Of Fatred and freed Dryer sheets

My friend told me it was meant to be; it was Destiny.

I mean, yeah, OK, I’d go on a date with him any day… But…, destiny?

I’d hold his hand while staring into his cosmic eyes, and we’d navigate the uncomfortable silences with talk of today and tomorrow; of hermit crabs and honeydew, radishes and Rohipnol, and of sand dollars and salami….

Yup…, if I could choose anyone to go on a blind date with, it would definitely be this hunk. He’s got everything a girl could want: confidence, creativity, power, humility, sensitivity and girth… And, to top it off, he’s got the best sense of humour of anyone you’ll ever meet!

Yeah, he’s got it all (… and a beautifully comedic lack of explanation for any of it).

So, who is this exciting and spontaneous blind date candidate of my moist dreams?

Well..,, as I’ve never worried about over-using fondue clichés here before…, I’ll just go ahead and tell you…:

He’s (and here’s where we dip our skewered clichés in fondue cheese together…):

The Universe, The Genetically-altered Jellyfish, and Everything.

And it’s because of the daily prospects for a blind date with this romance-improvising catch that I can confidently refute my friends’ claims of “fate” and “destiny” as explanations for the strange things that happen in our lives.

After all, the blind date of MY fantasies has no plans. He might surprise me by wearing a a flowered MooMoo with baby bonnet to meet my parents one day, and sport a $1000 pin-striped suit with matching ballet slippers and tentacle-protectors to the laundromat the next.

But, he certainly doesn’t care much who I haphazardly meet, or what serendipitous opportunities arise from random encounters…

BUT…, on the other hand…, blind dates aren’t always meant to be...,

and I do sometimes feel like there is something incredibly magical going on in the world to make things fall, Paulo Coehlo-style, into unjustified puzzle piece place (“…as if the universe were conspiring to make it so…”).

I mean, how else could you explain arriving at the laundry machines at exactly the moment your washing and drying simultaneously finish and a Russian neighbor catapults the door open with dirty socks flying, dryer sheets fluttering in the sunset dusk, and the lost black cat appearing after a week-long absence??

Or, when your best friend from NY visits for the weekend, and the planets align to allow Dylan parodies, art openings, wilting inflatable mattresses, Trader Joe’s wine bottle line-ups and finger-scooped brie to become fantastic, laughter-filled memories…?

Or when journalism-aspiring immigration workers meet children’s book illustrators/musical geniuses and esl-teaching/obscure blog-post hobbyists for bouts of ferry trips, tide-trapping beach hikes, and acapella renditions of “I love little baby ducks, small pick-up trucks, ….and onions!” …??

So, here’s to blind dates that show up when least expected!
To the chaotic beauty of existence, and to the three Norse Norns whose watering buckets might still accidentally spill on our porch weeds when we’re busy worrying about the bandit orangutang raping our kittens!
And to Columbus (who did some sailing and, by some arbitrary advertising scheme of fate, got me the day off of work today), to old friends in new places, bold charades in old faces, Thai food buffets, blackberry bushes going into dormancy, morning Mimosas, egg and swiss on bagels, the NY Times, little baby ducks, birds of the world,

…and squirrels.

*P.s. for those who don’t know the brilliant, poetic lyrics that manage to rhyme “birds of the world” with “squirrel” and “onion” with “tomatoes on the vine” and “kisses from a child”, have a re’listen to this song. It’s fantastic! The giggles it invokes should definitely make it well worth the time!