Sometimes it's interesting to be confuciused.

The last few days' weather in NYC can tersely be described as B.W.: Beyond Wicked. You could find tons of synonyms and euphimisms for "hot and muggy," but making any effort in this climate is too exhausting. I'll settle for B.W. Would that it were less syllables. Easier for dry mouths to say.

But! Tonight! Relief...at last. All the tension has built itself up into a nice loud thunderstorm.

Picture this. One hour ago. Upper East Side. Thor's hammer flew above, and miles and miles below, a cargo pant clad brunette flip-flopped, soaking wet, her umbrella sheeting rain, craving a lovely warm bowl of seafood and vegetable soup from the noodle shop one block away. People stepped aside. Well, actually, they stepped aside of the accumulating puddles threatening to soak them to the socks. But the young lady knew that they somehow understood. And she got that soup. And it was good. (OK, so now I've managed to mangle both Norse and Judeo-Christian theological references. All in one unwieldy paragraph. Oh well!)

Perhaps it's trite to report your fortune cookie fortunes, but I scored such a good one that it needs to be shared. I won't guild the lily by putting my own little twist on it. Here it is:

"If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't."
(No, I'm not going to include the string of lottery numbers, or the "learn Chinese" line.)

But isn't that a good one?

After the fortune cookie, I jerked and halted through the downpour to get a cold, sweet frozen yogurt cone. Nothing wrong with stopping by Haagen Dasz on a rainy evening, especially if the yogurt contains no fat and no sugar and it is NOT "that Seinfeld yogurt!"

I ordered. One guy squeezed frozen yogurt from the big machine onto my cone, then handed it off to the cashier to give to me. My money was ready. I looked from the face of the scooper to the face of cashier, who was a smooth-faced older gentleman...maybe from Pakistan or India?...maybe?

I see his face still. Because the gentleman who handed me my treat did it with such gracious delight; he lifted the cone high over the counter, then brought it down to me, gazing with such a bright, tender expression that I felt like a little child.

It was very sweet.

Alas, there's no punch line today...no fabricated versions of pop history...no wistful musings. Just a fortune cookie and some ice cream.