Friday, March 7, 2008

Good Fortune

Sugar and I work at the same school on Tuesdays and Fridays. Fridays after the children have had their lunches and laid down for nap time she and I head out to a restaurant. One week she pays, the next I do.

Today Sugar and I ate at a little Chinese / Japanese restaurant in town. We had bento boxes which we shared, she got sashimi and I had vegetable tempura. Now in a bento box you get a salad, soup (miso with bits of wakami and tofu and green onions floating in it), four pieces of california roll, two little things that I don't know what they are but they taste best as soon as they come from the kitchen and not so good after they've gotten cold, sticky rice, and whatever you ordered (tempura, sashimi, sushi...)

So like I said, we got vegetable tempura and sashimi. Last time we went we did the sushi and the sashimi but the sushi comes in large pieces that are difficult to cut in half with chopsticks. The sashimi has two pieces each of four different kinds of fish, raw of course. The sashimi is easy to share. The tempura you just have to pick and choose your favorite pieces and hope that they aren't also the other person's favorites (unfortunately her tastes correspond to mine).

At the end of the meal they bring you a plate with orange slices. This time after the waitress took away our dishes the host brought us another plate of orange slices, either because we're special or maybe they got a really good deal on oranges this week. We were about full enough to roll out of there by then. We get our fortune cookies and I make up a new superstition that you have to eat half the cookie before reading your fortune so the fortune will stick. So I eat half my cookie, pull the fortune out of the other half and here are my lucky numbers. YAY! I flip it over and the other side is BLANK! OMG WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Well, I'm flipping out, cause this isn't the first time something like this happened. Last year across town another Chinese restaurant gave me a cookie that didn't even have a piece of paper in it at all. I thought I was probably going to be hit by a truck when I stepped off the sidewalk or something. I mean, how long does the rest of your life have to be to merit a fortune? I hand the blank fortune to Sugar and she flips it over to the side with the lucky numbers and above them it says "Luck is coming your way." Whew! That's better. Maybe I'll live after all. Maybe I'll even have a good life and good fortune. Maybe the publisher I'm sending my manuscript to will get a fortune cookie that says Publish ChameLeon. Is that how the universe works?

6 comments:

j said...

I will interpret blank for you: Wamblings! Chick, what are you doing looking to this stupid fortune cookie when you are a fortune maker? Go out there and make history. The world is a blank page for you, fill it up!

See? That wouldn't fit in that little bitty cookie. Going to eat with hubby now. I'll check in with you later. Jen

Wamblings said...

Jen, Awe, thanks Hun. I like your interpretation. We had a good laugh over both instances. Hopefully others can get a good laugh out of my recounting them.

Pains Taker said...

First, I definitely agree with Jen. Second, I love the new pic. Hope to see you at IHOP, Thursday.

j said...

I thought about the blank fortune cookie paper this evening and it would make a cool post. Do you care if I take your experience, tweak it into my idea and use it?

I am with ns - I like your new photo too! Aren't you pretty, even distorted by glass!

Jen

Julianne said...

Those food descriptions made me hungry. Ever considered doing food writing?

Fortune Schmortune. At least you got to eat the cookie :)

Wamblings said...

Yep gals, I definitely need to quit worrying about what my fortune cookies say or don't say. The important part is, after all, the cookie. That tiny bit of sweetness that I can get away with eating with no ill effects.

Jen, by all means run with the idea. You have no idea how many ideas I have gotten from other's and then run with them spinning them my own way. An absolute favorite I found in a poem. "pins and beetles" Loved it. Used it in one of my poems shortly thereafter. Ripped off those three words wholesale. :P Thanked the other poet nicely.

Julianne, any magazines where I can mix humor with food? I think food writing could be a direction for me to go though. I can rhapsodize endlessly about food. Maybe share recipes that I have tweaked to make them safe for my delicate immune system. I'll be talking to you about this next time I see you.