Fortune cookie says: There are two clubs -- the people who have figured out how to make money and the people who haven't. Choose the first.

My children and their friends will tell you that if you're in Mrs. Hinckley's kitchen at a certain time of day, you may be lucky enough to get a homemade cookie, but you will almost certainly have your horoscope read to you out of the daily paper.  Just the way it is.  My children are now grown but I do continue to foist my horoscope readings upon whomever happens to be nearby whether they wish to participate or not.  Call it one of my endearing quirks.

Actually, I'd like to take over writing the horoscopes for our paper because I could almost certainly be as accurate and there's a good possibility I could be more entertaining.  Anyway.


I have collected fortune-cookie-fortunes for about 15 years, ever since we lived in Seattle and Chinese cuisine played a major role in our dining-out adventures.  I keep them in an envelope tacked to my bulletin board, and my friends sometimes save them for me as well.  For years I have threatened to create something with them, but that project has yet to be revealed (even to me).  But I love to read and re-read them.

I don't know what it is about the possibility 

of future predictions that so intrigues me.

Will I find love?  Already have.

Will I be wealthy?  Not looking likely, but I have exactly enough. And besides, define wealth.

Fame?  Getting a little late, and who wants it anyway?  All those cameras following you around.  When would I engage in my private donut eating?


But all of this is just a lengthy introduction as to why, when I was beginning the precursory poking through the rubble on my work table as a preparation to actually relocating the stuff to my NEW work table (which we bought this weekend -- it's happening!) I came across this, which my friend Flannery so kindly saved for me:

Not a fortune, exactly, but a helpful hint or creative tip or SOMETHING from Martha Stewart that you find when you unwrap your chocolatey treat to eat it.  So certainly a fortune-cookie cousin.

And Martha is most certainly making one.
A fortune, I mean.  And I spent enough years as the person behind the creations in the magazines to know that she doesn't spend a whole lot of time making the things that are making her rich.

But I'd like to meet several people in this particular scenario:

1) The person who sold this idea to the chocolate manufacturer.

2) The person who wrote the helpful tip, which is exactly as helpful as saying "use a pizza crust to make pizza" or "use a crochet hook to crochet."  Seriously.

3) Martha herself, for whom the planets continue to align in perfect obedience.  She has a bit of a reputation among some of the grunt-workers of the make-it-yourself industry, and I'll let you use your imaginations as to what type of reputation that is.

If I were an actual horoscope writer, 
I'd write one for her that said something like this:

You will have an army of talented people making wonderful things for which you will gladly take credit.  You will amass a fortune second only to that of Oprah.  You will go to prison, but it will only enhance your ability to sell crocheted ponchos to the world.

I know, I'm just jealous.
I wish a major corporation would pay me to do nothing. But to the people at Dove, I have to say, "You got the short end on that Martha Stewart deal."

The chocolate execs may not know what a "flower frog" is, but we do.  Duh.

So here's a little something creative to keep them confused: