Ever find something too weird to be a coincidence? Last Saturday, February 11, I played a board game. My fiance & I cleaned the other couple’s clocks at ‘Celebrity Taboo’. It was about 11:00 PM central time. The game was over but I thought I’d give my friend one more work-out. An easy card was facing me at the back of card box, one we had not used. It was a celebrity everybody knows and the kind of name that would prompt easy clues, even if you didn’t know. That’s what compelled me to pick it up.
‘Taboo’ is an exhilerating game that pushes creativity, guessing or describing. A list of ‘taboo words’ force you to think. ‘Bible’ came up at a party, when I played as a teenager. The reader couldn’t use book or God, so he said: “Jesus’ friends wrote it”. It was hilarious and made the point!
You guessed it, the card I picked up was “Whitney Houston”. I hinted to my friend “Name a city in Texas”. She was blank. I prompted “Name any Texas city, you’ll get it”. Then I tried a well-known quote: What does NASA famously say? Fill in: “So-and-so, we have a problem“. Her husband answered that the name on the card was Whitney Houston.
The news was freaky in the morning. To spot that name of all cards, not knowing Whitney had died. Weirder, feeling urged to use that card although the game was over. Eerie, 7 hours after she passed away; the clue I insisted on pursuing was: “Houston, we have a problem“….
Easy listening isn’t my favourite but I got “The Bodyguard” cassette as a kid and Whitney’s first record. How lovely she looks on the back jacket, peaceful on a beach in white. Her funeral is today and I pray her family gets through a hard time.
RIEDEL FASCINATION 
That truly was eerie!