I don't believe in "signs" or "omens" or that "everything happens for a reason."  I believe in cause and effect, momentum, and that you make your own luck (and I use the word luck in only the most abstract sense).  I also believe in coincidence.  Yesterday Penny was talking about an old friend, someone she hadn't heard from (or, admittedly, contacted) in a while.  In the mail that day there arrived a hand-written letter...from the old friend.

Penny seems to have an uncanny ability to make things manifest.  Of course, we know that these moments are mere coincidence, but we can't help but want to take away some significance.  One winter we were going to Michigan for the holidays, and for two months before (she'd started on Halloween) she talked incessantly about how much she wanted to have a white Christmas.  She didn't want fluffy snow, or a small base of snow...she wanted S N O W snow! The day before we arrived, the Midwest was hit with a blizzard that left nearly four feet in some areas.  Snow.

This year started with the usual talk of resolutions (I'm giving up soda), and goals (trying to exercise more).  One of the things I want is a laptop.  It doesn't have to be the newest high-tech model (do they read your mind yet?), just something that I can use to run decent word processing software and allow me to check my email (and such) while sipping coffee in public.

A new laptop was, apparently, also at least one of the goals of my brother and a co-worker.  They'd been waiting for just the right time to upgrade their equipment - end of the year sales.  Within the first week of the year they'd both purchased new equipment (my brother a bigger, faster, lighter Dell, and for my co-worker an iPad).  Since older model laptops don't have much of a resale market they concurrently (though completely unaware of it) gave their laptops to the same chairty: me.

Of course, my wanting a laptop coinciding with my receiving said computers is nothing more than mere coincidence, but when we look for these things they carry more emotional weight than reality should dictate.  Still, I've removed everything from the hard drives that wasn't essential, installed Final Draft and Google Chrome, uploaded a few songs (not too many) and now I'm portable.