It’s funny how things work out sometimes. Last night, my wife asked me if I wanted to go out and get something to eat. I did. I started driving downtown, but with no firm destination in mind. I started probing: “Do you want Indian? Fish and chips? Mexican? Italian?” She couldn’t make up her mind, so I just kept driving straight until we were in Center City. I found a spot to park and we started walking. We finally decided on a place called Tequilas that has high-end Mexican food. It was an excellent meal.
Then on the way back to the car she suddenly opened the door to a bar and walked in. I said something like, “Oh, we’re going in here.” We grabbed a seat at the bar, ordered a couple of beers, and then my wife asks the bartender if they sell cigarettes. “They’re in the basement.” So, off I go to the basement, where I discover a party for Young Philly Politics. The crowd was a mix of people I know from Philly for Change and Drinking Liberally. Here I am with Charles:
The party was thrown to celebrate the one year anniversary of the site. It took an amazing amount of chance occurrences for me to stumble upon it by accident. But I stuck around and had a lot of fun.
I suppose everyone has some stories like this. What are some of the best you’ve heard?
A friend of mine was visiting Phoenix a couple of years ago and I hadn’t seen her in a very long time, so I drove up and met her for lunch. We ate at the TGIFridays at Bank One Ballpark, then went walking through downtown Phoenix.
We decided to stop at the St. Mary’s Basilica since we’re both fans of church architecture. We walked in during the picture-taking of a wedding that had just finished and decided to wait in the back until they were done. As we were kneeling in prayer, I noticed that some of the wedding party looked very familiar.
The bride turned out to be a friend of mine from high school whom I hadn’t seen in a few years. Talk about crossroads and mixing of worlds!
Very cool that you stumbled onto the web-community celebration, perhaps we can start organizing for a very low-key and inexpensive March anniversary gala of our own?
That is cool. I wish I could remember a time where something like that happened to me, but my memory seems to have taken a dive off the deep end on this one.
I’m off to check out the persecution at wikipedia diary.
I had lived in the Midwest for ah, about 20 years. I moved to a small town in Central WA.
Let’s say my name is Lisa Petrovska. There was a girl in my high school named Louise Petrovski. There were 2100 kids in that school, 700 in each class. Gym class was, thus, gihugeous. We were in the same gym class.
From time to time, she would go talk to the counselor about college stuff, and I would get called to the counselor for a “follow-up” appointment. I would sit there. The counselor, “What did you want to talk about?”
Me thinking “I just want to get the hell out of here, why do you ask?” Out loud, “I didn’t want to talk to you, why am I here?” Counselor: You signed up for an appointment.” No, I didn’t. We look at sign-up sheet. Not my name.
Anyway. I go off to University and never see Louise again. I moved to WA state, came over to Seattle for a visit with friends and we went to Pike Place Market.
And there’s Louise walking in my direction.
Anyone else but this person who had the name just 3 letters off from mine for the first person I saw from my former life would have been believable! It was shocking.
were they trying to hide? ha just kidding.
I found my current home that way, I believe. I had been looking, looking, looking… talking to realtors, etc. I myself was getting a divorce and needing to find my own place, as I was currently occupying the downstairs ‘guest’ room at the time…
A woman had listed this condo in the weekly free newspaper for three weeks only, just to see how much interest she would get… Neither of us wanted a realtor or lawyer involved, we just did it all on our own, and poof! the condo was mine. Two weeks before I lost my job… even more serendipity…
It’s in a residential area on a dead end road… perfect! Plus, there were no pet restrictions, so my Jasper dog is here with me. There is not a very good market here for homes/condos/apts that I could afford, to say the least! Plus, this was less than I had thought I’d have to be paying… I feel very fortunate this days…
I have a “meant to be” house story too…Did a happy story diary on it once…
That’s a WONDERFUL story!! And it sounds like a beautiful home that you now have! I’d imagine you’re feeling rather fortunate too…
Uh, at the risk of being too sappy, I feel lucky every day I wake up here…it’s been a neverending project, but I love this house and neighborhood, and so do my fellas.
It’s a good feeling, isn’t it?
I feel so thankful every single day…
So that is where you got your name from….
Yep, no pirates involved at all… 🙂
Three years ago, waiting for my first grandson to be born, my son calls and tells me the name he and his wife had decided upon. It’s a very unusual first name and, not wanting to violate their privacy, I’ll say it was Houstin.
So I express surprise and tell my son that the first man to whom I was ever engaged was also named Houstin and how odd they should select that unusual name. I say, it’s okay because Houstin was extremely good-looking, a fun guy and a Rhodes scholar to boot so I don’t have any negative feelings toward the name except that he dumped me rather rudely in a Dear Jane letter.
The very next day I get a phone call from Houstin. I hadn’t talked to him in almost 40 years and out-of-the-blue, he calls me. Good Lord, I say, how did you get my number? How did you find me? Why did you find me?
So he explains that he was at an economic conference in NYC where he saw a childhood friend of mine who was also a high school friend of my first husband. He gives Houstin my ex-husband’s number and the ex-husband gives him my number. He says he’ll tell me why he called when I meet him for lunch.
Over lunch, he starts off by apologizing to me for the way he dumped me all those years ago and asks for my forgiveness. I forgive him, of course; I can only dimly recall the heartbreak I felt that long ago. Then, I bluntly ask if he’s dying or something because I can’t think of any other reason why he’d be working his way down a list of atonements. He then tells me that he wants to be sure that I’m saved because Jesus is coming “real soon”…
It gets even stranger after that but I’ve gone on too long as it is.
i’m glad i spotted you heading up those stairs.
me too!
We were moving back from Alaska, and my best friend was scouting out houses for us. She spoted a fabulous one and sent me pictures. We had bought it, based on those pictures, by that afternoon.
The best part? The owners were moving back to Europe and left all their furniture and belongings- too expensive to ship.
We shipped only our books and undies. All we had to do was put our toothbrushes in the holder and we were home.
I love my house.
That is REALLY cool!
Here’s a really weird one for you:
When I was in college in Philly I dated a young lady who had the following traits, among others:
Well, we eventually broke up, and I didn’t date anyone for a couple of years until I went to graduate school at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.
There, in the same research group that I was interested in, was a young lady with the following traits, among others:
I decided this was a clear message from the universe to pursue this line of “research” further; we celebrated our 23rd anniversary in October. 🙂