Fate, Coincidences & Friends

Everyone has these, send me yours and I'll make a collection.

Fate #1: Nancy Walcott
How can I describe this? Think 1940's when race relations were not what they are today (leave it at that). My Auntie Yungie is good friends with Nancy's Aunt Laurie. What's so strange about this? Not that many Chinese and Black families were great friends back then. They met during the war and worked together.

Fast forward to sometime in the 1980's when I vacationed at Gilbert Lake, NY with the Walcotts (& Vernessa). Mrs. Walcott mentions Sylvia and Kent and we discover my dear friend Nancy is named after my cousin Nancy Chu..........sleeping so peacfully in her crib. Just two months ago, I discover my cousin Norma is named after Mrs. Walcott.

Nancy is one of my best friends to this date (& personal advisor), so how can it be that our families were forged together years ago?

Fate #2" The Beach Episode
On my first vacation with David, we go to Cape Cod. From Queens to Chinatown our bike rack falls apart. We get not 1 but two flat tires on the way up (& are forced to buy some stupid used tires along the way). We have a lovely day at the beach until a storm rolls over, black clouds like you've never seen. Everyone runs like hell including us. Only trouble is I saw a man lose his car key in the water earlier. His big fat redneck wife scream and yells at hime like he's an idiot. He keeps saying, "I can't explain why I kept my key in my swimming trunks", and cries. Quite a site. Some kids with masks and fins come along and he borrows them--miraculously finds his car keys in the ocean. Stupid big fat wife stops yelling at him.

When you're at the beach, and walk away from your towel and umbrella how do you know where you are really sitting? By the umbrella's, towels, radio's and big fat people sitting right around you. Well if there's a storm and they all leave, how do you know where you're sitting?

Well you don't. We run like everyone else and get to the car..........Oh yeah, David I put your car key in your sneaker because I saw you taking it in to the water where the dumb man lost his key and the fat lady yelled at him, and WHAT??? you emptied your sneaker to get the sand out before we left the beach? Oh no. No keys. We run back and have no idea where we were sitting because at this point we are the only ones on the big big beautiful Cape Cod Ocean. We call the Park Ranger who says we should call a lock smith so we can stop fighting and blaming each other. Even though we are not married I have delusions of divorce. Visions of me taking the bus or train back by myself are front and center and I never want to speak to David again. I cry and as a tear streams down my cheeck the sun beams out of a silver lining and the reflection of my tear shines on a single silver car key hiding in the sand (no key chain - honest, just a single car key all buy itself in the big big beach). Who was helping me, I can only think God..........No one finds a single car key with no key chain on a deserted beach through a reflection of a tear.

We leave and the Park Ranger can't believe this. My face is still red and fuming from this crazy loss (but I did not scream at David like the stupid fat lady).

We eat at this great restaurant called Fafi's and I remember it vividly because we have the best meal ever. We eat mussels the size of my fist. We go home tired only to hit a kid on a bike. As soon as David hits this kid on the bike he runs out of the car, leans over him, and screams as if the kid is deaf, "are you ok", "are you ok"? The kid lies there but a swarm of townies appear from nowhere. How did they know? We call the cops and offer to take the kid to the hospital but he refuses. A friend screams at him that "these people will be gone tomorrow and you'll be out of luck"....

The cop asks David for his drivers license and he reaches in to his wallet which is gone. Great. I'm still in my bathing suit and shorts and its night and I use my towel to cover myself, shivering in the cold and the cops and the townies are wondering where these two Chinese people in bathing suits have come from............. The cop calls Fafi's and someone has found David's wallet. Meanwhile I ask the cop if there are pickpockets in town and ofcourse he is insulted and hates me even more.

We finally get back to our bed and breakfast and a lightning storm like no other breaks out. Its like the scene in Ghost Busters but so close each snap is over my ears.

We eat lobster like there is no tomorrow (& lobster bisque) and can't wait to get home. I remember the bed and breakast is $35 a night and I long for those days again.

After that I wonder why I married David but I did. :) A true test of a relationship.

Fate #3

This is odd because some of the people in Fate #1 are involved here too.

David came to the US when he was 11. He always tells this story how a big waterbug spilled out of their suitcase when going through customs at JFK. Customs waves them through immediately. He and his brothers and sisters where every piece of jade jewelry his mother owns.

David's father was a teacher in HK but can't get a decent job in NY. He works at a Chinese laundry like so many others. Somehow he wins a big pot of $ - something like $10,000 in a trifecta or whatever they are called. He's interviewed in the Chinese papers.......he talks about how he works so hard in bad conditions in a Chinese laundry and names names.....Name of laundry, name of owner, etc etc. Years later I find out he names my Uncle Kent in Queens. When we marry, Uncle Kent tells me he now knows who the boy I'm marrying is and he knows his father. Great.

I have more but I'm tired now. Send me your stories.

Julie