I'm often teased for my fondness of chocolate.
I have some just about everyday. When a thoughtful gift of Vosges truffles arrived in the mail (Thank You, Thea!) there was plenty of teasing to go around.
The package had been lost in the mail, so the company sent a replacement and both packages arrived on the same day.
The lost box was pretty crumpled up, but the chocolate was perfectly delicious. It happened to be the day before my birthday.
Double the chocolate.
When I'm kidded about how much chocolate I eat, I think about Jeanne Calment, who was for a while, the oldest living woman in France.
She claimed one of her secrets to longevity was that she ate more than two pounds of chocolate per week.
French chocolate, of course.
Considering myself one who's a level or two above "chocolate lover", that's a plan for longevity I could get behind.
But I'm not the best at planning. I would like to be a planner, but I'm missing that gene. I'm more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants.
Chocolate shows up unexpectedly. I eat it.
We lost power two nights in a row because of storms last week, and I was beating myself up a little for not planning better.
While we sat with oil lanterns burning, I remembered times from my childhood when the lights going out excited me. It felt like camping.
Being an adult isn't as much fun. I kept thinking about the fridge full of food (and my precious truffles) and the well water pressure tank that lost its oomphf after two flushes of the toilet.
"A generator is definitely in our future," I thought. "And bottled water! We have to plan! We have to be ready! Maybe an underground bunker!"
After almost 20 hours the power came back on.
But by early evening another storm was brewing. I filled up a few containers with water just before the power went out yet again.
It was a small bit of planning, but I felt much more at ease for that night.
A little planning goes a long way.
And then....... sometimes a lot of planning goes nowhere.
When Jeanne Calment was 90, a lawyer bought her apartment on a contingency contract. He would pay her 2500 francs ($400) a month and the apartment would be his upon her death.
She lived to 122.