Growing up in a town with a population of 23,000ish, I took for granted that on any given errand–especially if it was to Walmart–I would run into someone I knew. In six years of living in a city of more than 120,000, I’ve run into friends in Walmart exactly twice, and once in Lowe’s. That’s the full extent of my random friend encounters in town.

The reason for this isn’t just that Carrollton’s a big city, but also that we don’t have a lot of friends who live in Carrollton. That’s not to say we don’t have a lot of friends. We do. They just happen to be scattered throughout the various Dallas suburbs.

Interestingly, of my four cousins, none of whom have ever lived in the same town as me, two have settled down in the area. Mike, the cousin who lives in Carrollton–just two miles from me, in fact–is not one of the friends I’ve encountered in town. But I did run into him in Plano (population 222,000) yesterday–and not at the Plano Walmart.

Oh no, it was way more random than that.

Our friends the Mortons live in Plano. They’re having a baby in December, and as we couldn’t attend the baby shower, we dropped by their house with a gift. Just as we pulled up, the Mortons came out with some people carrying a table. And who should be one of the table-carriers? You guessed it, my cousin Mike.

My immediate thought, of course, was that Mike knew the Mortons. Church was the most likely place they’d meet–until I realized the Mortons and Mike don’t go to the same church. Then I remembered Katie Morton is a school nurse in Plano, and Mike’s wife Donna teaches in Plano, so maybe they knew each other from school. Before I could ask, Mr. Burt did.

Mike’s reply was not, “Through our wives.”

Chuckling, he said, “Through Craig’s List.”

Mr. Burt and I gawped at each other.

“Let me get this straight,” I said to my cousin, “you bought a table off Craig’s List from our friends, who you don’t know, and happened to come pick it up at the same time as we dropped by to visit them for the first time in months?”

As it turned out, I still had to be set straight; the story got even more random. Mike wasn’t buying the table. Friends of his wife bought it. Mike was just there with his mother-in-law’s truck to help them get it home. At the same time as we dropped by to visit our friends for the first time in months.

One of you readers who’s good at math needs to tell me what the odds of that are. Pretty astronomical, I’d wager.

Once upon a time, the news that Prince William is getting married would have broken my heart.

Because he was supposed to marry me.

When I caught a glimpse of him in the newspaper, it was love at first sight between me and the handsome future King of England who was just my age. Or it would be, once he saw me–by which time he’d already be well on his way to falling deeply in love with me, thanks to the beautiful letter of sympathy I’d written to him upon the occasion of his mother’s tragic death.

It would have to be a real humdinger, as no doubt William had servants who read his post first to weed out the girls who were only after his power, riches, and masculine beauty from the one who truly loved him. If there is ever anything I can do… I wrote, convinced that the letter-reader’s response would be, Oh yes, Miss Bond, there is something you can do—heal His Royal Highness’ heart. Because nothing bespeaks true love like the phrase, Until that time, know that you are in my prayers whenever I think of you. Even the Apostle whose words I’d hijacked couldn’t have prayed as much for his fledgling churches as I was praying for William, because the first century had a distinct lack of 24-hour news coverage about celebrities dying to keep people frequently in his thoughts.

Also, Paul wasn’t a fifteen year-old girl.

He especially wasn’t a fifteen year-old girl who got caught by her father smuggling Diana-related newspapers back to her room and, flushing furiously, told him she was saving them because they were “history in the making”–as was getting up at three in the morning on a Saturday to watch Princess Diana’s funeral–like he didn’t know the truth, like every other father of a teenage daughter in 1997.

My letter never made it to Prince William—or his servant who read letters—it never even got finished–so I thankfully am spared the humiliation of having attempted to woo royalty with godliness. I only have to live with the humiliation of having played that card in my love games with regular boys at school and in youth group—about as successfully, I might add, as I would have been with His Royal Highness. The first boy who did take an interest, two years later, informed me that what actually drew me to him was not my prayers, but my pants—the blue plaid ones. And we all know what that’s teenage boy code for.

Not surprisingly, that relationship was no more destined to be than the one I had dreamed of with Prince William. For a big dose of irony, my first boyfriend played a prince in our high school production of Into the Woods—and used his charm both on-stage and off, with more girls than just me.

Princes were seriously over-rated, I decided, much as Sondheim’s Cinderella did. You have to work too hard to get–and keep–them.

Mr. Burt came into my life without the stench of prince anywhere near him. Well–he had played one of the Three Kings in a church play, but Binky the Wise Man bearing gifts of ties, toasters, and soaps-on-a-rope is a far cry from crowns and glass slippers and senior proms and angsty teenage romances. I never played any games with Mr. Burt; the first night we met I hadn’t washed my hair or put on makeup, and I spit popcorn on him. He wasn’t looking for me to impress him–though I did when I worked out the meaning of the word defenestration by using my (extremely limited) German vocabulary–and when I scored a date simply by being myself, I knew my search for Prince Charming was over.

