Timing is Everything - Part 94173.....

This story would mean a lot more if it were told by our front office secretary. But I'll do my best to relate the events as she told them to me.

Two guys came into the front office today.

Guy #1 - "Is there someone here, one of your teachers, who rides a bike and leaves from here sometimes?"

Secretary - "Yes sir."

Guy #1 - "I wonder if he would like a riding partner."

Secretary - "I don't know. But SHE does ride from here in the afternoons."

Guy #1 - "Here's my business card. Give it to him and ask him to give me a call if he'd like someone to ride with sometime."

Secretary - "Okay. I'll give it to HER."

Guy #1 leaves the office, and the secretary turns to Guy #2.

Secretary - "May I help you?"

Guy #2 - "Yeah, can you give this to [Bragger]?" as he hands her my phone charger.

Yep, it was Hubby.

Now hear me when I say that Hubby has been in our building, counting today, a grand total of TWO times. Normally I keep a phone charger in my school bag, and normally I wouldn't have been concerned that my phone went completely dead. But for some bone-headed reason I took my spare charger home with me, and I don't like being without a cell phone when I'm riding my bike home. I CAN change a flat tire, but honestly it's just quicker to call someone to come get me. Since Hubby plays golf very near our school, I asked him to drop the phone charger by on his way.

What are the odds?

I mean, first of all what are the odds that some random guy goes into a SCHOOL and asks about someone he has seen maybe ONCE leaving the school on a bike? He couldn't have seen me too many times, if he thought I was a MAN. (I'm not quite through being pissed off about that, either.)

And what are the odds that he would appear at the SAME EXACT TIME as Hubby on his second visit to our school EVER?

While you're busy calculating those odds, I'll give you an easy one.

What are the odds that, standing three feet away, Hubby will MISS THE ENTIRE CONVERSATION?

I'm glad he's on his toes, just in case this dude turns out to be a stalker or something. I'm just sayin'...

Easter Dates and My Birthday and Other Meaningless Stuff.....

I have always been fascinated by dates (numbers in general, but mostly dates -- and zip codes). My birthday is April 7th, and when I was young it seemed that Easter Sunday always fell NEAR my birthday but never ON it. When my birthday finally coincided with Easter, I was 24 years old and had a 10-month-old baby, so it wasn't nearly as big a deal as I had thought. The next time was 1996, and all I could think about was how close the Olympics were going to be and thinking I might be able to attend some of the events (I didn't).

I should have partied harder on both those occasions, because Easter will never again fall on my birthday.

Well, unless I live to be 114 and 119. And while I guess that's entirely possible, it's also possible that my definition of partying will have changed significantly.

Look at the chart below (you'll have to click on the picture to make it bigger) and see how strange the distribution of Easter dates is. I am aware of how Easter is defined, but I would still expect SOME kind of pattern over a 250-year span.

Poor April 8th gets the shaft even more - it only gets Easter Sunday 5 times in that 250-year span. And how about March 24th? Really, why bother? It gets one and March 23rd gets TWO? What's up with that? Yet April 10th and April 17th get a whopping eleven Easters each, the hogs. Even April Fools' Day gets 10 Easters, and don't you know some parents with a penchant for practical jokes could have a FIELD DAY with April Fools' Day occurring the same day as the Easter Bunny's annual visit?

I have lost count of the number of students I've taught over the years, but let's just say (conservatively) that I have taught an average of 100 students per year, over a 26-year span. Out of 2600 (approximately) students, how many do you think I've had who shared my birthday?

Two.

And they were at the same school in the same year.

It's puzzles like these that get me on the elliptical every morning. I want to live long enough to solve them.

Remember me mentioning Midlife Swimmer in last night's post? She mentioned in her post today that her birthday is next week, so I left a comment asking her what day. I thought to myself, "What are the odds?"

Apparently they are pretty good. Midlife Swimmer and I have the same birthday, though I'd be willing to guess her big 5-0 is significantly more than 8 days away.

