Oh Really Aurelius

Steve and I have a mixed faith marriage: he believes in duct tape and I believe in everything else (except maybe dinosaurs but let's not start on that again; it will only upset you. although... dragon bones - just saying it's possible.)

One of the notions in my extensive catalog of beliefs is the concept of luck. I think some people are more naturally fortunate than others and I think some periods in everyone's life are more inclined toward good things happening than bad. Some days you find five dollars, win a dog show and succesfully use the Heimlich maneuver to save the life of a grateful billionaire; a week later you push the lever down on the toaster and your refrigerator explodes. Steve thinks this idea is bunk. Balderdash. Humbug, fustian, claptrap, hogwash and romantical nonsense. He fails to believe that disparate events can influence each other in creepy cosmic ways and he has made one or two pointedly complimentary remarks about the Victorian era when it was so easy to get a wife committed.

So be it. In deference to his feelings I will not go all First Witch here - muttering darkly about inescapable fates - and I will simply say that after an absolutely lovely visit with my family we've had quite a run of... random occurrences of a less than positive nature.     

Misrandoms #1 - #7 within 48 hours

The utility room in the basement filled with water, soaking parts of the carpet and destroying Steve's collection of moving boxes (I was less than heartbroken about that one - we've been giving house space to these boxes for THIRTEEN YEARS. when I have pointed out that we are unlikely to move any time in the next decade, Steve has said "Do you have any idea how much it costs to buy boxes from a moving company?" Whatever. They've gone to a Better Place and I no longer have to look at them and wonder how much of my stuff they'd be moving to the nursing home.)

Steve decided the flood was above his pay grade so he called in a plumber who determined that our water softener had failed in multiple ways - first the overflow overflowed and then the backup failed to backup. A couple of hundred dollars later it was fixed, Steve pulled up parts of the carpet and we had heaters running to try to dry it all out.

Then it flooded again.

Then my sister-in-law reported that we had water coming up through the drain, filling the tub in the downstairs guest bathroom.

Then water filled the room where the electrical panel lives and the water... smelled funny. YOU KNOW. Like the worst possible funny you can imagine happening to a place where you like to hang out? THAT.

So we called the plumber and he referred us to a drain guy who came and referred us to yet another plumber. We also called our insurance company who sent a couple of guys out to take a look at the mess and promptly starting ripping up our carpet and slathering everything else with chemicals.

Meanwhile Steve went to Home Depot to get... something... and he called me from the road to report that our second car has just developed a spontaneous nervous tic: when you lock the doors the car alarm goes off. Every. Single. Time.

I hung up with Steve and found Patrick hovering next to me.

"What's your problem?" I asked, somewhat irritably as I did the math on a car that screams all the time.

Patrick responded by bursting into flames.

Ohhhhhh the poor kid has another fever. Whoops. Also, damn it. Also, sorry, bunny. 

- Total aside but Patrick has a cold/virus/whatever and the Flonase is not as effective as we had hoped at keeping his sinuses unclogged. Since part of his nonsurgical release from the ENT was predicated upon the hope that he would not succumb to another infection within two weeks of getting rid of the last one I felt the call for desperate measures. You should have seen me in my bathroom last night trying to convince a bleary Patrick that using a Neti Pot is really not like drowning. The water flows right through, I kept saying, all chipper, and in a sense this is true but in another more real sense a child might panic and inhale and exhale all at the same time until water shoots out of everything but their ears and they choke and make pointedly complimentary remarks about the Victorian era when it was so easy to get a mother committed.

Eventually we figured out that the best way for Patrick to irrigate his difficult sinuses is for him to hold his breath, tilt, pour, stop pouring, breathe, snuffle and repeat.

Holding his breath was key - just in case you need to try to help your eight year old use a neti pot -

Where was I? Right. This morning.

So Steve had a meeting and was running late. Steve hates to be late. It makes him frantic unless it is two in the morning and he is out with the guys and he has told me that he will be home by midnight in which case being late doesn't bother him in the slightest 

[True story:

Steve and his pals went out one night when I was X pregnant with the twins. He said he'd be home by eleven. At midnight he called and said that they had been having drinks across the river but were driving toward home as we spoke. TWO HOURS LATER I had created a fully detailed plan for how I would manage as a widow with a kindergartener and newborn twins and he finally poured into the bedroom. When I acidly reminded him that he had claimed to be on his way home hours before he said actually what he had said was that they were pointing toward our town and it was true. They were heading toward home up until the time they had stopped at another bar.

