Three things from DAH. Free every Friday!
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DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. According to Merriam-Webster, all three springboard words today were first used in 1956.

First up this week, Green Card …  
I was shocked when a U.S.Border Agent used a Sharpy marker to invalidate my alien registration card with a large black X. "Get a new photo," he said. True, the baby picture on my green card didn't look much like grown-up me. Not much hair, to begin with, and no mustache. I moved to the USA with my British citizen parents when I was an infant. I was a British citizen with a green card (which is now more blue than green) until well-into adulthood. Then, in my 30s, I became a naturalized US citizen. I studied for and passed a test I'm sure few of my born-citizen friends could have passed without hours of study. Two favorite memories of the naturalization process: 1) I was a more fluent English speaker than the woman who tested my language ability … she worked diligently to make my test "fair" despite my telling her that whatever she said in English I could write down; 2) Hundreds of naturalized immigrants from all over the world gathering with their proud families in San Francisco's Masonic Auditorium, all sworn into citizenship together. So many posing with big smiles by the US flags for photos. I felt such a sense of national pride and responsibility. 
Most of us would fail the U.S. citizenship test, survey finds

Second up this week, Gobsmacked …  
Astounding! Astounding that I'm gobsmacked so infrequently. Surprise used to make me laugh, unless I was surprised by not-nice-news. Now, I worry that I may play life too cool, thus building an emotional barrier against surprise. I've recently decided upon a path of radical contentment, however. Doesn't it seem likely that being radically content ought to leave me open to gobsmacking? I do hope that my calm surface of contentment, my still waters, will allow me to be gobsmackingly splashed on occasion. Ah! A simple life punctuated by gobsmacked laughter! I love that idea.
Expect Nothing: Live Frugally On Surprise

Third up this week, Glitz …  
This does rather gobsmack me: The word glitz was first used in 1956? What did we use before that? And how do I justify my complete lack of awareness of children's beauty pageants? Oh, I loved the movie Little Miss Sunshine, so I evidently have some awareness. But pageantry as a thing, a life-training-ground for the young, something to be taken very seriously. Well, I'm gobsmacked. I suppose, not personally knowing any children involved in pageanting, I developed a blind spot. I'm going to work on those darn spots. So long as lighting them up doesn't ruin the surprise. 
The Difference Between Glitz and Natural Beauty Pageants

A Book I'll Read When My Inexpensive Used Copy Arrives: 
The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What's Right in Front of You, by Kelly Boys. 
"This worthwhile debut from Boys, who helped launch Google's Search Inside Yourself mindfulness program, lays out a self-help plan designed to address the personal "blind spots" that distort people’s thinking...[THE BLIND SPOT EFFECT] is persuasive, and readers will appreciate the series of meditation practices provided." (Publishers Weekly)

And a bit more:

Expect Nothing, by Alice Walker

Expect nothing.
 Live frugally
On surprise.

become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing.
 Live frugally
On surprise.


And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver’s poem Sometimes …  

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.