Red Breasted Nuthatch

My girlfriend had a big chunk of time off from teaching, so she spent all of January and with me in Montreal. We watched a lot of TV. And it seemed like every other commercial was a wildlife spot about the Red Breasted Nuthatch. We must have seen this commercial about 50 times, and each time we would make jokes about it, it became a running gag. When she is not with me, we usually play games with each other online. We do a lot of jig saw puzzles over the messenger. But since she was with me, there was no need for that. But as soon as she was back in Wellesley, we went to play a puzzle. Lo and behold! What was the picture on the puzzle? THE RED BREASTED NUTHATCH!!!!

package coincidence

I ordered a shirt on ebay. It came from Ohio. I was about to throw out the empty package when something caught my eye. First it was the address where it came from. I blocked out the number in the pic above, but you can see the street name STONEYBROOK. My girlfriend is about 2 weeks away from doing her defense and getting her PHD at STONYBROOK UNIVERSITY on LONG ISLAND NY. The second thing that caught my eye was the name of the sender. M. GILL. Whenever Nefta, my girfriend, comes up to Montreal to see me, we pass by a university here and joke that she will never teach there. That university is called Mc Gill. What does this all mean. I don't know, but it is clearly an omen of something.

Beading Coincidence

My girlfriend was bragging about how great her bead work is. You can see the very first ever pieces she made on her blog. She is rightfully proud of her work. She was going on about her new hobby, and I listened.
That very night Nefta and I were throwing out the garbage. On the way back in, on a lamp post at the entrance to my building, she sees something completely out of place. There, hanging from the lamp post for some unknown reason is some bead work on an earring. We don't know where it came from or who it belong too. But I take it as a sign of something.

Padma Lakshmi coincidence

My girlfriend gets the Food Network at her place. So whenever I am there, I love to watch that channel because I don't get it here...that is until NOW! I ordered the Food Network channel a few days ago. The other day Nefta and I were watching one of the shows on my new channel. It is called Top Chef and it is hosted by Padma Lakshmi. The Canadian Food Network is showing an older season of the show. A season that we watched at Nefta's place in New York half year ago. But as we watched it here at my place, we noticed a huge scar on Padma's right arm. We never noticed that before. The next thing I know, Nefta is on the computer researching Padma's scar. She tells me that Padma is married to author Salman Rushdie. He is about 25 years older than she is. I tell Nefta that she only married him for the money. We'll see how long that lasts.
THE NEXT DAY, I turn on my computer as soon as I wake up. And what is the first thing to pop up on my computer screen? Yahoo news with a picture of Padma and Salman with a headline saying they are getting a divorce. I read that and told my girlfriend "You see what you have done?" Our powers of coincidence are scary indeed.

MOTHRA coincidence

I have this new line, that I like to use on my girlfriend as often as possible. It's that I am "More handsome than 10 movie stars." Whenever I say this to my girlfriend she retorts with a list of movie stars that I am supposedly more handsome than, like "the 3 stooges, cousin IT, Grandpa Munster..." I can not do her lists justice, her lists always make me laugh, they are hilarious and each one is funnier than the next. Yesterday I told her I was "More handsome than 10 movie stars" and she came back with "MOTHRA." I had to laugh. "What made you think of Mothra?" I asked. "You never saw Mothra." She said she did, she's seen all the Godzilla movies. I left her place in NY to come back to Montreal later that same day.
The very next day, back in Montreal. My cat comes into my bedroom through the open window from outside with something HUGE in his mouth. A moth! The biggest moth I have ever seen. He let it go from his mouth and the moth flew around my bedroom. I had to catch it in a jar and release it back outside. It was the biggest moth I have seen alive and in person, not including trips to the Insectarium. I tossed the moth outside and told Nefta, my girlfriend about it. It did not even occur to me that it was another one of our coincidences, until....
...I turned on the TV a few hours later. What was on TV? Godzilla vs Mothra!!!

BATS IN THE BELLFRIE

My girlfriend and I found this dead bat behind one of her flower pots this morning. I've only ever seen bats in zoos. This is the first one I have ever picked up and handled, even though it was dead. The funny part is; a couple nights ago I heard a noise at night while we were going to sleep. I thought my girlfriend was alseep and didn't hear the noise. Then the next night, we heard the same noise in her living room. I mentioned that I heard the noise in bed last night, she was freaked out because she heard it to. There are tons of boxes and bags and crates of yarn and yarn related craft stuff in the living room. I moved around the craft stuff to try to find what was making the noise. But I couldn't find anything. I thought whatever it was, it must have scurried away. I told my girlfriend I thought it could be a bat. Then the next day we found the bat in these photos. Nefta, my girlfriend, practically had a heart attack. She is still creeped out and itchy.

