increase the amount of love in the world. With those Quixotic words, Bernie the Monkey snatched the birthday greeting from Barnyard's hand and stuffed it into an empty Kraft Peanut Butter jar. "Your brother Mark once claimed that you could live on a desert island with only peanut butter and banana sandwiches", Bernie the Monkey told his loyal friend. "That is why I am using that jar for this important mission". "Wait", cried Barnyard, "I still didn't scrape the last vestiges of peanut butter from the inside of the jar". But it was too late, as Bernie the Monkey had already stuffed the message into the bottle. "Sorry but we have no time to waste if you want this message to reach your daughter before she awakes in a few hours". "Better to have her receive a slightly oily 18th birthday greeting than none at all", Bernie the Monkey said. Barnyard was not so certain. A realist, he knew that his message might not be well received or even received at all for that matter. "Messages in bottles are not the most reliable mode of transport for very important birthday greetings. Besides what if it arrives while my daughter is still sleeping and accidentily "bopps" her on the side of the head when it lands at her feet," said Barnyard. "How can it hit her in the head if it lands at her feet, Bernie the Monkey corrected. "The last thing I want to do is turn yet another positive attempt into a negative," Barnyard said "Don't fret," said Bernie. Your heart is in the right place and besides we are using Kraft's plastic peanut butter jar (crunchy of course) with a red top, not a heavy glass one; so if it accidentely hits her on the side of the head upon re-entry into the solar system on planet Venus, she may still appreciate the gesture even if she gets a split-second momentary headache. "What did you jot down on that piece of paper," Bernie the Monkey enquired after the rocket launcher had send the bottle out of the Mars stratosphere and into the Venus Galaxy. "Just the usual sort of stuff a Dad would say to a daughter living on a piece of flying stone in a far off galaxy gazillions of light-years away... I love you and miss you. Hope you are doing well, are enjoying life as best you can." "Anything else", asked Bernie the Monkey? "I buried a secret memne inside an obscure youtube video called "Dr. Childress talks to the Child". "The memne is a secret roadmap that can lead one from the wilderness back to home. All you have to do is believe... and to trust your heart not your head for 30 days.". "I know that video series", said Bernie the Monkey, "but of all the millions of library resources, why would you select such an obscure video in which to hide the memne?" "Elementary, my dear (Emma) Watson," answered Barnyard with a start. "It is a wholesome, positive, enlightened way of looking at a problem that has dogged me and my family for centuries. I love how the video itself is a map guiding you to buried treasure. Craig Childress spent his lifetime tackling the rare sort of challenges that befell me in the years before the Dark Ages descended on the kingdom. Like in Peter Pan, Childress has helped countless children and their parents (members of what he calls "special families") to understand the true nature of the challenges that confront them and to find their way back onto the Road to Recovery. Childress spent a lifetime determining the three-pronged root of the problem affecting his so-called special families, and I spent a lifetime seeking out the Childress roadmap. But it is one thing to find a roadmap, it is an entirely different horse-of-a-different colour to have others trust their heart, go with the gut on a hunch and a prayer, and set off on the road with the Childress map. It was at that point that Barnyard looked his long-time friend, ally and alter-ego Bernie-the-Monkey in the eye and confided something very private and personal to him. "I now know that I was a co-dependent. That is why I remained on the dance floor long after the music had stopped. Long after I should have collected my bag of marbles, left the game, and headed home." I was an emotionally available parent who tried to placate the problem instead of confronting it head on. For years. I was conplicity. Even if my errors were errors of omission, not commission, they were errors nonetheless. I was miserly and a work-a-holic. I was not aware of the primordial importance of Attachement Theory. Unlike Dr. Childress, I did not know that a dog's intestines can get twisted out of shape, causing the dog to "bloat". I had no idea that a child/parent attachment bond can get bent out of shape at an early age under duress and stress. I just did not know." "But did you not once accidently cause the death of your daughter's pet guiney pig by feeding it too much enriched alfalfa thus causing it to bloat and die." asked Bernie the Monkey pointedly. "Yes", admitted Barnyard. "But at the time I had no idea that a twisted intestine inside a dog or guiney pig could be used as a descriptive analogy for what I now realize has happened to my family". I have learned many things about shoes, ships, ceiling wax, how we can only control ourselves and not others, how the best way to love others is by loving ourself first, how we are all on a journey of discovery and that there are no shortcuts. If you don't do the homework, you don't get to graduate from Happiness School, how the best way to become the father my daughters deserved is by becoming the assertive man that I was meant to become, how to trust my heart and not live in fear. Fear, guilt and shame have held be back for too long now. It is time I emerged from my shell and embraced all that is possible in a confident, healthy, loving way. "Enough said for now", retorted Bernie the Monkey sharply. "We've got an 18th anniversary birthday greeting to send to your daughter. A positive, life-affirming greeting that may or may not land on fertile earth? But that is not for you to decide. Only she can determine if the birthday message will be received or not. You may be the author of the note, but she is the one who gets to decide how it is received. "You are right," admitted Barnyard. "At the start of every Co-Dependents Anonymous meeting, we open with something called the Serenity Prayer: "May I accept what I cannot change; change what I can, and have the wisdom to know the difference (between the two)." That has become my mantra. It is the reason I came to you, Bernie the Monkey, to help me launch a message in a bottle to my daughter Elsie before the sun rose on her wonderful, fabulous 18th birthday! Now that the message in a bottle has been sent with a memne imbedded halfway into an obscure video called "Dr. Childress Speaks with the Child", I am ready for bed. Our job is done for tonight. May she have a very happy birthday wherever she is, with whomever she is with for.... as my favorite song says, "if you cannot be with the ones' you love, then love the ones you are with". It took me more than two years to stumble upon the holy grail for my "special" family, Childress Speaks to the Child. If only his recipe were that simple. Imagine a world where an adult child trusts his or her parent's instincts and tries to follow Childress' recipe for happiness for 30 days. Imagine how virtually all of that adult child's perceived problems might just fall away like water off a duck's back by simply giving it a chance. If only it were that easy. In fact, it is both that easy and that hard. The 30 days are the easy part, it is getting into the right frame of mind to try the 30-day trial period expoused by Childress that is the hard part. "Bernie the Monkey, you have lanched the message in a bottle before the dawn on Dec. 23. How can I ever thank you? "That's OK", replied Bernie the Monkey, with a loving wink. "That's my job". Happy 18th Birthday Elsie. Love your Dad, Barnyard. XXOO