Thank you.

I found $500 in a library book.

I am an extraordinarily lucky person. I try to say this with humility but it often comes across as boastful but I don't even care anymore cause I want to be able to talk about the good things that happen to me. And I don't mean that I'm lucky because I was born into a good family, comfortable life, have lots of support, and have my basic survival needs taken care of without worry. I am very grateful for that, but I am talking about being lucky with chance. I win contests on a regular basis and if I enter a raffle I usually win whether I want to or not. I often find myself in the right place at the right time to meet whoever I want, and not only do I get to go to cool events but I'll usually end up in the best spot in the crowd. It just happens. I don't believe in jinxing myself or that now that I'm blogging about it it's gonna stop, cause I talk about it all the time. I am lucky. Fortunate might be a better word.

But this is just something else. Five hundred dollars. I would have been happy to find one dollar.

I was quickly walking through the library last week to check out the book The Artist's Way (which so far I am loving) and on my way to the front I passed the book Who Moved My Cheese and thought it would be cool to reread it cause it's short and has a good theme. Last night I picked it up and took it to bed with me to read for a bit before sleeping. When I opened the book, 5 $100 bills fell onto my lap. I wish this had been filmed or something so I could post a picture of my face in that moment in an expression of total confusion as my thoughts went from "what is this fake money doing in this book.......no i think this is a real $100 bill......holy @#%&* oh my god there are 5......what is going on.....wow i'm really not tired anymore..."

I've come up with 10 different scenarios of why this money was in this book.

1. Someone read the book and liked it so much that they left deliberately left the money for someone to find in hope of inspiring positive change.
2. A good samaritan walking through the library pulled the book off the shelf, stuck the money in, and put it back as a gift for the next person who borrowed it.
3. A senile old woman borrowed the book and forgot she was hiding her money in there and then returned the book.
4. Someone made a bad choice of temporarily holding money in a LIBRARY book and it got returned without them knowing.
5. The library is testing my moral values to see if I will report the money.
6. Willy Wonka (as a metaphor) is testing my judgement and will reward my honesty by giving me a Chocolate Factory (as a metaphor) if I turn it in.
7. Karma is testing me.
8. The universe is answering a call, and balancing out my finances since I got called off from work so many days this month.
9. The pages of this book are magical and can make money appear out of nowhere.
10. Someone somewhere wanted me to have this.

Who knows. I may never find out, and it's probably none of these reasons. Though I am an optimist that believes in the good samaritan with a hope that I can do that one day also, I am also sympathetic to the senile old lady who has lost her money. The suspicion of being tested is a sign of guilt, though the feeling of guilt is a sign that deep down I feel like I am not worthy of this even though I am aware that I can use this money in more virtuous way than someone would would find it and go shopping. It has been 24 hours since I found that money and I'm still not sure what to do, but I gotta say that if my biggest dilemma right now is trying to figure out what to do with $500 that I found then I really have to take a moment to stop and think about how great my life is. Lucky. Fortunate. Whatever you want to call it, it's good.

And keeps getting better. To add to the craziness, this morning I ran into Taylor Hawkins at Borders.

Another moment of precise timing. I drove out to the valley to meet Gail for lunch. According to my GPS I was 5 minutes from where were going to meet but according to my bladder I only had 2 uncomfortable minutes left. So detoured into the Borders parking lot and just as I was rushing to the entrance, the drummer of my favorite band was rushing out with his wife and son and we greeted each other with a casual hello. And that moment was topped with a couple hours at Follow Your Heart with Gail. The events that lead us to become friends is another level of all this.

Thank you.