Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will hear a surprising, yet true, tale.

Naturally, my daughters grew up loving books. They were read to as babies, toddlers, and pre-schoolers, and they all became early readers.

We moved to town from the country when they were 13, nine, and six, and many boxes of books came into Winterset with us. On shopping trips to Des Moines with me or with their grandmother, the Fons girls knew if they could get us to B. Dalton or Waldenbooks they would always succeed in acquiring a new book.

Hannah, Mary, Rebecca, and I ate dinner every night at the round oak table in the dining room. I promoted conversation, but there were also the normal amounts of squabbling, spills, and sulks. One evening, we all seemed to be staring at our spaghetti without much to say. None of my inquiries about the school day struck gold. "I know," I said. "Let's read." In a flash, everyone, including me, shot away from the table and returned with a current volume. We read and ate in silent contentment.

Visiting twenty-something Hannah in New York a few years ago, I related the Let's Read anecdote to her roommate Dave to illustrate the literary, culturally-attuned background from which she came. He soon shared the story with their social circle, to prove what he had suspected all along—chic, 5'10" Hannah grew up a nerd in a nerdy family.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will reveal yourself to friends gradually.

PS. Dave, who has an undergraduate degree in trombone and a master's in voice (and now his Equity card and two Broadway roles under his belt), also grew up a nerd.

I looked at bronze Byzantine ornaments around to the right under the main staircase. I went back to the Robert Lehman Wing and looked at European art. From there, I went up or down every staircase I came across. Soon, I found myself in the newly-renovated Wrightsman Galleries of French decorative art.

A couple, kissing passionately, occupied the velvet-roped viewing inset of the first beautifully-appointed bedroom. She was tipped back in his arms, and they kissed until her sunglasses clattered to the floor. Separated, they viewed the velvety room, standing close. I slowed my pace and kept my ears open; soon, I recognized their French. Ah, I thought, that explains a lot.

In the halls of Greek and Roman Art, I sat a while on a long, flat bench. A family of tourists ambled through the room—mother, father, and teenage son all sporting klieg-light-white, Times Square I HEART New York T-shirts. They walked through the gallery, mesmerized by its grandeur. I understood exactly how they felt.

In  the sculpture hall next to the Petrie Court Cafe, I enjoyed the mix of marble and bronze. I noticed a man relaxing just on the other side of the glass wall that faces the Park.

Bare-chested, with his legs stretched out in front of him and unlaced combat boots to one side, he sat atop some ventilation vents, working his way through a stack of newspapers. His folded coat was his seat cushion. His folded shirt was his foot pad. His coat-hanger shoulders flexed each time he turned a page of the Washington Post's Sports Section.

As he read, the draft from the ventilation grates blew his grizzled hair and beard back dramatically. After refolding Sports, he turned to Business.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will be humbled by the world around you.

We were walking west on Ninth to Astor Place to catch an uptown 6 train and noticed the Max Brenner chocolate cafe on the corner of Ninth and Second Avenue. Having had only toast and coffee at my daughter's apartment an hour earlier or more, we agreed that some chocolate would fortify us well for the busy day ahead.

Inside, Wonka-esque floor vats mechanically stirred dark, white, and milk chocolate, pumping it to the bar area via chocolate duct-work along the ceiling. Our waiter, a cute young Polish emigre, showed us to a table and handed us thick menus with a smile. We skipped the single page of salads and sandwiches and studied the many pages of chocolate treats—chocolate pizza, chocolate soup, chocolate fondue.

My "choctail" was the fairly tame (compared to chocolate martinis, etc.) Eighties Milkshake, a thick milkshake made with vanilla and chocolate cream topped with a floating scoop of vanilla ice cream covered with crunchy chocolate. Kathy chose the Chocolate Granita, pure chocolate truffle blended with ice. So we'd have something solid to go with (and because after all we are in New York) we shared a huge, warm, chocolate-studded bagel topped with hazelnut-chocolate spread.

