Synchronicity @ MindSay 
Well, this story is kind of odd. I have been house sitting the past couple of days and will be for the next couple of weeks. The people I am sitting for are librarians. He is in tech services for the library. He set me up with the password to his wireless so I can be online at his house. All was well for a day until the internet went out.
Yeesh.
Normally not that big of a deal but I am making a birthday gift for a friend whose 60th party is on Saturday and I need the internet to get the gift done and I am running out of time. One of the things I needed to do before using the internet was scan some photos into my computer. I headed home yesterday to use the scanner there (didn't work...long story) and while being frustrated by technology, I happened to hear an advertisement for Inside the Actors Studio. I LOVE that show! I hardly ever get to see it because it is on Monday nights and I always work Monday nights. Anyhoo, yesterday's episode was featuring....drumroll please....BON JOVI! I super duper heart Bon Jovi and am, in fact, going to see him in concert in April. (I just got tickets last week!) Okay, so Bon Jovi is going to be on that show with the kickass James Lipton and they hardly ever (if ever?) have musicians on there. I was psyched--until I realized that I wouldn't be able to see it. The people I am house sitting for have TiVo but no cable, so SOL for me. Flash forward to Tuesday.
Since I didn't work until 6pm tonight I figured I'd use today to work on the present. Alas, no internet. So I tried to figure out a solution and what I came up with was this:
I would go home and use the free internet there. 'Cept, home is more than 20 minutes away. I figured that'd be pretty out of the way and I could find something closer. Then it hit me. I was staying mere blocks from Grand Avenue (a major shopping area) and they simply MUST have a Starbucks in that area. I thought I heard that S'bucks has free wifi--so I figured this would be cool. A nice hot chocolate (did I mention I don't drink coffee and am therefore unfamiliar with the counterculture that is Starbucks?) and some work on the gift then home for lunch. Turns out there is a S'bucks only moments from their house and I bought my Hocho and settled in. GRR. Guess I had heard wrong. They do have free wifi, but only if you are a member of some stupid buying program and would I like to sign up? Hell no.
Thinking quickly, I decided to travese the three miles to Hamline (by car, I wasn't that ambitious). I got here. Logged in and found that I couldn't download what I needed bc of Hamline's firewall. F$#%!
But then, aha!, there is always the public library. I know there is one only blocks away from Hamline. So I head there, go inside and log in. Everything was ticking along nicely when it suddenly booted me out of the system. I logged back in and tried again...seemed okay then I got booted again! WTF? The guy working there was 110 if he was a day and he couldn't help. So I configured my card to work at the St. Paul Public Library system (making five systems it is now active in-awesome!) and headed back to the car.
I don't use wifi very often in public and I was out of places to go. After all this time avoiding driving 25 minutes there and back I was now left with that as my only option. And realize that I had spent 90 minutes thus far running around town getting jack shit done. Homeward bound, I was.
I got home and let myself in at 12:59pm. I set my computer on the counter and grabbed the tv remote. I figured while it was downloading I could watch some mindless tv. I flicked on the tv and switched it to Bravo (they usually have reruns of Project Runway or Top Chef on during the day) and literally, at that second, a new program was starting. It was--no kidding--the Bon Jovi edition of Inside the Actors Studio! Holy shit!
I had spent the morning thinking what a waste it all was and how annoying my day was turning out to be. But, if I had come at 11 when I first started I would have been done and gone by 1pm and missed that episode. So, my powers of aligning the universe were alive and working subliminally the whole time and this turned out to be a great day. Synchronicity at its best.
Sometimes it totally pays to be the Mistress of the Universe.
In other news, I received an email from my buddy Jan and in it she told me that the coach of the Buffalo Bills was just fired. She was being funny--as she was the only person to defend the moron featured in this story. She claimed she was only playing devil's advocate, but since she is actually FROM Buffalo (or Bflo as Buffalonians say it) I have to wonder......
Man do I hope that this kid has enough sense not to buy another billboard to thank the powers that be for firing this guy. Can you imagine the rant I'd have to go on?
Thanks for the heads up Janny-Jan-Jan. (See people, that's how you get your name in lights!)
Plus, Jan has sworn fealty to the Mistress of the Universe, so she knows it is her duty to send interesting information my way....
I am starting to think so. Doesn't it seem like I have an awful lot of moments of synchronicity? No one else seems to notice these as often as I do--or if they do, they don't report it as often as I do. And I often have episodes that I don't blog about because of time or whatever. Which leads me to wonder, am I more observant than others, thus producing the synchronicity effect more often, or, do I, in fact, control the universe with my mind?
Today, I was sorting a cart of books for reshelving. One of the books (and only one) fell off the cart as I was pushing it. They were packed on there pretty tightly so I was surprised that one fell off. Before I could pick it up, one of my bosses grabbed it and got all excited. It was a book called The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. She started telling me all about this book and how much she loves it and on and on. That's fine. It isn't my cup of tea, but I am glad she was so excited about it.
-THEN-
About 10 minutes later the phone rang and I picked it up. It wasn't busy at all and this was the first call I got today. The woman says to me, "do you have The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood checked in?" No freaking kidding.
Obviously I knew that it was checked in since I had held it in my hand minutes before.
Okay, so that is weird enough, but then.....
A guy called me over to his computer and told me he was having trouble making the page load. I checked it out and I couldn't make it work, so I switched his browser and we went to the site he was at. He told me he was trying to load a television show in case that makes any difference. It doesn't, at all, but I had some time to kill so I said, "whatcha watching?". He said, "Bones."
Bizarre? Not really....
...but then I said, "Oh I love that show, are you watching the new ones?" And he said, "no, I am trying to catch up and I am watching the old ones." I said that I am doing that exact same thing and asked where he was and he said, "the one I am trying to load is called The Passenger in the Oven."
