Lucky Goat

My dear friend Fern says that there are only 500 people in the whole world.  How else does one explain the crazy coincidences that occur with people.  Like the time the H-bomb and I were in a remote village in Thailand sampling street food, when someone he went to high school with, who dropped out to smoke Opium and live out his hippie lifestyle in Thailand probably as far back as the Vietnam era, yelled - Harry Caplan?  There are over 7 BILLION people in the world!!  And the theory of "six degrees of separation" says that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world.

This past week, my cousin and husband from New York State stopped on their way to Florida, picked up my sister in Washington DC, and road-tripped down the coast, ending in Key Largo.  Brother Tom from Ohio joined us here.  Cousin Nancy handed me a beautiful hand-made gift bag (made by her) filled with soap products from a business in a town in NY where her daughter lives called Lucky Goat.  Nancy raved about the products and we laughed at their motto "How you get dirty is your business... how you come clean is ours!"

A couple days later, on our way to Key West to play tourist, we stopped at our motel, the Sea Dell, to show the property to my sister.  My desk clerk handed me a note from a woman who said she was in the Keys in an RV with her husband and that she was a good friend of a high school friend of mine, Deb Simstad Allyn, and had stopped to say hello. Carol Ann and husband had not pulled out of the driveway yet and I raced over to say "hi".  When they got out of the RV, and we were introducing ourselves, she said to my cousin "you look familiar" and my cousin said the same.  Carol Ann said "Lucky Goat?"  And the connection was made.  Carol Ann's daughter is the founder of the Lucky Goat soap business in Skaneateles NY, is friends with my cousin's daughter, Carol Ann works there sometimes, and my cousin who lives in Cortland NY is a huge fan of the product and brought some to me.  

Now, consider there are 300 million people in the US.  Of course, not all live on the east coast, but still, here we are, presented with another "small world" story.  We marveled at the irony, made our way to Key West and guess what - we spotted the couple twice in Key West, which was bulging with tourists!

From the left: my cousin's husband Tom, my cousin Nancy, new acquaintance Carol Ann, me, my brother Tom, Carol Ann's husband and my sister Suzanne.  Have I mentioned before that I have the best family in the world?  They are loving, fun, smart, lively and just plain good people.  My cousin Nancy is my mother's twin's daughter so we have a close knit shared history.  The visit was wonderful, like every time we get together: full of stories, shared family lore, catching up, loud hooting and laughing, teasing and just plain good times.  I guess I am a lucky goat!