Fortune Cookie

There’s a wonderful, fun, dishy movie from 1954 called “A Woman’s World.” In one scene, the always elegant (and disgustingly slim) Lauren Bacall offers up a plate of goodies and a great line to the beauteous Arlene Dahl: “Have a cookie, Cookie.” If you remember that flick, you’re at least as old as I am and you probably thought of June Allyson as “the good one,” Arlene as “the bad one,” and Lauren as “the smart one.”

My, how things have changed in a woman’s world since the fifties. But Bacall somehow never did. She was always smart, always sophisticated. So I tried to think the way she would to come up with what Luck and Good Fortune might mean to us women of 2008. We are not, as were women in the Fifties, dependent on or limited by the success or failure of our husbands. That is a stroke of luck in itself. But along with sweeping and dramatic changes in our lives have come a slate of new choices and challenges. How to survive? How to prosper? How to take a picture with that cell phone?

So here’s what I would wish for us in the way of good fortune today:

Even if you’re officially retired, some kind of work that inspires and rewards
A bathroom scale that always weighs two ounces less than you expect it to
Someone – just one person will do – who really “gets” you
A moment of supreme enlightenment, in which you finally understand how to add an attachment to your e mail
A call on that fancy Bluetooth razor thin cell phone from the one person you’re dying to hear from
A short line in the ladies’ room
A long visit with your best friend
At last, a bra that fits properly
The perfect table at every restaurant (if that’s next to the men’s room, so be it)
World peace. Okay, we’ll settle for peace and quiet at home.
A good, down-to-your-socks belly laugh, at least once a day
Fret-free moments before you drift off to sleep
All the right, healthy choices to eat and drink so you’ll stay healthy and fit… but despite all of them, every once in awhile,
Have that cookie, Cookie.