Heyyyyy, Abbbotttt!

 It's Friday the 13th. I hate to admit I have superstitions, but here it is and there you are. When I was a kid, around 9 or 10, my mom would tell me stories about how my great grandmother, May Sullivan, was incredibly superstitious. The conversation started one rainy and gray Seattle afternoon, as I was watching KSTW movies. It must have been a Sunday, because they always played Francis the Talking Mule and Abbott and Costello movies on Sunday afternoons and I distinctly remember a talking mule. Anyway, I had just watched some Abbott and Costello movie where the latter has spilled salt, and then said, "bread and butter" while throwing salt over his left shoulder. I was baffled. So, I asked my mom what this could possibly mean. She, my mom, was a walking encyclopedia. She never was stumped on any question about any topic I ever asked, or any definition for a word that I sought. She explained that spilling salt was considered bad luck by some, and that to mitigate any problem arising from such an incident, the spiller would toss salt over their shoulder and say "bread and butter." I was a superstitions kid, I swear I never stepped on a cracked or line in the sidewalk until I was a rebellious pot smoking teenager, hoping to cause harm to a mother who had told me to clean my room. Spoiler alert, no line ever stepped on broke my mother's spine. 

Back to that day. My mom told me about other superstitions I hadn't heard of before, not walking under a ladder, never opening an umbrella in the house, things I hadn't known. I think the only superstitions I knew were about sidewalk lines and cracks, breaking a mirror, and Friday the 13th. In this demon-haunted world of a child's imagination, these stories my mother told me, like my great grandmother being incredibly upset that my father opened an umbrella in the house, made it so I never did the things that caused bad luck, with the exception of my teenage line and crack rebellion. To this day I have never walked under a ladder, opened an umbrella in the house or failed to cross myself as my plane takes off or lands. This from the self-professed atheist who claims he agrees with everything Carl Sagan determined to be true in "The Demon Haunted World."

So, whether I wanted to or not, I approach today with clear trepidation.

My birthday was lovely. I got to speak to both my girls. I have made peace with the fact that for the foreseeable future I will be alone without immediate family on my birthday, with Abby in Massachusetts and Leiney going on month-long jaunts each September with Jared. They are in Bosnia currently, and soon, I believe will be back in their beloved Venice.

Willow and I spent Tuesday together. I spoke

with one sister and got texts from the other. I had a light dinner and a piece of chocolate chocolate cake from Safeway. I didn't have candles at home, but given it was just the dog and me, that seemed to underscore the fittingly low key nature of the day.

I enjoyed the day. It reminded me of the great poet married to Paul Simon, Edie Brickell, who once wrote:

And being alone is the, is the best way to be
When I'm by myself it's the best way to be
When I'm all alone it's the best way to be
When I'm by myself, nobody else can say goodbye

Everything is temporary anyway

I can't argue with that.