I apologize for any stress I may have caused with this mind-boggling post. You may now stop banging your head against the wall. It won't help anyway.

It Really Is a Small World......

One more thing about the SEC Championship meet yesterday, and then I'll put it to rest for another year. Notice that I did NOT say I won't ramble on and on about the Regional Championships in two weeks, or nationals (oh please oh please oh please oh please) two weeks after that.

I had three tickets to the SEC's, one each for Katydid, Frogger Blogger, and me. Frogger mentioned she might have to take her granddaughter, so I ordered another one. Then Frogger said she couldn't go at all, which left me with two extra tickets. This event isn't typically sold out, so I didn't want to take the chance of selling them the day of the competition. I advertised on a national college gymnastics discussion board that I had two extras and wanted to sell them. I wasn't looking to make a profit; I just didn't want them to go to waste.

Within 27 minutes I had a reply from someone in Atlanta who wanted to buy the tickets. We exchanged addresses, he mailed me a check, and I mailed him the tickets. When he showed up at the meet, he was with a guy I presumed was his boyfriend/partner. Forgive me for making assumptions, but two guys together at a women's college gymnastics meet? I'm not judging, just stating.

They introduced themselves, we both acted a little sheepish about being on that stupid message board in the first place, though we didn't actually come out and say it. (The message board is full of people more interested knowledgeable involved obsessed than I.) The guy with him looked familiar, then he said he grew up in the town where I live.

He was a student when I taught at one of our local high schools, back when we only HAD one. Fuzzy details started coming to me as we talked. I said, "You were in the band."

"Yes."

"You were the drum major."

He seemed surprised that I knew that. He was the drum major when Sweet Girl was in the band either 9th or 10th grade.

I guess it's not a HUGE coincidence, since we DO live in Georgia and we were there to see the GEORGIA gymnastics team. But still..... Out of all the people on that message board, all the people who would drive three and a half hours to see the SEC's, for one of them to have a local connection..... Weird.

Tune in tomorrow for a (sort of) book review about a book recommended by one of my blogger pals. Have a wonderful week.

Coincidence......

I am fascinated by the phenomenon of coincidence. Like years ago when Katydid flew to Florida to see the space shuttle launch from the rooftop of Nurse Jane's condo. She fainted 8 seconds before liftoff and missed the whole thing. That's not the fascinating coincidence part. (Although it's really funny and I tell it often, usually laughing uproariously. Sorry, Katydid.) Back here in Georgia, I fainted the same morning. For no apparent reason. I wasn't sick, I wasn't pregnant, I wasn't startled by a rodent or a burglar, I just fainted. With electric curlers in my hair. Weird. Not to mention painful.

Even longer ago, before there was such a thing as three-way calling, we managed it one day by accident. I called my sister, she called Mom, Mom called me (or some combination of those three), all at the exact same time. And we all got connected. It was bizarre. If you didn't know there hasn't always been three-way calling, please shut up. We also used to have rotary dials and we had to go to the phone company to pick out a phone. And "rent" it.

Today's coincidence, however, doesn't even involve me. I read this story in the paper this morning about two women who took photographs of the same cloud at the same time, and they didn't know each other. That may seem strange enough. But they were in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania at something called Musikfest in 1990. And they met in 2007 in the small town of Winterville, Georgia. Somehow the conversation turned to Pennsylvania, Musikfest, and the photograph of the cloud. Keep in mind that neither of these women was a photographer; the cloud just happened to catch their interest. And their lenses.

They determined that they were at practically the same angle, but probably a quarter of a mile apart. And they had to have taken their photos within milliseconds of each other, because the cloud changed so quickly that one of the women didn't even get a second shot.

And these two women wind up 17 years later approximately 753.31 miles down the road from where the picture was taken (I guess for one of them it was 753.06) at the same potluck dinner.

Weird.