We slurped our drinks through icy-cold, stainless steel straws, reading chocolate-culture mottoes scrawled on chocolate brown walls, and looking with interest at the chocolate boutique at the back of the store. Lips smeared with chocolate and eyes glazing over, we both bogged down a quarter-bagel in.

Later in the day, around two p.m., we opted for late lunch at the Met. "After all," Kathy said, "all we've had today is chocolate."

The weather was hot and sticky, but, as ISU Master Gardener interns, we were happy to sweat among one million plants. On Perennial Garden Way, we discovered "grow-through" wire grids atop the (now leaf-only) peonies. We'll be installing one of those on our own peony to keep its huge, heavy blossoms from bending to the ground.

The huge Victorian glass houses of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory contain 11 distinct habitats, none of them air-conditioned, of course. We strolled through two types of rain forest, American and African deserts, and the display of aquatic and carnivorous species, noting that few plants on earth would thrive in the air-conditioned habitat many humans so enjoy in July.

Outside again, we observed a mini meeting under a shade tree on the north side of the Conservatory. A slim, clipboard-holding, impeccably-dressed, 60ish woman spoke to the semicircle of garden personnel riveted around her. We only caught a few words, but learned some type of vermin had successfully damaged a sponsored garden. "Perhaps the Ladies Border is not the best use of our time and money," she observed.

After lunch and Scrabble in the Visitor Center cafe, we hopped on one of the trams that runs through important areas of the Gardens—Tulip Tree Alley, the Magnolia Collection, Howell Family Garden, and the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, home of some 3,000 antique roses, modern hybrid teas, floribundas, and shrub roses.

The chicest outfit in my suitcase was an army green silk Ralph Lauren Capri length pant suit. Even though my feet hurt from walking in them all day, I slipped my Kenneth Cole black platform sandals back on after I showered. I refreshed my makeup and added a couple more silver bracelets, grooving that my name was on file at Pier 92. The first taxi I hailed on Avenue A pulled over for me.

The show site at the Exhibition Pier looked just like they do on TV—press people with long-lensed cameras on their necks jostling for position among all the big lights at the far end of the long, narrow room, open curtains and Buckler's logo on a setback wall at the other end, a single, straight runway down the middle, and rows of black folding chairs on each side. I slipped into a back row seat, then noticed bigger swag bags on chairs closer to the runway and moved up.

Cool, darkly dressed, 5'10" Hannah slipped out from backstage to make sure I was okay. "Good—you're in the front row. They like interesting-looking people up here, and you look SO editorial!" I breathed deeply as the room filled to capacity and people with the wrong ID tag were reassigned to the back wall. The pulsing house music got even louder, a Buckler staff honcho in a headset directed the removal of butcher paper covering from the runway carpet, and the show began.

In under 50 minutes, all 44 of the ensembles had been marched out and back by non-smiling, rail-thin boys. Colors for the collection were deep blood red, raw putty, pistachio, mustard, dove gray, cadet blue, and navy. My favorite was #12: "Dove Bamboo Jackal & Hyde Jacket, Blood Pocket Vest, White Waistcoat Shirt, White Angry Anglo Jean, Blood Chelsea Picker Shoe."

At the end, Mr. Buckler himself popped out to bob his head shyly and wave at the applause before darting backstage again. Noting the name tag around my neck, my next-door seat-mate inquired, "So what do you do for Andrew?"

"Just a friend," I replied, taking a pull from my bottle of Smart Water.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will boldly go where you have never been before.

As for my husband Mark and me, we took the 6 train uptown to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Costume Institute's latest exhibit Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, includes two of Toby McGuire's Spiderman leotards, Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman costume, and an Ironman suit worn recently by Robert Downey, Jr. We also saw an exhibit of feather work from ancient Peru, had lunch, and wandered the pyramidal limestone and glass Robert Lehman Wing, which we had never discovered before.

On our way out, we decided to walk through the east side of the park and catch a train home further south. I knew of Central Park's Adopt-A-Bench program, but yesterday I stopped to read inscriptions on some of the little brass plates as we passed.

TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF AGNES HANNIGAN
AND TO THE HAPPY DAYS
SPENT TOGETHER IN THIS PARK,
WITH LOVE FROM ALL YOUR 'CHILDREN'
1900-1999

THIS BENCH BELONGS TO
THE GRANDCHILDREN
OF JEANNE & CARLISLE JONES

IN MEMORY OF
JAQUELINE M. IRELAND
1923-1989
FROM A FEW OF HER CLOSEST FRIENDS

 CELEBRATING OUR "50TH"
1953-2003
JOAN AND JERRY SERCHUCK

Since 1986, approximately 2,000 of the park's 9000 benches have been adopted. A fee of $2500 includes brass plate, inscription, and bench maintenance for life (of the bench).

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will be lovingly remembered. 

Along the way, we stopped at Eisner Bros. on the corner of Essex and Broome to buy Mark some socks. We had a delicious lunch at Casanis, a restaurant on Ludlow at Broome that looks exactly like a tiny Paris bistro and serves food that tastes exactly like food at a tiny Paris bistro.

After we bought our 3:20 "Piecing it Together" museum tour tickets, we had time to stroll into the east edge of Chinatown and buy a Mah-Jongg set for the apartment. We also had time to stop at Zarin's on Grand between Orchard and Allen Streets. Established in 1936, Zarin's s the largest purveyor of discounted designer upholstery fabrics in New York City. On the second floor, you can browse through aisles lined with thousands of rolls of gorgeous fabrics, arranged by color.

On our Tenement Museum tour, we learned that in the late 1800s 70% of all women's clothing produced in the US at that time, and 40% of all men's clothing, was stitched in the tenement neighborhoods of the Lower East Side. Over the decades, some 17,000 immigrants from Russia, Ireland, Italy, Poland, and other countries occupied 97 Orchard Street.

Later while I shopped in the Museum store, Mark parked himself on a bench outside and opened up Mah-Jongg to refresh his memory of the rules, only to find the instructions entirely in Chinese. Resourceful as ever, when he saw a young man step out of a restaurant across the street Mark walked over and asked for help.

As I emerged from the Museum, there they were opposite me, Mark on the sidewalk taking notes while his assistant enjoyed a smoke.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will be fortunate. 

In retrospect, a beam of sunlight should have been shining through the ceiling of the store, illuminating Away by Amy Bloom; the Angels of Literature should have been humming. That way, I would have purchased Away faster and begun reading it immediately, rather than when my plane reached altitude.

If Bloom's spectacular novel ever becomes a film, the lucky actress cast as Lillian Leyb will have the role of a lifetime. The story begins in 1927 in New York's Lower East Side, but by the end you will have traveled almost around the world with Lillian, and you will have met an array of characters well worth your time.

Like Grace Paley, like Annie Proulx, Amy Bloom serves fiction containing no filler or high fructose corn syrup. The bones of the story have meat on them, and, thankfully, the meat has bones. Bloom's nasty characters are bad, but not evil. Her heroes make big mistakes and exhibit character flaws, but they're hopeful.

If I had started reading Away sooner, on the other hand, I would have finished sooner, and sooner felt the heartbreak of parting company with Lillian on that last, sweet page.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune
You will have access to a bookstore. 

In Winterset, my daily walking route takes me west on Jefferson, across Eighth Avenue, and then back east on Court. These familiar streets are lined with mature trees—tall, leafy maples, oaks, and lindens—that form a cool canopy over the sidewalk on most blocks.

Some mornings, I get busy around the house and miss walking in the brief early coolness of the day. If I'm out under a high, hot sun, I cross the long avenues as needed to take advantage of the most continuous sections of shade. I scan the path ahead and cross willingly, figuring I'm adding a little distance and staying cooler at the same time.

The other day, I saw a lady I slightly know coming toward me at a distance, walking her dog, just as I was crossing to the other side. I met her two more times, always going the opposite direction, and always as I crossed to the shade at other side of the street.

I hope she didn't think I was avoiding her.

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will think you are more important than you actually are.