Now, that is weird.
I actually told him about the blog I JUST wrote about that episode and while this might have fallen under the category of TMI, he did agree that this was weird.
Now, both of these episodes happened within a couple hours of each other. That's fairly unusual, right? So I have to think that it is somehow me that is causing these connections. So I am going with Mistress of the Universe.
That will now be my official title and, henceforth, I expect to be addressed as such.
P.S. Apropos of nothing, the title of the blog makes me think of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series from when I was a kid. My brothers were big He-Man fans and I usually played the role of She-Ra. I also had a She-Ra doll that was about half the size of a Barbie Doll--I taught myself how to french braid hair on that tiny little doll and that is still a skill I retain today. See how educational toys can be?
Yesterday, I blogged about a new word that I learned, rochambeau. 15 hours later, I am back, blogging about another new word that I have learned, procuress. And the amazing set of circumstances surrounding my learning the new word.
We'll get back to that in just a moment, because the story of learning procuress is actually pretty cool and begins last night; shortly after the blog about rochambeau.
So, I leave work, mere minutes after finishing that blog and I have a message from Kelly inviting me over to her house for some beers. Sweet. I head over and she and Mark and I sit down to play a trivia game that I brought to their house. It is called Wits and Wagers. It is an awesome game, trivia that anyone can play, absolutely anyone. Mark and Kelly loved the game (so much so that they are borrowing it to play again tonight, with Mark's parents).
Fine, so we play the game and we're having a discussion about the monarchy of England, specifically the reign of Queen Victoria. If you know me, you know I am nuts for this stuff, so we chatted for a bit. Kelly then said that this is not something she knows about. Then later, after a discussion about presidents (specifically, FDR and Grover Cleveland) she said she wished she had more of a background in "general knowledge". I told her I could get her a book. There are tons of books written about condensed history or overviews, etc. I actually had one in mind, this great series I had stumbled across a while back, but I couldn't recall the name. But I told her, no worries, her favorite librarian will come through and I'll bring her something.
Okay, on to this morning. I got to work and I am here with Lisa and she is studying an art book, the paintings of Jan Vermeer. She has an upcoming book club for girls and they are reading the mystery novel, "Chasing Vermeer." Because of that, she wanted to know more about his art, because she figured it would come up in the book club. She then showed me a picture of one of his paintings, called "The Procuress".
Look at where the man in red's left hand is located. Hmm? Racy. Lisa pointed it out to me and said it was fairly provocative. She said maybe the woman in yellow is some sort of lady of the night. It's possible to be sure (turns out, way more than possible). Then she told me the painting was called "The Procuress" and I just couldn't help myself, I looked it up.
Procuress is another word for a female pimp. Or a madam. Whatever you'd like to call her, she arranges for sex for others. Legally, today, a pimp is known as a procurer. Who knew, right?
So there's that. I learned something, it was cool, life moves on.
THEN-- I decided to spend some time searching to see if I could find that book for Kelly. I was having no luck in the catalog, so I turned to Amazon (God love 'em) and did some searching. I could not for the life of me remember the name of the book I wanted, but I spent some time browsing condensed history books. One of the very first ones I stumbled across is called, "Mental Floss Presents Condensed Knowledge: A Deliciously Irreverent Guide to Feeling Smart Again". As you know if you read my blog, I am a huge Mental Floss fan, so I just had to stop and look at this book. The "Search Inside" feature was available, so I click to the first page to get a sense of what this book entails.
The first page of the book deals with history of art and the first section (literally the first thing in the entire book) is all about the Jan Vermeer forgeries (which happens to be what the novel they are reading is about!).
Synchronicity. Joyously wonderful synchronicity. I turned immediately to tell Lisa and even she had to admit, that was pretty cool. This all happened in about the space of one hour, so it was very odd and very noticeable.
In case you were wondering, Amazon came through again and I did find the series I was looking for, Don't Know Much About, by Kenneth C. Davis. There are tons of books in the series including history. (FYI, Kelly is getting #1 on the list bc it was checked in at my library...I would have rather gotten her #2, but this will work and if she likes it she can always get the others).
There you have it folks: Jan Vermeer, procurement, vocabulary lessons, history books and second grade teachers. Somehow, it all makes sense and librarians are the key.
But I have to tell you this story and dedicate it to Mark. You know, this might be my very first post dedicated to Mark, one of my faithful readers. (Hi Mark! *waving*)
Earlier today, I was over at Kelly and Mark's house. Mark and I were chatting and he was telling me about the Twins game (he and his brothers went to Chicago for the Cubs/Twins series) he got to attend. He mentioned that while he was at the game, he was telling one of his brothers a story and he gestured with his hands and suddenly his wedding ring flew off. It landed a couple rows behind him and, luckily, they got it back.
Then, just moments ago, I saw this story on the internet. Turns out a woman in Florida lost her wedding ring at a bus stop. She and her husband have been married 68 years and while waiting for the bus, her ring suddenly flew off her fingers. (She has been steadily shrinking with old age, doncha know?) She and her husband looked for it but couldn't find it. Eventually, they left the scene, but a police officer who knew they had lost it called in a treasure hunter he knows that owns a metal detector. Long story short, the woman got her ring back. Which is all very sweet (read the story if you want more), but not really the point.
Can we take a moment to examine the odds of this? I was not planning to see Kelly today and/or be at their house. Mark was supposed to be at work, but something fell through and he was able to come home for lunch, when I happened to be there. So, we shouldn't have even seen each other at all, much less have time to sit and chat so that he could tell me this story AND THEN, I read a similar story on the internet (as featured news on Yahoo!) the same day?!?!?!?
Talk about synchronicity. (Ironically, the post I am linking to there--also features Kelly).
It was just too, too odd not to post about it.
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