03.10.2005 - 12:04 p.m.

good fortune

[from notebook #18, written on 10/26/2003]

Fortune cookies. Of course, the In Bed Game is always amusing. I have, since college, collected the fortunes that seem particularly appropriate for that game. I don't eat Chinese/Asian food that often, so I only have four or five of them, but it does seem that everytime I do get a fortune cookie it is strangely apt for the IBG.

I slide them into my wallet and pull them out for amusement, usually while opening a new cookie, showing them to my eating companions for a laugh. These include:

But then things seemed to change a little, as if everyone involved in the process -- from whoever dreams up these things to the packagers and the people who fold them into the cookies, to the server who brings them to us with the bill -- all were conspiring. But not against me, rather the opposite -- conspiring for me. It could also be that my limited evil-mindedness has been evaporating. (Though Niles and I are still mildly amused by the IBG.)

Regardless,

seemed to me not so much humourous as encouraging.

Then. Last time we went to a local buffet, New China, just me, Niles and Ananda. Stuffed ourselves (and while Niles and I stuff much more easily than we used to, what with eating less and working out, the child still requires a good deal of stuffing -- maybe more than ever before). Then the waiter brought us the bill and three cookies. I broke one open for the baby. Neil picked one up, and for some reason I said, "Sweetie, I think that one's mine." He opened it anyway, looked at the fortune and said, "You're right, it is." And handed it to me. [Someday I will get a real account and upload a scan, but for now you're just going to have to take my word for it.]

So delightful. I showed N.D., who I think of as my local mentor of encouragement, and she suggested I make it into a bookmark, even offered her laminator's services. So I have, with embossed gold Oriental stamps. I will read it often, and take it as a good omen.

before - after