I said it reminded me of the Clinton's definition of sex and he said I'm kinda tired right now and I said would you like to hear my definition of sex and he said do you mind if I just close my eyes here on the floor and I said NEVER AGAIN, that's my definition and he said zzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Anyway Steve was freaking out in the garage and he asked if I could hand him his cell phone. The twins were also freaking out because someone was leaving in the car without them so I opened the door just wide enough to extend my arm through the crack while I held the twins back with my leg. Steve grabbed the phone, said, oh I need my boots and barreled like a rottweiler on a mission through the door I was holding open. The corner of the door snagged the edge of my big toenail and ripped it right off. Right off. As in, two words: bloodied stump.

Steve looked horrified. Caroline wept. Patrick said oh gross and Edward kissed me lovingly on the ear. Then Steve raced off, Caroline continued to weep, Patrick disappeared and Edward asked if I could help him get a little breakfast.

So to recap: Sick kid, basement flooding with unspeakableness in a situation that we have now determined was caused by not one not two not three but FOUR separate malfunctions, car alarm going off every few minutes and my once broken poorly healed toe is now missing a nail - it's the only part of me that looks like it could play professional hockey.

Steve can clutch his duct tape all he likes but I say we are having a run of bad luck. A doomed period if you will. I would not get on an airplane or invest in a franchise cookie stand right now if you paid me and I'm not kidding.

Do you believe in luck? Lucky people, unlucky people, fortunate times, unfortunate times? We have a side of the family that seems to be plagued by the worst things - cancers and bankruptcy and more cancer. They are the nicest people and all these awful things happen... it just seems like they have a disproportionate share of grief in their lives.  

PS Speaking of bloodied stumps I was so charmed by your responses to my question about the fairy tales. You guys really do run the gamut and every time I think I have solved one of life's mysteries to my satisfaction you come along and show it to me in fifty hundred new ways. It is my absolute favorite part of writing this blog. My assumptions get challenged every freaking time and I think oh wow that IS a new perspective. In retrospect I think I was more startled than anything by the decapitated wolf and after I read your comments I did release my pearls and wonder what - exactly - I thought Caroline and Edward would get from Grimm. In a pleasant blog-meets-life moment my mother arrived the day after I posted that last one and at some point she was left to entertain the twins, which she did by poking around the bookshelf. When I came home she immediately mentioned the Cousins book and laughed over it. I asked if she had read it to Caroline and Edward and she said yes. I said, "In its entirety?" and she said, "Of course."

She added that she did make the deaths sound less interesting than the other parts but other than that... she said that Caroline and Edward are three, they could not have cared less about the wolves headless or otherwise and then she gave me a look which nicely encapsulated kids-today-with-their-hothouse-parents-I-swear. I wouldn't have been surprised if she had told me that when we were little my brother and I had actually been held captive in a gingerbread house for six weeks - very common in the 70s - and we turned out just fine.

PPS Luck? Fate? Discuss. I love it when you talk to me.

PPPS I don't care what anyone says. I am excited about the royal wedding. I think it's romantic and she's lovely. So there.

Comments

[Kelly]

I believe in a balance system. Kinda like karma but more "this lifetime" and less reincarnate-y. I have strings of bad luck and then strings of good luck. I figure I'm earning up the points to get something awesome.

My father used to say that if we didn't have bad luck (in our family) we'd have no luck at all. I used to believe that but have realized that just because I never (ever!) win any contests or prizes doesn't mean we don't have good luck - we have great luck in love, and I'll take that any day.

[qp]

I dunno, I vote no on luck/fate/whatever ... and a big yes to Humans, We Really Like to Find Patterns. You see what you look for. On the other hand, holy hell your toe, augh dear god! Not do!

On the OTHER other hand, I'm all right with karma, in the sense that when you do good stuff things go better for you, and the reverse. That's just sensible! But not in a mysterious the universe is racking up points kind of way.