Though that doesn’t mean I won’t get up at three in the morning to watch the royal wedding. After all, it’s history in the making.

Today is Veterans’ Day, and like we all do, I pause to think of those I know who have served our country in the armed forces. But Veterans’ Day is also significant to me because November 11 was my grandfather’s birthday. Papa would have been 89 today.

Both my grandfathers were World War II vets. Grandpa Benton fought in Germany and received a Purple Heart when he was wounded rescuing his comrades from a tank that hit a land mine. Papa was in the Pacific, a cook in the Army. Written like that, next to Grandpa Benton’s brave act in combat, Papa’s role in the war seems less than heroic.

Far from it.

While stationed in the Philippines, Papa met a little street kid–an orphan. Papa had a baby girl back home in Texas, born while he was overseas–a sacrifice I’m only beginning to understand as a new parent. But even though Papa missed out on the hands-on experiences of becoming a father, he was a natural dad. He looked out for the boy, feeding him leftovers from the Army mess. More than that, he befriended the boy, loved him–so much that he wanted to take him home with him. And not in that wishful thinking way so many people, myself included, have when they meet a child in poverty or without parents; Papa actually began the process of legally adopting him.

It didn’t work out. But even though it didn’t, Papa was a hero for trying to make a difference in that little Filipino boy’s life. In fact, he didn’t just try; for the time he was in Manila, he did make a difference. And continues to make a difference through this story as it’s passed down from his children to his grandchildren to his great-grandchildren.

And that’s what Veteran’s Day is all about.

So thank you, Papa–and happy birthday.

There’s nothing like putting a pot roast in the oven, leaving the house, and returning home a few hours later to the savory-sweet aroma permeating every inch of the house. (There’s also nothing like having finished dinner several hours ago and still smelling pot roast in every inch of the house, including your bedroom upstairs. But in a completely different way, where you want to burn very strongly scented candles.)

Growing up, Mom always put her Sunday roast in the oven before church, so that lunch was ready the moment we got home from services, our mouths watering with the scent that wafted even through the garage.

Now that I’m grown up, roasts are usually a Sunday evening meal, but I’m beginning to think Mom was on to something by not being in the house while her roasts cooked slowly in the oven. Smelling a roast for three hours certainly makes you anticipate dinner, but more or less in that way a prisoner anticipates his torturers leaving him alone for the day. Especially when you’ve skipped lunch.

Tonight I cooked my first roast since the Burt Squirt began eating solid foods. I was tempted to give him tastes because it seemed cruel for him to have smelled it all day and then have to watch Mr. Burt and me eat it. I didn’t give in to the temptation, and my guilt was assuaged by the enthusiasm with which he ate his Gerber carrots.

Still, I find myself looking forward to the day when the Burt Squirt is old enough to eat his first roast. I wonder if it’ll become a favorite meal, like it is for my brother and me–Mom’s special recipe, better than any other pot roast you’ll ever eat. (Do you know anyone who seasons a roast with soy sauce and chili powder?) I wonder if, when he smells it as an adult, the scent will trigger vivid memories of me peeling vegetables, of coming home from tests at school or grueling athletic practice to soul food.

Though mostly I wonder: will he follow in his father’s footsteps and hate cooked carrots, or will I have to share them?

Before I was LR Burt, I was LR Bond, and I made Mr. Burt laugh by suggesting, while we were out on a dinner date, that we go walk around the new Target Greatland that had just opened in Waco. He couldn’t see the fun in going to a store like Target when we didn’t need anything from there (or have the money to buy it).

“Just wait,” I told him. “Someday we’ll be old and married and so desperate to get away from our offspring that we’ll hire a babysitter and go to Target and think it’s the funnest thing we’ve done in a long time.”

“Nope, not gonna happen,” Mr. Burt insisted, and then took me to a local pizza joint where we jockeyed for position with birthday boys and girls at the skee ball machines.

Famous last words–even if they were accompanied by a confident derisive snort.

Actually, it turns out we were both sort of right: seven years later, we’re married and once, if not twice a month, are shooed out of the house by my mother, whose favorite way to spend a Saturday is babysitting the Burt Squirt (to the consternation of our neighbor Patty, who wants a baby fix badly enough to offer a babysitting rate that’s in direct competition with Grandmommy’s), and our idea of a good date is still skee ball at Dave and Buster’s.

The difference is that seven years ago, Mr. Burt wouldn’t have responded to my suggestion that, after dinner, we go walk around IKEA, by saying, “Sure. It’ll be good exercise.”

Next thing we know, we’ll be power-walking in the mall with our pants pulled up to our chests.