LIMITED EDITION

Since I quit smoking, I have acquired a few new habits. One of which is replacing my 6 or so cups of coffee a day with hot tea. Well, not all of them - but quite a few. In the morning I used to fill a Starbucks Travel Mug to the brim with the strongest coffee known to man - and off to work I would go. Now, I fill my to-go mug with hot water and take a hot tea for my morning ride. I have been trying all kinds of tea and when I saw the tea that is good for detoxing your liver and kidneys, I thought to myself "God knows I could use that." It's called Yogi Tea and each teabag has a different (sometimes enlightening) saying on the tag. Like some of my friends (both RL and SL), I have a quite the addictive personality and the Yogi Tea has replaced my coffee and cigarettes as my morning ritual. I have come to refer to the saying on this morning cup as my daily "Yogiscope."

Unlike previous Yogiscope's, today's saying has bugged me all day, It said, "You are not unlimited". My first thought upon reading this was, "Hell yeah I am. I can't get one fourth of my 'to-do' list done in a day. I can't take off work whenever I want. I can't lay out in the sun today. (I could, but who the hell would want to in 20-degree weather)." The thoughts kept coming all day in relation to 'You are not unlimited'. Yes, I have many less limits than a lot of people and not as many more than others. I consider myself to be in the exact middle of the scale of limitation. And I'm not so dense that I don't understand that this Yogi stuff is supposed to have deeper meaning. Even on my deepest level, I still cannot find my way around limits.

I avoided the Yogi tea for the rest of the day, sticking to Tazo instead because it doesn't have any profound little statements attached to it anywhere. Once home, I even brewed a cup of coffee to avoid tea alltogether. Figuring the whole tea habit was now forcing me to be such a deep thinker that I would soon quit brushing my hair and wander around in my fuzzy slippers all day muttering bits and pieces of Socrates and Confucius. I even had the thought that I might need to start smoking and go back to the world of nicotine and caffiene. Pondering this thought, I picked up my mug with both hands to admire it. It's my most favorite mug and has been for about 8 or 10 years. It is big, but not too big. It is hand-painted in cheerful bright tones and signed on the bottom. The handle is perfectly shaped like it was made exactly to fit my hand. It is chipped here and there and I have looked for a replacement for it for a couple of years now. I have purchased a few that I thought could take its place, but they let me down for one reason or another. Mostly I think it's the shape of the handle and how it feels in my hand. Rather than drink my coffee or tea from a pretty, new mug - I pick the chippy old mug. I pick the handmade mug, the unique mug. The mug that is not pretty and will soon be in such bad shape it will need to be discarded.

If Yogi had been sitting in front of me at that moment, I would have thwacked him between the eyes and said....."The tag should have read, 'You are a limited edition.'