Non sequitur

This morning the words “Catlin Gable” idly drifted through my mind. Just some syllables with an engaging cadence.

A few hours later when I checked email there was an announcement for a party coming up. I put it in my calendar, and then checked the address on the map.

There it was in the West Hills. To the northwest maybe half a mile away was something called Catlin Gabel.

It was nothing but a private school. But what’s going on here?

Maybe I had subconsciously noticed “Catlin Gabel” at some previous time. Possibly. But why would I think of it before reading an email about a place nearby? Unless I had also, subconsciously, mentally pinned the address of the party. Before reading the email? That’s a stretch.

A whimsical phrase like “Catlin Gabel” is just the kind of thing I would peripherally notice on a map. But — before looking at the map?

The Occam’s Razor idea is explaining things with the minimum number of assumptions. So, we could get away here with just one single assumption: That information can travel back through time. Huh?

This kind of thing has happened to me before. But always like this. Trivial. Random. No real consequence. But I have to admit it tickles me.

So, if I can see the future, is the key that I can only see whimsy? Well, my favorite form of humor is the non sequitur.