Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Get Back To Where You Once Belong

JANUSFILES2 . . . ENTRY #0164 . . . OPEN:


As I've mentioned in the last couple of entries, I had been cleaning my condo in a semi-mad frenzied rush. I've been taking a break since last Thursday, mainly because I was just a little burned out, and I was needing something to restore what I laughingly refer to as my sanity.

Early this morning, I walked by the big bag of fortune cookies, and decided that it was time to pull out another cookie. I saw one on top that was partially broken, and further decided that it would be the cookie of the day. (For some reason, these cookies are not individually wrapped. I suspect that by the time I reach the end of the bag, I will be faced with a layer of fortune cookie fragments.)

Here is the fortune from today's cookie:

"You should be able to undertake and complete anything."

Hmmmm . . . I think the cookie is telling me that it's time to get back to cleaning.

JANUSFILES2 . . . ENTRY #0164 . . . CLOSE

Friday, March 25, 2011

A Baci For Destressing

JANUSFILES2 . . . ENTRY #0163 . . . OPEN:


In my last entry, I mentioned that I was in the process of cleaning my condo. I still haven't completed it, but at least the main reason for doing so is out of the way.

I had spent most of the last couple of weeks trying to clean the place. I won't go into details, but I was doing this because someone was paying a visit that lasted, at most, 15 minutes. I also spent a good portion of the last couple of weeks stressing out over the visit, for two reasons. First, there was the reason for the visit, which, as I said, I would rather not mention the sordid details. Second, I'm not really not that good a housekeeper. In fact, my housecleaning skills do not come up to the high exacting standards of Oscar Madison.

Yesterday was the visit, and I was cleaning up until about 10 minutes before my visitor arrived. At that point, I realized that I had completed as much as was going to be completed. And it was time to face the visit itself.

As you perhaps may have already guessed, I don't entertain. In fact, I tend to stress out when someone else is in my condo, which probably explains my somewhat . . . relaxed attitude toward housecleaning. If I remember correctly, the last person in my condo (other than me, of course) was a plumber sometime last year.

By the time my visitor left, I was in need of something to destress me. I recently read that two good ways of dealing with stress were sex and chocolate. Well, one of those is not a viable alternative, and it would probably take more chocolate than I could comfortably consume to ameliorate my stress levels at the time. Fortunately, simply getting out of the condo for a few hours handled things quite nicely.

While I was doing the cleaning, I discovered a box of Baci that had gotten buried under some other stuff. The box (and they) were slightly smashed, but were otherwise all right.

Unwrapping these Baci proved to be a slight challenge. After all, I didn't want to damage the love notes underneath the foil. And I was rewarded for my efforts with these notes:

"Doubt thou the stars are fire . . . But never doubt my love." -- William Shakespeare
"The woman does not exist of whose beauty all men shall agree upon." -- G. Leopardi

JANUSFILES2 . . . ENTRY #0163 . . . CLOSE

Saturday, March 19, 2011

I Really Hope So

JANUSFILES2 . . . ENTRY #0162 . . . OPEN:


I pulled another fortune cookie out of the bag today. Here's the fortune:

"All your hard work will soon pay off."

At the moment, I'm in the process of cleaning my condo. It will be nice when the payoff does finally arrive.

JANUSFILES2 . . . ENTRY #0162 . . . CLOSE

Friday, March 11, 2011

I Hope It Wishes More Than Once

JANUSFILES 2 . . . ENTRY #0161 . . . OPEN:


I felt in the mood, so I pulled another fortune cookie from the bag. Here's today's fortune:

"If you wish to, you will have an opportunity."

Okay, I'm wishing. Among other things, I'm wishing that I will recognize said opportunity once it finally appears.

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Thursday, March 10, 2011

I Hope She's Cute, Too

JANUSFILES2 . . . ENTRY #0160 . . . OPEN:


Time once again to reach into the mailbag . . . uh, make that the big bag of fortune cookies. Here's the fortune that was in today's cookie:

"Your future brings cheerful company and merry times."

I'm hoping that said cheerful company is female, and the merry times include the sharing of fortunes from fortune cookies.

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Thursday, March 3, 2011

Feeling Like Karen Carpenter

JANUSFILES2 . . . ENTRY #0159 . . . OPEN:


I reached into the big bag with just the slightest amount of trepidation. I couldn't get the same fortune three times in a row, could I? What were the odds on that happening? (Yeah, I know the quote: "Never tell me the odds!")

As it turns out, there was an entirely different fortune in this cookie:

"Soon you will be sitting on the top of the world."

Okay. And will I be looking down on creation while I'm on the top of the world?


JANUSFILES2 . . . ENTRY #0159 . . . CLOSE

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Not A Sad Song, Either

JANUSFILES 2 . . . ENTRY #0158 . . . OPEN:


When I came up with the idea of Project GFS1, I figured that I would encounter a duplicate fortune. The bag did start with 160 fortune cookies; it would be reasonable to assume that there are at least a couple of duplicates in the bag.

I just didn't think it would happen this quickly.

Here's the fortune from the cookie I pulled out of the bag yesterday:

"Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances."

Not only is the fortune the same; this time, it is an exact duplicate. The lucky numbers are the same:

06 13 17 25 43 46

And you might notice that some fortune cookies teach you a word or two of Chinese. The fortunes in these cookies do, and the word was the same in both instances. The word was "chopstick," which they transliterated as quite ze.

Time to start wondering how soon it will be before I encounter another duplicate. Or is encountering a triplicate too far-fetched to contemplate?

JANUSFILES 2 . . . ENTRY #0158 . . . CLOSE