Aug 22, 2006

Business Planning in the Twilight Zone...

Last weekend was my annual business planning retreat with my husband/business partner. We always head to the beautiful Bavarian-themed town of Leavenworth, WA in the gorgeous Washington Cascades. We eat, relax and plan. It's my favorite weekend of the year.

In the midst of a Saturday afternoon shopping spree in the town, Mark went into a chocolate/grandfather clock store to buy some imported Swiss truffles for some co-workers. I was window shopping outside. And THAT'S where I entered the Twilight Zone.

Flash back to January when my family took a trip to Disneyworld. We were standing in line at the Peter Pan ride when a woman tapped us on the shoulder and asked if she had to hold the button down on her camcorder when she took movies. She was in her mid-60's probably. She had an older woman with her who didn't speak English. Both women were Greek. The younger one lived in New York City and the older one was a friend visiting from Greece. They had just one day to do Disneyworld before going on to Miami. We helped them with their camcorder and then chatted with them in line. They didn't know anything about Disneyworld and only had a couple of hours left before they caught the bus to Miami. We went through the line there with them and then they followed us over to a 3-D movie. The younger one wanted to be with Children to watch the movie. The funnier thing was watching the elderly greek lady watch it. She had obviously never seen anything like it. All in all we spent about 2 hours with them and then they moved on.

So, flash forward to Leavenworth last Saturday. I'm standing outside the shops and I look up because I hear a strange language. I always like to try to figure out what I'm hearing. I thought, "hmmm, that sounds like Greek." All of a sudden, my brain starts this series of thoughts. "That sounds like Greek... it's those two ladies walking towards me... my, they look slightly familiar.... hmmm, why would they?... (they have walked past me at this point), "hmmm, where have I seen that smaller one with the fuzzy black hair before?... the younger one looks familiar, too... Church?... Nope... Suddenly a lightbulb comes on "THOSE ARE THE TWO LADIES FROM DISNEY WORLD! OH MY HECK!!!! HOW BIZARRE!!!!!!" By then, they had disappeared into the crowd and I couldn't see them anymore. I wanted to follow them and see if they remembered us but I didn't want to lose Mark. I looked for them in the crowd the rest of the time we were there.

What are the chances that two ladies - one from New York, the other from Greece would have spoken to us at Disneyworld in January AND THEN SHOWN UP IN A TOURIST TOWN CLEAR ACROSS THE COUNTRY AT THE SAME TIME WE WERE THERE???

Can you hear the Twilight Zone Music???

It's a small, small world...

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