Fortune’s Cookie

Do  you believe in astrology?  Or fortune tellers?  Or horoscopes?  Or sooth sayers? Or palmists?  Or tarot card readers? Or the psychic ability to predict the future?

I do.  Because I can do it.

Yep, I can be pretty spooky that way.  I inherited the ESP gene from my mother.  Who is descended from a long line of Romanian gypsy fortune tellers.  (And card sharpers.)  My mother has put hers to good use vis-a-vis the stock market, btw.  I seem to be able to use it for less profit-turning enterprises- like my love life.

When I was a kid, I couldn’t even be in the same room if I had a secret I wanted to keep from my mother.  I couldn’t think of something if I didn’t want her to know it.

And sometimes even long distance was no guarantee that she couldn’t read my mind, either.

Jeanne Dixon Sidebar:  I vividly remember the exact moment in college when my phone rang, and my mother said,”What are you worrying about?”

It just so happened that I had just opened a massive phone bill and was fretting over how I was ever going to pay it on my less-than-princely allowance of fifty bucks a month.

(Needless to say, my mother and I didn’t need to waste too much money on long-distance phone calls.  Ma Bell was for amateurs.)

I’ve recognized future husbands at first sight.  Sometimes across a crowded room.

And I usually know when something bad is going to happen to me, too.

But like any good (witch) doctor, this second sight business has never stopped me from seeking out another professional opinion.

Over the years I have consulted with:

1. A Baltimore tea room tea leaves analyst (who told me that I would NOT be having any kids with husband number two and that he was soon going bye-bye.  Two out of two for the tea leaves gal.)

2.  A Renaissance Fair fortune teller who did drop the baby bombshell on me- emphatically predicting a girl and then a boy.  (Correct.  Ok, she didn’t have too many genders to chose from.  But I was not sure at that point if I wanted any kids- and she did get the birth order right.)

3.  A  Chicago tarot card reader who sadly reinforced that I would NEVER ever set eyes on the “one who got away”  ever again.  (So far, she’s spot on.)

4.  A  California psychic who “read” me over the phone and put it all on cassette for posterity.  She said that I would end up living in some place where I had a great view over water- which baffled me greatly as I was living in Colorado at the time. Mountains, yes. Pacific Ocean, no.

She also told me that Nick would get married way before Natasha.  (Correct there, too.) And she prophesied that I would come into a huge fortune.  Hmmm…. That hasn’t happened yet but, hey, I’m a believer.

(And that’s REALLY good news for all my clothing, car and book pushers.)

5.  And I had my last brush with para-normal prognosticators just this summer.  In August, I bumped into a medium- who, btw, seemed surprised to meet up with me.

(I, however, wasn’t at all surprised to run into her.  I had been expecting it.)

And so when we did hook up in the physical and non-astral plane, I immediately asked her for an appointment.  I had burning questions to be answered like: “Where should I live?” and  “When is Mr. Right going to show up?”

These really were issues of major concern, and I eagerly awaited her Ghostbusters assistance. I hate to self-predict.  It’s like self-medicating.

Although these queries were of the utmost importance to me, they didn’t seem to carry much psychic weight with her.

“I’m sorry but I can’t really help you at the moment.  I’m all booked up.  My next available appointment for a reading is in December.  And my fee is $90.”

WTF??!!

I didn’t cavil at the $90, but December?  I had to make a major housing decision NOW. Not six freakin’ months from now.

And that Mr. Right thing was getting me down, to0.  I had the strangest sensation that he was due in any minute.  I just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was close by.  And I wanted to be romance-ready when he did make his grand entrance.  After all, it had been seven years since I had even thought about letting a man into my life.

“It must be nice to be popular,” I told her.  “But I just can’t wait that long.”

And so I opted for a little do-it-yourself divination.

I sprung into action.

Heck, I could do this.  I had been dreaming about a certain kind of apartment for a long time now.  I could actually see it.

So the next call I made was a randomly-chosen real estate agent.  I had never heard of the guy but my spirits made me dial him.

And lo and behold he had THE VERY apartment that I had been “seeing.”

(From whence I’m typing this now.)

It’s perfect for me- and it had been on the market exactly one hour when I called him.

As to the other burning question of Mr. Right….

He’s out there.  I know it.

Hurry up, honey.  You’re late.

Btw, how should I best spend that $90 I saved by doing this prognostication myself?  My mother would put it the stock market, but I think I’ll put it toward a bottle of Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame.

Vintage- like me.

My crystal ball predicts that Mr. Right is going to love it.