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I am not greater than, I am not less than, I am equal.  That’s the message on this t-shirt that I designed a few months ago.  If I have hard feelings toward someone and blame it on the other person’s behavior– I am being ‘greater than.’  If I feel intimidated by someone else and their personal convictions, I am thinking of myself as ‘less than.’  Being ‘equal’ to everyone, and recognizing my own value and worth without anyone’s approval or validation is a new concept to me.  It’s going to take practice and meditation, but I’m worth it.

They were bright, red, and beautiful.  Betty had the brightest pair of fingerless gloves I’d seen in a long time.  When I told her I had a green pair, she said “I can’t feel anything unless I wear these!” I nodded my head and asked if I could snap a picture of our hands together.  She didn’t hesitate.  Afterward I read back her name & birth date, and handed her a clipboard to give her nurse.  Yep, I check in some cool people at the clinic.

Pearls of wisdom from the driest man I don’t know: Stephen Wright.
“When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.”
“The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”
“Hard work pays off in the future– laziness pays off now.”
“The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.”

I remember this picture (without the pumpkin) hanging in my grandparent’s living room, it always seemed sweet and sad because no one ever answered when Jesus knocked, and it seemed like they never would.  Even as a kid I was able to grasp the guilt that was associated with the unanswered door, and how the person on the other side must be a miserable wretch because they left Jesus standing outside knocking like an Avon lady when he could be inside enriching their lives.  This image made me smile… maybe because I felt like someone finally might be ‘tricked’ into answering the door with Skittles, Butterfingers, and a Hershey Bar.

We don’t get all shook up around hot surfaces, our Elvis oven mitt still keeps us from becoming a hunka hunka burning love.  I don’t how we acquired this memento of the first pop icon postage stamp, but I do remember that we were living in Virginia when everyone started “itching like a man on a fuzzy tree” for the Elvis stamp.  Roman Mars and the good folks at 99 Percent Invisible brought me back to that time with this story.  Also thanks to my mother for my earliest Elvis memories, and for taking me and my sister to see him in concert.  Happy birthday Mom!

There are names that my grandparents knew that were forgotten by the time I was born, and someday all the pop culture references I know will fade into obscurity.  I’m not sure how many of my co-workers were familiar with the name I chose for my Chipotle order– but that’s ok.  I did it for myself.  As I took it from the group I started to sing “I knew a man Bojangles and he ate my lunch…”

His eyes wouldn’t stay open, but he couldn’t keep them closed either. He looked like a sleepwalking senior zombie without the drool. His brothers were gone, his friends were on hospice, it was late at night, and Groucho Marx couldn’t sleep again. The last time he had insomnia, he called Alice Cooper, who lived a few blocks away. Most nights when Groucho would go walking after dark around the neighborhood he saw Alice’s lights on. Alice didn’t go to bed until sunrise.  Groucho got his number from a friend and called him when he got back home.  Alice grabbed a six-pack of beer on his way over to Groucho’s house.  They watched a couple of Robert Mitchum movies and made short work of the beer.  Halfway through ‘Night of the Hunter’ Alice realized that Groucho had fallen asleep.  He threw away the empty beer cans and tip-toed out the back door.  Two nights later when Groucho couldn’t sleep, he called Alice again. 

-this is what went through my imagination when I read that Groucho Marx and Alice Cooper used to hang out together after midnight.

While tuned to a folk station at a low volume, I heard something that reminded me of this tune by Old Crow Medicine Show… oh yeah! “tell me what you need in the whole wide world!”

W.W.A.J.T. — What would Abe jam to?  An old friend who works in the health system sent me a message that asked “what are you listening to?”  He was listening to Tenacious D, I was listening to an online folk station.  I like to accompany my messages with images and found this one with Abraham Lincoln.  If there was a tune that would make Abe bob his head and arch his eyebrows I wonder what it would be.

Yep, that’s all we need, another excuse to keep all of those expired sauce packets.  I just read that Heinz is making 50 collectible sauce packets– one for each state in the country!  There’s also a chance to win serious prize money if you collect EVERY ONE OF THEM!  So the next time you see one of those cars packed tight with hoarded papers, the person driving it could be rich one day… or they could be covered in sauce if they hit a pothole too fast.