…

Me: (Responding to Gussie digging through the laundry hamper looking for her leotard — getting ready to go to her ballet lesson…) Oh. I’m sorry. I debated on whether or not to wash colors or whites this morning and I chose whites so your leotard didn’t get washed.

Gussie: That’s O.K. It’s never washed for Wednesday anyway…

Shes’s eleven and –

she’s very good at it…

I enjoy a good fight! Don’t you?

I like watching them, hearing about them, being in them,

winning them.

It was clear by her actions that she definitley did not want to be seen with me.

She was pretending to be so cool, as cool as a cucumber and it wasn’t until I noticed that her cheeks were as red as beets, that I realized what was actually going on:

THE UNDERWEAR!

As I stood there at the check out counter, unassumingly paying for her lavender underpants and brown t-shirt, Gussie was trying to dis-associate. She was trying to act as if we were not together at all. She was trying to act like that undwear wasn’t hers.

It was clear by her actions that she definitley did not want to be seen with me.

Kids!

Kids are just so funny. They can be self conscious about the silliest things.

Then I thought:

“Turn around is fair play”.

Next week Nick Lachey’s new CD comes out and I have just got to have it.

I love Nick Lachey! However, I would prefer to keep that to myself.

So,

Next week it will be Gussie’s turn to stand at the counter and pay for the “underwear” while my cheeks turn beet red and I try and dis-associate…

Isn’t it just the best when you meet someone for the first time and you make a connection?

You know how that is — when you first meet someone and you really hit it off. You like them. They “LOVE” you!

Don’t you think that if:

The Emperor clearly has no clothes on,

that –

someone close to him should let him know?

It would be the kindest thing to do…

Didn’t I tell you?

Well, it should never have happened.

It’s 7:00 in the morning. Auguste says goodbye and steps onto the elevator. Gussie and I wave goodbye to him from the window. Gussie sits back down to finish her breakfast and from the other side of the counter, I begin to wash the breakfast dishes.

That is when it happened.

While cleaning up the kitchen, I suddenly step on something wet-ish. I think to myself “What has Gussie dropped on the floor? What is so hard about tossing garbage in the garbage can?”

I look down to pick-up and throw away what it is I have stepped on, only to discover that what I have stepped on is:

A frog!

Do you hear me!!!!?

(I realize that the frog must have been hiding in the leaves of one of the fig trees that I had delivered yesterday)

I am clear that for Gussie to find out what is happening would mean the end of my peace for the next 20 years, because she would be forever glued to my side in frog-fear.

So,

I muster up all of the courage that I have — and I mean it takes all of the courage that I have, I reach down and with a wad of paper towels, I scoop up the stepped on frog. I run down the hall to the bathroom and flush it down the toilet — but not before I see all of its frog guts spinning out of sight.

YUCK!!!!!

I still have not fully recovered.

I mean, I live in a New York City apartment!

This was completely out of order.

There is a story that the late George Plimpton told about the great Muhammad Ali.

George Plimpton shared about a talk that Ali had given at Harvard University. He recalled that at the end of Ali’s talk, one of the students yelled to Ali “give us a poem!”. (Plimpton offered that, up until that time the shortest poem on record was about fleas. The poem went: Adam, had ‘em. )

Ali paused, looked around and said:

Me, We.

We have this tendency as human beings, to view our lives in terms of an “Us” and a “Them”, don’t we? And Ali’s powerful two word poem really presents an interesting possibility, doesn’t it? It presents the possibility of —

setting aside fear, competition and struggle in exchange for a world that works for everyone.

Imagine.

Am I missing something?

As I sit here on Friday night writing, working, as my email Inbox looks the same as it did at 3 hours ago, I realize that this Friday night isn’t too different from all of my other Friday nights. This Friday night is pretty –

“status-quo”.

Now I can’t help but feel like everyone in the world is having FUN!

Everyone –

but me…

Is there anything better than your morning coffee break?

Yes.

(HBO on Demand)

“Those who dream by night in the
dusty recesses of their minds
Awake to find that all was vanity;
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,
That they may act their dreams with open
eyes to make it possible.” — T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia)

To have a dream is magnificent! To be able to dream is a miraculous privilege.

And, while many of us have the ability to dream, few of us will develop the capacity necessary to see that dream through because…