From a Chinese fortune cookie: "Select from the past only what is useful for dealing with the present."

Yes, another Chinese fortune cookie. It's not that I've been spending a lot of time eating Chinese food lately, I just save up my fortunes to see if one of them comes true. So far it's still a work in progress.

Write your own Chinese fortune. Try one modern style (optimistic and generalized) and try another the of the old fashioned kind which were kind of spooky and mystical. The sort of cookie you open with your fingers crossed and your breath held, suspense making your fingers tremble in case this fortune said something you didn't want to hear/ read.

You're making a ship in a bottle. It's something you've always thought would be interesting to do one day. Like making paper doll chains into infinity, or bungee jumping... well, maybe not so much, it seemed creative, intricate and something you could boast about making later and then give away to relatives when you got tired of it. Plus, you heard once that your Great Grandfather used to make them.

Only, when the glass bottle company delivers your glass bottle, it's a baby bottle. What kind of ship would you design to fit inside a baby bottle? Or would you go with something completely different?

A fly buzzes around your coffee mug. You've just made fresh coffee and only had that first sip of it. You swat the fly away, instead it flies right into your mug and begins to drown/ swim in your coffee. You scoop out the fly and drink the coffee anyway. It was really good coffee!

Later that day you start to crave a hamburger. So you get one but instead of eating it as you normally would you feel the urge to vomit on it and then lick all of it off. Too weird!

You're becoming a fly. The fly virus has attacked you from drinking fly cooties in your coffee!

What do you do to maintain your humanity and disguise the fact that you are turning into a fly, though still looking like a human (for a few days).

In twenty years what would you like to tell someone that you can't say now? Why does time sometimes make it easier? 20 Years Late (From a Friend's FaceBook).

Hey mom I know that it's late, hope I didn't wake you Yeah, everything is O.K., just needed to talk to you Today I had one of those days But I didn't call to complain Just to say everything that I didn't for all of those years You were a taxicab driver, a nurse and a maid A waitress, a cook and a shoulder to lay My head on to cry on, when nothing was going my way You knew every answer without cracking a book And I took for granted that I had it so good And I'm sorry it's taken me so long to say Thank you I love you Twenty years late

It's funny how time passing by can change your perspective A little while out on your own can sure make you think I don't know how you did it No I can't find one spare minute The days run together but I don't remember you Ever letting us down

You were the judge and the jury when I did wrong Been my biggest fan from my very first song The gas in the engine that always kept me moving on A seamstress a counselor and the one referee That could cold stop a fight between my brothers and me And I'm sorry it's taken me so long to say Thank you I love you Twenty years late

I'll let you go now But I hope that you know now how I feel Thank you for making me the woman I've become I love you and I will always be your daughter Mom that's all I called to say 20 years late...

"Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop." – Anonymous

Have you heard that one before?

Write your own, a quick analysis of love. Think of what you would tell your daughter. Think of what you would tell your son. Why is it different and how can you put that together into a new thought about love and yourself?

Assume you have children if you do not. I don't either but I can think of what I would say based on my own experiences thus far.