Hi all ... Elissa here. And, as clichéd as it sounds, I'm having one of those "today is the first day of the rest of your life" sort of days.

You know, suddenly things feel all fresh and new ... and your cup of tea tastes crisper ... and the sun seems shinier ... and you look around at this glorious place called earth and you just want to EXPLORE.

You just want to bust out the door and explore and meet and greet and skip through the streets yelling to people you've never met, "Come out of your holes! We're alive! Let's have an adventure!"

And so you would ... You'd all come out and we'd meet in the street and we'd all go to the train station and choose a random destination by each asking a stranger where they're going, then all the destinations go in a hat and we'd draw one and -- BAM!  -- that's our destination. Then, we'd settle in our seats and drink champagne as we watch the world whiz by for three days and we'd share stories about our lives and loves and what we believe and what we're willing to unbelieve and then... we'd arrive. And we'd go straight to the best hotel and say: we need your entire top floor because we're on an adventure. And they'd say, "Well, absolutely." and they would give us their best rooms for free because suddenly we're like this flash mob art group that's traveling the world, being followed by all major networks and newsmagazines because we were living each day as if it really was the first day of the rest of our lives....

And then ... what happens next?

sou·ve·nir 

I love surprises.  And, last night I got a fun one--with some punch.

We were walking back to the car from The Happy Gnome's Oktoberfest tent, where we had just seen a fantastic show by my favorite close to home band--Pert Near Sandstone.  Well, I was sort of off in my own world, humming to myself, when words stamped in the concrete sidewalk caught my eye. Curious, I stopped to look. I thought it might be a "The sewer/power/phone lines are here." type of message from the city, but it wasn't. It was a poem. A poem?  A poem.  "Well, sheesh," I thought, "You don't see that everyday." (and why not, I wondered) My sidewalk poetry radar now up, I scanned the concrete over the next few blocks...and there were more, here and there along the way...what a find!

Here's my favorite and the one that left the biggest impression (sorry for the pun--and, yes, it being a haiku probably has a lot to do with its elevated status):

Origami bird
You have such long wings to fly
Why do you sit still?