104-Turning The World Upside Down... After a quick squeeze of the blue-walled tires, satisfied that they were still firm to keep pavement riding smooth enough to avoid the slog of a flat tire, I pulled on my kid-sized helmet (don’t tell anyone I still wear kids gear and shoes…), gloves and glasses and got all five foot four and three quarters of me on the saddle.  The right shifter on my Sette frame mountain bike was still sticky from a

103-How Much Do We Understand? I guess I would have to say I was slightly nervous as I hopped out of our 2015 Town and Country soccer-mom minivan, built perfectly for toting a family of 5 around the city and beyond.  I quickly glanced back at the adjacent lane of traffic also stopped at the red-light Jen, behind the wheel, was awaiting to turn to favorable green.  Before it reached full green, I had skipped across the dirty pavement in

74-Building Deeper Empathy Standing in the idle street, the air unseasonably cool for an early August evening, I listened intently as my neighbor continued her comments about the state of our great United States of America. “What about the one in Walmart? No, maybe I’m thinking of California at the garlic festival…” My mind instantly started making connections, unexplainable brain matter formulated thoughts, hypothesis’ and philosophical quandaries that provoked an unfamiliar emotion inside of me. I responded with a sense