Fancy meeting you here!

This world is an amazing, unpredictable place. And just about the time I forget that, serendipity smacks me upside the head.

Micah and Laura took me along on a field trip last evening, to the Apple store in Skokie. It's a nice store-- very modern, very Apple. After we played with the toys for a while, I spotted a birthday present for Kyle (software-- beyond that, I'm not telling). I went to the counter to pay for it. The cashier took my credit card, looked at the name-- and then did a double take. "That's my mother's maiden name," he says.

My turn to do a double take-- because my last name is unusual enough that I've never met anyone with it who wasn't family.

Didn't this time, either. Turned out that the Apple Store guy is a cousin-- his mom is Bruce's Aunt Therese, his dad's younger sister! They haven't seen one another in years, and each had no idea that the other was anywhere near by. (Alan lives over in Andersonville, a nearby Chicago neighborhood).

Small world, indeed!