Here’s what the Dali Lama had to say on Twitter this morning.

“The capacity to devote yourself to the welfare of others yields otherwise unobtainable power and potential for good.”

Good tweet.  Thanks Your Holiness.

[Insert segue from Dali Lama to tattoos here.]

I’m sporting a temporary tattoo of a prickly pear cactus on my calf this morning.  A friend who’s running the Cactus Rose 50 permanent markered it on me last night after a training run at Eisenhower Park.  The idea is to leave the cactus unshorn until the race on the 29th. Prickly Pear indeed.  I am very pleased.  R. will bring have her markers out at Bandera Friday night, if you want to get in on the prickly action.  All the cool hairy kids are doing it.

[Segue from tattoos to coaching.]

I got to talk to Joe Prusaitis on the phone yesterday afternoon about coaching.  (Remember how I’m coaching with Tejas Trails now?)  It was the most enjoyable phone conversation I’ve had in a long while.  Who knows where all this will lead, but it’s entirely engaging right now and I’m wallowing in all the learning opportunities.  As soon as I get through preparing the house for my parents visit (aka actually cleaning things), prepping my presentation for the AORE conference, and running my last long run for Javelina, I want to get a training/coaching reading list together.  Send me suggestions.

[Segue to being done writing.]

It’s picture day for Asa today, so I’ve got to see if the boy has anything clean to wear right now.  I also need to rub some more lip balm on his little lips while he’s still asleep.  They’re super chapped and he can’t stand having any sort of balm on them during the day.  “Please put it on after I’m asleep.  Please, Mom.  Pleeeeeeease.”  Picture me tiptoeing into his room last night, trying to figure out where his face was in the dark, and then swooping down and smearing Aquaphor across his lower lip.  Weird.

News of my amazing alcohol stove will have to wait until tomorrow.  Rob did send me a note pointing out that what he’d made me looked like this and not the picture I posted yesterday.

I need to write back as soon as I’m done playing Super Chapstick and tell him how Asa has fallen in love with the little stove and sleeps with it on his nightstand — and how I had to use a web image of an alcohol stove because I couldn’t risk waking him up and having to answer an infinity of questions.