GAUNTANAMERA coincidence

GAUNTANAMERA coincidence

My girlfriend was watching the Food Network back at her place on Long Island. She was watching Rachael Ray. She calls me in Montreal and asks “Why didn’t you tell me there was a huge open market in Montreal? We’ve been going out for 3 years and you never mentioned an open market! You know I love open markets.” She was speaking of the Jean Talon Market in Montreal. Apparently Rachael Ray was doing a show from Montreal and she was in the Jean Talon Market. So I told Nefta, my girlfriend, I would take her to the market next time she comes up to see me. A week or so later she came up to see me. We made plans to go to the market on Saturday. The night before our trip to the market she was transferring music to her MP3 player from my computer. For some reason I blurted out “Do you have that Spanish song I like?” It was a weird question because she wasn’t listening to Spanish music, it’s just something that popped into my head. She asked “What Spanish song?” I said that I didn’t know the name of it but it went something like this…I started humming it for half a second and immediately she knew the song and said “GUANTANAMERA!” “YES!” I said, “That’s the song! How did you guess it so fast?” For the next few minutes we were singing Guantanamera and dancing around the apartment. She knew the words, I didn’t. So she sang it properly and I just kept repeating “Guantanamera” over and over again. It was funny.

THE VERY NEXT DAY we go to the Jean Talon Market. It was a gorgeous day, hot and sunny. We found a parking a few blocks away and walked to the market. Making stops here and there in some random stores. The market was amazing, it was my first time there too. We walked into a huge fruit and vegetable store, spent a few minutes in there. Then we walked into the “indoor” section of the market. We went into a little shop and bought some spices and a hazel nut spread, looked at several other food places and eventually made our way to the “outdoor” section of the market, the section with all the outdoor terraces and street vendors, and shops and food. As soon as we exit the indoor section and step out into the bright sunny outdoor section Nefta and I stare at each other as we come to the same realization and shock at the same time, both our jaws drop in disbelief. Right there, as soon as we step out into the outdoor section, is a lone street musician, he looked like some kind of Aztec or ancient Indian, and he was playing GUANTANAMERA.

Had we not stepped out at that exact time, if we had spent a couple of minutes more in one of the shops, had we not parked where we were and had to walk, we would have missed him sing THAT song. I took it as a sign from the Gods, and I bought the street musician’s CD.

This particular coincidence is our favorite coincidence.

HOMO MILK coincidence

HOMO MILK coincidence

I was with my girlfriend in the grocery store one day, in the dairy section. My girlfriend is getting a carton of milk. I am standing a few feet away from her. I tell her to “Make sure you get the 2 percent not the HOMO MILK.” She looks at me like I’m crazy. “What?!” she exclaims. I say it again, “2 percent, not homo.” She gives me a look that can only be described as complete shock and disbelief. I say it again, this time louder and slower, “2 percent, not homo.” She tells me to keep it down, someone might hear me. This confused me, hear what? I was getting a bit annoyed myself. “Not the homo milk!” I said again. My girlfriend looks around wildly, afraid that someone heard me. She tries to shut me up.

Let me explain the confusion. Nefta, my Girlfriend is American, from New York. I am Canadian. Back when I was a kid, growing up in Canada, we didn’t have all the different kinds of milk like they have these days. There was no such thing as Soy Milk, Non Dairy Milk, Lactose Free Milk, 1 Percent, Almond Milk, Tahini Milk, Lactaid, VitaSoy. Back then we had only 2 choices; 2 percent and HOMOGENIZED milk, which everybody called homo milk for short. This was 30 years ago, never did it dawn on me or anyone else at the time that we could be referring to anything other than milk. This was before the politically correct era, and before gay people were coming out of their closets. Ask any one my age who grew up in Canada, and they will verify that it was indeed referred to as homo milk by kids and Moms and Dads everywhere.

Back to the coincidence. So I explain all this to my girlfriend after we leave the store. She, of course, doesn’t believe me. It was weird enough for her to see that we sell milk in bags, but that is a story for another day. She thinks I was making up the whole thing up about Homogenized milk being called homo milk.

THE VERY NEXT DAY; I come back from a day of work at the studio, and this is what she tells me as soon as I get home; She was watching TV, and there was a commercial. In the commercial there is an old guy in front of the TV. The old lady is going out for groceries and asks the old guy if he needs anything. He replies “HOMO MILK, not 2 percent.” Nefta literally fell off the bed when he said that. I guess she’ll think twice next time before doubting me.

PEG CLIMBING coincidence

PEG CLIMBING coincidence

My girlfriend and I were watching a fantastic game show from Japan. It’s an obstacle course type thing that contestants have to finish. It was really interesting, with obstacles such as running over floating balls, swinging from a vine, climbing a spinning wind mill, and a couple of other neat feats of agility. I loved this show! And this was only part 1, I couldn’t wait for part 2. This was going to be very exciting. But we didn’t know when part 2 was going to be on.

A week or so later, I was bragging to Nefta, my girlfriend about how I used to be the only one, of all my friends, that was able to climb the peg board in the gym. When I used to work out in high school, there was a peg board in the gym, and everyone that tried to climb it to the top…failed; except for me. I was able to climb it all the time. I was very strong back then, and in amazing shape. So I was saying this to my girlfriend one night, bragging about my athletic prowess back then.

