Moby Dickchronicity

Some time ago a friend decided she wanted to read Moby Dick, and knowing how difficult that text can be, I told her that I would read it along with her if she would like that. She said she would, and so we began. I looked to her to set the pace, and for the first few days we stayed neck in neck. But then she began to slip behind. Knowing myself--especially how quickly I lose track of the details of a text--I continued to read, but didn't push myself too hard so as not to get too far ahead. But pretty soon it became apparent that she had stopped dead in the water with no intention of resuming the journey. So I decided that I would just go ahead and finish on my own. 

Since I have quite a few other books in process...currently eight, not including "graphic novels"...I didn't make any great leaps forward, but I continued steadily, and took to carrying the book with me when I was sure to have some waiting time.

Such as yesterday, when I took my daughter to choir practice. This is not part of my usual duties, but I've done it before and don't mind stepping in when I'm needed. Practice is an hour and a half long, and it's a 20 minute drive each way, so it's a situation where you pretty much have no choice other than to sit around and wait. Which is always fine by me, because it means I have some extra reading time. The choir practices are very loud, however, as there is organ accompaniment, so instead of trying to focus through the wall of noise, I sat out front on the steps of the church to read.

And at the end of Chapter 50 (of 135), I read this sentence:

"He was such a creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east of the continent—those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth’s primal generations, when the memory of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end; when though, according to Genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add the uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane amours."

Which is quite a lovely...not to mention long...sentence, but what hit me immediately was the word Rabbins. I'd never heard that word before, and the context wasn't getting me to a point of understanding, so I got out my phone and Googled and found this:

rabbin [ rab-in ]

noun Archaic.

rabbi

(courtesy of dictionary.com)

Well. I guess I should have seen that coming...but I didn't. 

Anyway, I read a little bit farther, then peripherally noticed a pick up truck had pulled up to the curb about twenty feet from where I sat, and saw a guy get out of the truck and hurry into the church... obviously a choir member arriving late. Then before I could get back to reading, I looked up to see a car pull up behind the truck, parking very close to his rear bumper. The driver got out and hurried across the street to a coffee shop. Since I'm a busy body, I got up to see if the truck would have enough room to get out, and when I got closer I finally noticed what I would have seen right away if I'd been wearing my glasses when I was reading:

Hmmm. 

Coincidence...or something else?