"Within the next week you will receive an unexpected gift"

Oh, yeah.  The world is exploding, the stock market is sending out depth charges, and I'm going to be HOW old in 2009?  Right. THIS is the year I am going to start believing in fortune cookies.  I lost my voice on the New Jersey turnpike somewhere between Kean University and Kelly's house, I have about 40 assemblies to perform next week -- why would I think?  Who would believe?

And yet.

And still.

The workshop at Kean went great.  See the teachers above perform a questioning poem about a hurricane.  The vendor sold out of my books and the predicted snow storm did not smother or strand me in Hoboken.  And even if I do have a lot of assemblies next week and my voice is on hot tea life support, at least I have work when too many don't.  Life isn't exactly on cruise control, but it could be worse.  

It has been.

I know how bad it can be.

2008 was it.

And (but?) even if this is a new year.  Even if we are getting a leader in the White House to replace a buffoon.  Even if I haven't lost my color enhanced hair and I still have most of my teeth or at least replacement parts that I don't have to put in a glass beside the bed -- a fortune cookie? 

I have checked my credit card statement 15 times.  Heinens, Sunoco, Borders, Target -- all the usual suspects -- and still no $150 change fee from Continental?

Change fees.  A predatory practice.  Skyway robbery.  Outside, $10 in computer time.  No paperwork required.  Meanspirited mischief created by the airline industry in exchange for the joy of leaving travelers stranded without their toothbrushes.

Airlines, which are allowed to hold passengers hostage on tarmacs and scrambling for seats after flights have been cancelled think it is perfectly fair to charge the very same passengers $150 if they decide to leave on Thursday instead of Wednesday.  Airlines do not play fair and paying change fees makes me want to spit poison darts. 

So, when I came home from the Chinese restaurant last Thursday with the fortune in my pocket and cashew chicken on my breath, sat down to the computer, and changed a ticket from NJ to GA and it went through WITHOUT A CHANGE FEE, I thought there had been some kind of mistake.  
A computer glitch.  
Surely . . .

It has been 3 days.  No fee has posted.

Could it be?  
An unexpected gift foretold by a cookie stuffer?  

Maybe not too late to start believing in magic?

2009.  
Here's lookin' at you!