THE VERY NEXT DAY, we turn on the TV and the second part of that Japanese Game Show is on! Oh joy! We watch the show and see that they have all different events for part 2. Gone are floating balls and swinging vine and wind mill. As soon as I saw the new obstacle I immediately bolted up and yelled “THE PEGS!! THE PEGS!! I CAN CLIMB THE PEGS!!! WE JUST TALKED ABOUT THIS YESTERDAY!”

Yes indeed, one of the new obstacles was the Peg Board. Chalk that one up as another of our coincidences.

As for the show, the funniest part was when this one guy was on the peg board. He pulled out the peg in his right hand, then he pulled out the left peg….BEFORE inserting the right peg. Needless to say gravity doesn’t work that way, you can’t float there with BOTH pegs pulled out of the holes. I laughed hysterically when he fell.

ABBA coincidence

ABBA coincidence

My girlfriend was up to see me for a week. The last night she was at my place, I was listening to the music of ABBA. I asked her if she likes ABBA, she says she loves ABBA, especially the song “Dancing Queen.” So I put on dancing queen and we sing and dance around my apartment to the song.

The VERY NEXT MORNING she takes the grey hound bus back to New York. When she gets out at Penn Station what does she see and hear right there in the train station? A Mexican Mariachi band playing Dancing Queen by ABBA! Her jaw hit the floor and she called me right away to tell me. That’s the best part about our coincidences, it is never something mundane; it’s not like it was just that she heard ABBA on the radio or saw a video on TV. It has to have a weird twist to it, like a Mexican Mariachi band covering an ABBA song. That is pretty out of the ordinary.

The PENNY FARTHING coincidence

The PENNY FARTHING coincidence.

There is an old fashioned bike called a penny farthing. You may have seen it in cartoons. It has a HUGE GIANT wheel in the front and a TINY LITTLE wheel in the back. It was a bike that was only popular in the 1870’s. The only reason I even know what it is called is because back in 1989, when I was in college I learned what it was from a friend. I have not thought about that bike or the strange name of the bike since then…until a few months ago. I was in my apartment, suddenly the words PENNY FARTHING pop into my head, a word I only used one time back in 1989. I have not thought of that word for 16 years. I was surprised that I could still remember it. And why did it suddenly pop into my head after all these years? It became an obsession of mine. I wanted to OWN a penny farthing! I had to have one! I would be the only person in Montreal with a bike like that. I would be known as “THAT GUY WITH THE PENNY FARTHING.” So I tell my girlfriend about it, while we were instant messaging over the computer. Of course I had to explain to her what a penny farthing is. So we looked at penny farthings on the internet. Right away she said “NO WAY.” She did not approve of me owning a penny farthing. I begged and pleaded with her, but she was completely opposed to the idea. She did humor by looking at them on the internet though. We also found a video clip of how to mount and dismount on one of these bikes, not an easy thing to do. And we found a video clip of someone wiping out on a penny farthing. It is worse than wiping out on a regular bike because the bike is 5 or 6 feet tall, with no brakes!

Here comes the coincidence part!

THE VERY NEXT DAY, my girlfriend went to get a bite to eat. She decided to go to this Chinese place she always go to. It is in a strip mall. There is another restaurant in the strip mall too, a steak BBQ place. She drove in to the strip mall in her car. Something caught her eye. She almost smashed into a wall because she was so shocked at what she saw. There, leaned against the wall of the steak place…A PENNY FARTHING!!

The very same bike we had we talked about the night before, the very same bike she had never seen or heard of in her life until I obsessed about it and wanted to get one. So she called me immediately after she almost smashed her car. I was as shocked as her. I’m the one that wanted a penny farthing, but she is the one gets to see one for real! What are the odds of seeing a bike this rare the day after we spend an hour on the internet looking at this type of bike?

There’s more to this story!

I was still obsessing about the penny farthing the next night. I took it as a sign from the Gods that I needed to own a penny farthing. How else can you explain what just happened? She still said NO. So we looked at other bikes on the internet. She found something called a TANDEM BIKE. I asked what that was. She sent me a link to a website. I saw the bike. I know these bikes! I did not know they were called tandem bikes. I always called them DOUBLE BIKES, or 2 PERSON BIKES. I absolutely was not interested in getting a tandem bike, I wanted a penny farthing. But I humored her as we looked at tandem bikes on the internet. Neither of us have ever actually seen a tandem bike for real, only in movies and cartoons.

THE VERY NEXT DAY, my girlfriend was driving to school in the morning. It is normally a 15 minute drive. But this time there was traffic and she wasn’t even half way there yet and it was already a half hour drive. There is never traffic on that road! So there she is stuck in traffic and a huge trailer pulls up into the lane next to her. She was stuck in traffic for 20 minutes right next to this trailer. It was like those trailers that carry cars. Only this one was not carrying cars. It was carrying about 20 TANDEM BIKES!!!!!

My girlfriend, Nefta, is more convinced than ever that her life is being staged like in the movie THE TRUEMAN SHOW.