Silly little coincidences

This isn't even worth mentioning, but I find it remarkable enough that... I will. I mean, "remarkable" it's not. Just, oh, curious, interesting to me. Cute. It's twofold: two minor coincidences from this week. Both involving reading and television.

First, the reading: I am working on a proofread of a fun little book comprising short essays about life on a farm in southwestern Washington. That's one. Then yesterday I picked up the next book in my alphabetical reading challenge—though I'm fudging a bit, because the next letter is V and, search though I did through my vast collection, I couldn't find a V book that I really felt like reading (Venice: Lion City—The Religion of Empire by Garry Wills felt too heavy after my last book about invisible war, though it gets very good reviews). So I picked up The Portable Veblen (see the V?), a novel that gets mixed ratings. So far I'm finding it airy and light (it often gets described as "quirky"), which is about my current speed. We'll see.

Which brings me to TV. Last night we watched the first episode of the most recent season of The Great British Baking Show. The subject was cakes. For one of the cakes, the contestant added herbal flavorings, to wit: sticky willy and stinging nettles. Now, until two days ago, I would have had no idea what sticky willy is, but because of the book of farming essays, I recognized it immediately: it's Galium aparine, also known as cleavers or goosegrass. I recognized it partly because I had to look it up for the farming book, since at that point I'd never heard of it. Now it pops up twice within just a few days? How funny!

And there things would have rested, if not for the second coincidence—which I found too humorous to leave go unnoted. This one involved the show Veronica Mars, about a girl detective. She was in high school when the show got going, but this season (which originally aired in 2006—we are rewatching) she's enrolled in college and works in the college library. I'm impressed with how she has the locations of quite obscure subject matter right there in her bright little noggin—like when a fellow student comes in and asks for a book on the economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen. Wait, what? Veblen? Yes indeed, the author of The Theory of the Leisure Class himself, who coined the term "conspicuous consumption" and was a strong critic of capitalism. Given the class divide that Veronica Mars treats in its characters and situations, I enjoyed the wink.

Now I'm waiting for a third unlikely coincidence. If one arises, I'll be sure to add it here.