I was annoyed because all I have to drink at work from my personal stash of tea is green tea and black tea. I wish I had an endless supply of the seemingly discontinued (from Costco) London & Co. Fruit & Herb Strawberry and Vanilla Fool tea. As it stands, I have 3 more divine tea bags remaining and save them for “special occasions” like savouring it with NPY who likes strawberries.

Then I looked down at the cardboard tab of my “Awake” (blend of black tea leaves) tea bag and was startled because it read: “Next March 10th you will dance the hoochie koo.” And it says along the bottom of the tab that my tea leaves have been read by <some stamp of a signature>.

Ack! March 10th is my birthday! What a coincidence! What is the hoochie koo? The first definition I glanced at was from Urban Dictionary for the similar-sounding hoochie coochie dance and that is a lapdance! No way! However, there is another UD definition that is far better: “To live a rock and roll lifestyle, free from worry and anxiety. Being a true free-spirit.”

Huh. This is the stuff that makes my mother say, “You should buy a lottery ticket!”The other time Starbucks handed me such a coincidence was two years ago.

We were 8 crazy runners with the crazy idea to participate in a 100-km relay race. The distances run by the team members ranged from 8K to 15- or 16K and my own leg was a little over 14K. We had woken up obnoxiously early for the 6a.m. race start and we were out all day in the rain cheering on teammates, the last of whom wrapped up our relay around 4 p.m.

We treated ourselves to much-deserved hot drinks and I turned my cup to read the “The Way I See It” quote on my cup–because I’ll read anything–and was startled from my drowsiness.

The quote number, #263, was the very same number on our team’s bib! Flam was 263-1 as the first runner and I was 263-4 as the fourth runner. What a coincidence!

Then the quote by Dean Karnazes read, “Run when you can, walk when you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” Besides being a motivational quote applicable to life in general, it was exceptionally relevant to the long, running-centric day we had!