The Fates await

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

The world is full of mystery.

Last night, while at the celebration for a friend who just received the state’s top education job in the administration of social studies courses—let’s just call her the Social Studies Czar—I ran across one of those WTF stories. It was a festive evening, and there was a variety of people of many political stamps seated around the table. The food at the Washoe Grill on West Fourth Street was decent enough, and our group was boisterous. (It’s the old restaurant reviewer in me. My steak and my friend’s steak each could have used a few more minutes on the grill, but, man, those escargot died for a wonderful cause.)

At any rate, after dinner, I joined my friend in the bar area because he wanted to drink a port and an espresso—it’s his ceremony, a sip of espresso then a sip of port. But in the meantime, the bartender was telling us a little about herself and our waitress. It seems they are both from the same 4,000-person town in New England. Neither knew the other was coming. Neither knew the other was here. Neither knew the other in their hometown.

And, yet, they both ended up in Reno and were hired at the same restaurant. I’m not what you’d call superstitious (and in a very interesting way, neither were any of the other committers of sacrilege at the table), but if I were those women, I’d try and figure out what fate is trying to tell me.

This morning, I witnessed another seemingly natural phenomenon. It was the moments before dawn, and out in the east, there was a vertical shaft of light, a gold spotlight shining into the cadmium pink clouds across light blue skies. I stood there a minute or two as it diffused into a growing sunrise. I called Kathleen to come and look at it, and she took a picture before it was completely lost. You know, it’s not hard to see how primitive people looked at such “signs” as portentous. I’m half waiting for another shoe to drop. But I’m not superstitious.