Susan Helbig

[County Highway @countyhwy]

The Three Graces

[Susan Helbig @SusanHelbig]

@dvesean Caution: listening to Flirtin’ With Disaster while driving could have you flirt in’ with a speeding ticket.
My husband and I were on the way to see Molly Hatchet when I had my first migraine & had to return home:(

[Susan Helbig @SusanHelbig]

@dvesean At Three Rivers, I watched Bill Buckner tag up & try to take third on a fly ball to Clemente. Nice try but no dice, BB.
#Retire21

[Susan Helbig @SusanHelbig]

@Steigerworld2 @Jimfrombaseball He was my brother’s favorite player. In fact, my brother insisted on being called Smoky or he wouldn’t answer. His Christmas stocking even said “Smoky.”
Btw “yinz” was banned from our family’s vernacular.

[Pat Narduzzi @CoachDuzzPittFB]

Over the last 50 years, @Pitt_FB has produced 9 Pro Football Hall of Famers.

No college football program has produced more.

And we're not done!! #H2P

[B’s Spin🐝 @BsSpin]

One of the internet’s greatest little legends 😂💄

Willa Sowell was just 2 years old when her dad caught her covered in her mom’s lipstick.

“Did you ask anybody if you could put it on?”

“I asked myself.”

And where did she buy it?

“I buyed it from Homie Depot.” 🤣

Home Depot loved it so much they sent her a bucket of goodies, and the family even ended up on Kelly Clarkson.

Years later, “Homie Depot” still makes me laugh 😂🧡

[Guitar Gods Unleashed @gguworld]

Dickey Betts wrote "Jessica" to be played with two fingers, as a tribute to Django Reinhardt, who could only use two.

Named after his baby daughter, dancing in the room while he wrote it.

[Lloyd Legalist @LloydLegalist]

Safety first.

Just kidding, coffee first.

Safety's like third or fourth.

[Susan Helbig @SusanHelbig]

@KatieTalksPens Ooo—better start training now for the Flyers 😏 ♥️🖤💛

[Merriam-Webster @MerriamWebster]

A single piece of confetti is called a ‘confetto.’

spaghetti = spaghetto

graffiti = graffito

[James Lucas @JamesLucasIT]

This is one of the most famous paintings in America, and most people have no idea what they are actually looking at...

The painting is Christina's World, made by Andrew Wyeth in 1948, and the woman was real: her name was Anna Christina Olson, Wyeth's neighbour in Cushing, Maine. Since childhood a degenerative condition had slowly taken the strength from her legs, until walking was no longer possible. She refused a wheelchair, and for her entire adult life she chose to drag herself across the ground with her arms instead, going wherever she wanted to go under her own power.

Wyeth saw her one afternoon from an upstairs window, alone in that vast field, crawling slowly toward the house on the hill. He said the painting was an attempt to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless. Her world, he said, was limited physically but by no means spiritually.

That is what turns this painting from a portrait of frailty into one of the most triumphant images ever made...

Look at it long enough and it stops being about what her body took from her, and becomes about what she would not stop doing anyway. The field is enormous and she is small and the house is far away, and still she goes, because the alternative, to be carried, to give up, to let the distance win, was something she simply would not accept.

There is one more thing: Christina loved this painting. Pink was her favorite color, and Wyeth had placed her exactly where she most wanted to be, out in the open, in her own field, under her own sky. Late in her life, when she could no longer even crawl out to that field, she said something that holds the whole meaning of art inside it:

"Andy put me where he knew I wanted to be. Now that I can’t be there anymore, all I do is think of that picture, and I’m there."

[Susan Helbig @SusanHelbig]

@BrianBrenberg These are the good old days—and they certainly fly by.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

In Georgia I entered a Chick-fil-A drive-thru line of forty cars.

I turned off my engine. I prepared to wait the way my ancestors waited out a siege.

Six minutes later I was holding chicken.

I do not know what happened to the other thirty-nine cars. The line moved like water that had somewhere to be.

A young woman walked between the cars taking orders on a small tablet, on foot, in the sun, smiling like the sun was her idea.

I said thank you.

She said, "My pleasure."

I did not think about it then. I should have.

At the window I thanked the young man for the food.

"My pleasure."

I thanked him for the sauce.

"My pleasure."

I thanked him for thanking me—

"My pleasure."

I want to be clear about what was happening.

This was a duel.

In Japan I trained in courtesy for forty years. Bowing angles. Seasonal greetings. The correct depth of apology for seventeen distinct situations.

I was a white belt in that drive-thru.

I escalated. I used my most formal English. I thanked him on behalf of my entire family line.

He said, "My pleasure," and gave me extra sauce.

Extra sauce. Unprovoked. A counterattack.

I returned the next day to reclaim my honor.

It was Sunday. The restaurant was closed.

All of them were closed. In the entire country. They close every Sunday, and they have closed every Sunday since the beginning, because the founder made a promise, and the promise did not expire when he did.

I stood in the empty parking lot and understood I had lost twice.

Once to a teenager with sauce.

Once to a man I will never meet, who kept his word so long it became a building.

In my country we say a samurai's word is his life.

I had never seen a restaurant say it back.

I returned Monday. I ordered. And this time I said it first, before she could.

"My pleasure."

She smiled and said, "It sure is."

America, I surrender.

It was my pleasure.

[Chuck Swindoll @chuckswindoll]

There's no "spiritual" drawer and "ordinary" drawer in God's economy. The commute, the inbox, the pile of dishes — all of it can be done for Him. "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). Your Monday is as sacred as your Sunday. What ordinary task could you offer to Him as worship today?

[Daniel Krauthammer @dkrauthammer]

My father, Charles @Krauthammer, had a tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence aloud every year on the Fourth of July. As America turns 250 this #July4th, I encourage every citizen to read it with their family, friends & neighbors and to celebrate the miracle of our country’s founding 🇺🇸

https://t.co/g8pDcVBDwP

[Susan Helbig @SusanHelbig]

@KatieTalksPens I’m sorry this is what summer brings you—hopefully for a short time. We had no a/c growing up. I’m not built for that weather, either.

[Jeff Marek @JeffMarek]

A great Phil Kessel Stanley Cup story from Phil Pritchard on The Hockey Lifers.

[Buzz Patterson @BuzzPatterson]

This is hard, guys. Really hard! God Bless America! 💪🇺🇸

[Jeremy Siegel @jersiegel]

Norway fans are doing a “Viking Row” up the escalator at Boston’s South Station before heading to the World Cup

Adding this to the list of things I’ve never seen before and probably never will again

[The Ways of A Gentleman @Gentleman_Ways]

One of the greatest superpowers in life is learning not to be offended.

People will criticize you.
Say things you don't like.

Let them.

The moment you stop allowing other people's words and actions to control your happiness and mindset, you take back ownership of your life.