Fortune Teller

Each New Year's Eve, Erica takes over, planning the dinner, choosing games to play, and designing the fort we will build while we watch a movie of her choice. It's the one time a year when she gets full control, and as you can imagine, she loves it. In years past our dinners have included make your own pizza, sloppy joes, and even cabbage pockets. This year her choice was to have sesame chicken and stir-fry veggies. I found a simple recipe on Pinterest, and on my trip to the grocery store I gathered up all the ingredients with the exception of sesame seeds. I know what you are thinking... sesame chicken calls for sesame seeds! But when the price of  a jar of seeds is almost $5, I had to pass. I needed only a tablespoon, and have no idea how soon I would be using them again. So we had naked sesame chicken, and I heard no complaints (in fact, nobody seemed to notice their absence).

I don't make Chinese food a lot at our house, but I did make a special trip to Sprouts to buy fortune cookies. I found a box for $1.99 and there were at least 12 cookies inside. Erica thought it would be fun to open a cookie at dinner, well before the stroke of midnight, so we each took a turn. Her grandma Martha spent the week with us, so she went first. "The riches of others makes you more valuable." Pretty accurate for someone who raised seven great kids and has a wonderful family. Erica went next: "People find it hard to resist your persuasive manner" which is a good one for a kid who usually has a good argument for getting what she wants. Mine read "The respect of influential people will soon be yours." Seems fitting with my recent interest in a position on a local city board of authority. But the most interesting fortune was Mark's which read "You shall make a long overdue personal decision." Not sure if its job related but he has been off his game at work lately.

The ball dropped at midnight just as we expected, and Erica jumped up and passed out another fortune cookie to each of us. "It's a new year, we get a new fortune!" she said as she ran around the room. Okay, I could use a bit more sugar I thought.... I opened mine to read "The current year will bring you much happiness." Awesome way to start out a year! Erica's was "Step by step you will ascend the staircase to success." She wasn't too happy about this one, maybe because I said it was probably related to her doing well in school. Well, what other success does an 11 year old have? Mark opened his to reveal ""Take that chance you've been considering." Now two fortunes were giving him a subtle nudge - you have to admit it was interesting, but the same fortune could have landed in my hand. And it would mean something completely different to me. But it was fun all the same.

This week I tossed a cookie in Erica's lunchbox, knowing she would get a kick out of opening one at school. She told me later that there was no fortune in the cookie - it was un-fortune-ate!  I wonder if the lack of a fortune means something?