My book club, that is, the book club I attend, I don't own it, met last night for a discussion of Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper. If you are familiar with the book, you will know that there is plenty to discuss. If you are not familiar with the book, you will be able to imagine how much there is to discuss when I tell you that the book is about a thirteen-year-old girl's quest for medical emancipation so that she will not have to donate a kidney to her sixteen-year-old sister who has a rare and extremely lethal type of leukemia. Afterwards, though, I was driving home thinking about Anna, the thirteen-year-old. Conceived in a test tube to be a genetic match for her sister, she desired to have her own life and yet, without her sister's illness, she may not have ever been born.
What if.
As I thought about the novel's what if, I started thinking about my own what ifs. In particular, I began by thinking about our move from Dallas, Texas some 15 years ago. What if we had never moved back to California? How would I be different? How would our life be different? What struck me most was the thought that I wouldn't have the same children I have now. I didn't imagine that Colin and Marley would be living with us in Dallas. It seemed to me that the circumstances which led to his conception would have been different and thus, when and if I did become pregnant in this never-moved-back-to-SoCal parallel universe, Colin and Marley wouldn't exist.
I write about this not to wax poetic about my children and how I couldn't imagine life without them. I write this to explore what is apparently my belief that every second has an impact on the next, every decision leads down a different path and we can never have an answer to the what if question. Even as this thought scurried across my consciousness, the next thought gave chase. Were Colin and Marley destined to be born regardless of the decisions Paul and I made about where to live, etc. If we had stayed in Dallas, would Paul and I be the parents of these two particular children.
I don't know. The answer doesn't really matter. I was just wondering. What do you think?
To die for:
I was reading Fussy's post about the most incredible cake which she received in the mail as a birthday present. (Really, it is soooooo wonderful.) In the previous post, she linked up a website to a bakery that creates some incredible cakes. I found this one and just died a little (happily, mind you.) Check it out. All you bibliophiles and literature majors are going to swoon with me. I know it. Did you check it out? You did swoon, didn't you? I knew it!
Does this strike you as funny?
At The Happiest Place on Earth the other day, I was a little hungry. Poking around the Matterhorn, I found this:
Turkey legs and chimichangas? But of course, what else would you sell at a food kiosk at Disneyland? I did eat one of the chimichangas. Not bad. Pretty yummy, in fact. Of course, anything in a deep fried tortilla is yummy to me, but I will never order the turkey leg. I noticed several people walking around with one and let me tell you, walking around in your Mickey Mouse hat, bermuda shorts with white socks and sandals AND a turkey leg? Well, let's just say it looks a little goofy. Get it? G-o-o-f-y! (I crack myself up!!!!)Spell check:
How do you write "what if" as a plural? I wrote "what ifs" but I'm wondering if I should have written "what if's." Neither of them look correct. Anybody? Anybody?
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Finally, it is apparently National De-Lurking Week which makes me wonder who decided it would be National De-Lurking Week and who made them the bosses of de-lurking. It also makes me want to make a National Something Week. I tried finding the source--well, I checked the blogs I read on a regular basis who mentioned ND-LW, hardly an exhaustive research attempt--but not a link to the actual source was to be found. So who knows, maybe it is an urban legend. Whether is it real or not, if you are a lurker, please feel free to participate here. If you don't feel like coming up with a clever name or anything, just write an anonymous comment and sign it "de-lurker number (fill in the blank.)" If you are a lurker and don't feel like de-lurking. Hey, I'm cool with that.
Thus endeth the post.
