Every year

Elementary school kids love to tease each other with tricky questions such as, "What weighs more, a ton of feathers or a ton of lead?" and, "What's longer: an hour in the dentist's chair or an hour spent eating ice cream?"

Of course, we know the answer to the second one. An hour spent watching Julia Roberts acting in a movie actually takes 23 hours to get through.

I think of these non-question questions every year at this time, because (fill in the year) "_ _ _ _ has been the worst year EVER for celebrity passings!"  Every single year, people bemoan the loss of beloved actors, singers, athletes and the occasional dotty old senator who stopped making sense during the Eisenhower era, and every year, a similar toll takes place.  It would take a lot of purely objective statistical analysis to verify my hunch, but I'd bet that every year, the same amount of celebrities shuffle off this mortal coil, and while sad, it shouldn't surprise us.

And, admit it: you thought Zsa Zsa Gabor had passed away long ago, just as I did.

Another popular thought that we all share:  Someone will report that they are ill, and go into tremendous detail about what ails them. And with today's social media allowing us to trade everything, they really go into detail about what is going into and coming out of them, their temperature, their fever and chills, and how they plan to battle back with diets of applesauce and Gatorade.

And someone will pop up with, "There's something going around!"

Was I the last to notice
the pink "31" in their logo?

And someone else will tip in with, "My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious."

Friends, you don't have to work for the Centers for Disease Control to be able to say this, but there is ALWAYS "something going around"!  Always. 

And there are always days when we feel marvelous and everyone treats us well and that cute cashier person gives us a little smile and we feel great about everything and we're not coughing or sniffling and people we care about have new babies in the family. Let's celebrate those days!