Wasabi Peas

Today was my birthday, and it really did feel like my special day. Lots of calls and cards and attention. A friend who doesn't believe in astrology any more than I do, but who had found one particular site startlingly accurate, sent me my horoscope. 2007 is going to be my year, starting with this month! All the planets are in my house, everyone everywhere is going to bow to my will, I have only to visualize a thing and it will happen, and so on and on. Suspicious, I checked out other zodiac signs on the site to see if they were all this glowing, but no, it was only Capricorn.

Priya always takes me out on my birthday; this year we went to Northampton and had lunch at Bela, a restaurant I particularly like. When I got home, I found a carton full of goodies on my desk--all the things my son Ali knows I like. I could see fancy chocolate, Belgian cookies, rice crackers, a bottle of my favorite olive oil sticking out of the top, but I didn't have time to rummage through it because I had to rush back out again to the Downtown Ladies Book Group meeting. I was carpooling with Maggie and couldn't be late.

Amy was our host for the evening. We were discussing Kazuo Ishiguro's An Artist of the Floating World, set in Japan. In keeping with the Japanese theme, Amy served sushi, green tea, warmed sake, and assorted rice crackers. I don't eat fish, so I contented myself with sake and crackers. I picked as many of the wasabi peas out of the bowl as I could politely help myself to, but it only whetted my appetite for more. I found myself wondering if I'd have enough time after the meeting to swing by the store and pick up a bag of them. That's how it is with late-night cravings.

By the time Maggie had dropped me home, it really was too late to go out again. Convincing myself that a chocolate-dipped cookie would do just as well, I dug through my goodie box. And what should I find underneath the cookies but two bags of wasabi peas.

Big deal, I know. But it really does feel as though this year, my wish will be the universe's command.