Serendipity

I applied for a parking permit for the underground car park here at work, since I did use it several times this year when I had the use of Inka's car for several weeks this summer, and perhaps I might use it again in the future.

(Previously, I had simply put a little card on the dashboard with my phone numbers, which the lady at the reception had recommended in lieu of a permit when I said I'd only occasionally come by car.)

And the funny thing was, it listed my phone number extension here (2361) and a number: 999.

I asked whether that was some kind of dummy, and she said no, that was just a consecutive serial number.

So yay! Fun pattern.

Serendipity pt. II: ilma

While browsing Wikipedia, I found that apparently in Finnish, ilma means "air".

In Maltese, of course, it means "water".

Now if somebody can dredge up two language where it means "fire" and "earth", respectively....

(A third language is optional, especially since the fifth element in the set of classical elements seems to vary widely from culture to culture, as does whether there are four or five in the first place. Though apparently, Chinese wu xing only share earth, fire, and water with most of the other traditions, but not air, having metal and wood instead.)