There Is No Time Like the Pleasant

I love Chinese fortune cookies. Each restaurant must order from a different fortune cookie company, because you can get fortunes that lie along an incredible range of truth. There are the fortunes that are so general that anyone would be an idiot to disagree, such as...

Love is very nice because love is the first emotion babies feel.

I just dare you to disagree with that one. Also included in the obvious category, but adding a note of real wisdom is...

Courage is not to be without fear but to accomplish in spite of fear.

Sure. Good stuff, and we all need a reminder of simple truths that never change.

There are the fortunes that promise big stuff but may or may not deliver, like...

You will soon receive good news.

I would hope that every person at some point in his or her life will receive good news about something, but it certainly depends on your perspective as to what is good news and what is not. Still, that's one to tape to your mirror as a morning affirmation.

And then there are the fortunes that simply confuse. What sent me into a perplexity was this one I got today:

A modest man never talks to himself.

What is it about modest men that creates a barrier to self-talk? Is it that a man's modesty restrains him from acknowledging himself as an individual worthy of being talked to? Is that, indeed, modesty? or is that sort of modesty something more like complete and utter self-loathing? Perhaps the word "modesty" was an ill-advised word substituted for a more appropriate adjective, but I can't think of a word with a similar meaning that would work here, either. Humble? Unassuming? Self-effacing?

Do modest men talk to others, if not to themselves? Clearly, they do. I think we've all met modest men who have no trouble speaking like normal human beings and engaging in a rational conversation.

Ah, well. Perhaps someone out there can enlighten me on the nature of modesty and whether or not it leads to insanity (or sanity, if you, like myself, believe that it is completely normal to talk to oneself all the live-long day).

Here's one to spark a dinner table conversation. True or false?

Sudden financial and romantic happenings surprise and delight.

The title of this post is a fortune I received when we took our oldest, Sian, out for her birthday dinner a couple months ago. It had been a jolly meal, punctuated by much laughter between Husband, Sian, and myself, so when I opened my fortune cookie and traded it with Husband (it's been a tradition for the 16 years of our marriage to crack open a fortune cookie and allow the other person to pull out the fortune), I burst into laughter so hard that I attracted the notice of the other patrons. Even the ever-present and helpful waiter (age 11) came by to see if I needed a refill on my drink -- which I did; but it had nothing to do with the fortune. I am completely for reals. That was what was written. Draw your own conclusions.