Long story: Way back in 1996 I lived in Washington State and was helping my friend Tom and his mom Becky (and the rest of their family) create their Thanksgiving. We even bought two bags of fresh cranberries to make cranberry bread with.

When we got to their house and unloaded all of the groceries from my trunk, both bags of fresh cranberries were just GONE. We looked everywhere. We ended up buying new bags next time we went to the store, only able to shrug.

Time passes, it’s 2000, and we are all now in California, Tom and Becky and family living a little less than an hour’s drive away, although we don’t get to visit each other TOO often. Tom recently broke his leg in an ill-fated gymnastical landing off a log on a camping trip (read his blog at the above link for more details), and John and I were out buying stuff for our Thanksgiving feast, and spontaneously decided to drive out to see him. We didn’t call or give any indication we were coming. While we were in their neck of the woods, we stopped at a nice local farmer’s market. While in there, buying onions and celery and yams and such, I saw bags of fresh cranberries and thought, “Hey, we should get a few bags and give them to Becky as a gift so they can make their bread – just for fun.” Only when we were in the checkout line did I even REMEMBER that initial incident in Washington State! We were having a good laugh over that.

So, we arrived at their house, without warning, and they were home. I said to Becky, “Guess what we found in our car trunk?” (same car, BTW ) She joked, “My car keys?” She hadn’t been able to find them and had been planning on going out. I said no and handed her the cranberries – she was like, “these aren’t the same ones are they?” half joking – we said no. And then she said, “Well thanks! And this is exactly what I was going to run out to the store to get, so the kids could make cranberry bread!”

I love these kind of synchronicity and probability/reality shift stories – they’re so much fun, especially when they happen to YOU! *grin*