Saturday, October 25, 2008

Cats, Rabbits and Good Fortunes -- Part 2


There are rabbits in Istanbul too, but as far as I can tell, there are only iki—two—and they tell your fortune. People stop and pet them and some, like me, ask for a fortune. The rabbit fortune teller offers them in English or Turkish. His rabbits sniff out a fortune for you from a board that is stuffed with tiny pieces of paper, inside which are morsels of lettuce. I chose a fortune written in Turkish, which my Turkish teacher read but unfortunately would not translate for me during class time. After much anticipation, and much trouble while using my oversized Turkish-English sozluk, I showed my slip of paper with the fortune typed on it to the clerk at my hotel. Ufuk, who studied English for two years in New York. relayed the good news...Whatever problems I may have had with my work in the past, after taking a respite (which, coincidentally, I am doing just now, in Istanbul), will be gone when I return and/or I will bring back new insight with which to deal with these problems. I understand this fortune to mean that after my stay in Turkey I will discover exactly how to revise my current novel, and that the manuscripts my agent is presently trying to sell, will be sold by the time I return! A guzel fortune indeed. Cats and all.

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