Man, I'm such a wet blanket of scientific reason! Oh well.

[Julie]

I'm going to second the recommendation for the NeilMed squeeze bottle. SO much easier than the neti pot for not drowning, and you can buy the lovely little pre-mixed packets so the solution never hurts.

As for luck, well, this is probably not the day to ask me....

[amanda]

Jesus Julia. That sounds beyond awful. Awful, awful, awful. Your toe makes me squish up in agony just thinking about it.

We have some good news: The twins turn 1 on Saturday. The twins we were not sure would make it into the world at all. The SMA free twins. It's going to be a glorious Saturday.

http://alreadyclouds.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/birthdays/

[MJ]

I sympathize with your run of bad luck and hope that the Wedding helps to compensate. I do think, however, that we often make our own luck (see above re stress, with some karma thrown in). Have you ever thought about wearing slippers?

[Shawna]

I believe in luck. Some people really do seem to always win the door prizes and that's pure luck.

I also believe, however, that some luck is made (for example, the people that find a $5 bill on the floor are the kind of people who look at the floor for $5 bills), and some is just perspective - the person who describes themselves as "lucky" may have the same experiences as someone who describes themselves as "unlucky", but the former is inclined to look on the bright side and the latter is not.

I have a friend who thinks he's the unluckiest guy ever... but he takes foolish risks, blows his money on things he doesn't need then is short for things like food, and believes the world is out to get him. I do have to admit though, that dude cannot beat me at any card or dice game going.

[Claudia]

Is your car, perchance, of the Volkswagen persuasion? I had a 2001 Jetta Wagon that did the exact same thing. When I brought it into the dealership, I was told they see that malfunction "all the time." It was a relatively simple/easy fix...a fuse of some sort, maybe?

Definitely believe in luck and its good & bad turns. Hope yours changes soon.

[Shawna]

Oh and if anyone's going to put hydrogen peroxide in ears, well, I'd say DON'T because it's a potentially harmful chemical, but at the very least, for the love of little apples, make sure it's a low strength version! And ask a pharmacist what "low strength" would mean if one was contemplating filling ears with it.

But seriously, DON'T!

[Laura]

My dad always said, "You make your own luck." Also, "God is on the side of the biggest battalion." Anyway, I think you can make a lot of good luck with wise choices and hard work.

I spent 6 years in infertility hell, with lots of pain and losses and a ton of money spent. But after all that, from my menopausal body came perfect, healthy twin girls. It was better than good luck, it was a miracle. So yes, I am the luckiest girl I know!

[24hrsinhell]

Bad luck does run a course. Even my husband will agree right now. Case in point, and this will only cover a 24 hour period of what has been a hellacious 6 weeks: 9am phone call that we are being audited by the IRS, exactly 24 hours later my husband was laid off. Fun times...fun times...

[Shannon]

My husband and I always marveled at our luck until last February when our 8 month old son got very sick and spent 3 months in Children's Hospital, 2 of those weeks on life support. Six weeks after he was released after a miraculous recovery, my husband was killed while riding his bike. Looking back, I had such a premonition that our lives would never be as good again as they were the week before our son got sick.
Also, I used to believe in karma, but there was never a better man than my husband who walked this Earth. I just think the universe is completely random and some people are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[victoria]

I think there is "good luck" and "bad luck" in the sense that these are simply shorthand to described "unforeseeable desireable/undesireable occurrences that happened to cluster in the life of a person or family who would not have been able to manage the likelihood of their occurring."

Everyone can agree that unforeseeable events that help or harm us sometimes occur in clusters.

But is there some "force" or "energy" that exists "out there" somewhere and directs these clusters to occur?

Of course not. (I can't imagine what a nonreligious theory of that force's origin and operation would look like.)

[jdens]

I was impressed at the bad luck streak and amused by your storytelling all along, but when I got to the toenail, that was IT. The silent (sympathetic) chuckling became shrieks of laughter, starting with "Steve looked horrified", and redoubling with each successive line in that paragraph. I still laugh when I picture it. But that does NOT mean I don't genuinely sympathise! Whew! A streak like that would make most anyone a believer!

What a great storyteller you are.

[Shannon]

Totally believe in luck. and not wanting to jinx things. And never telling anoyone the good new thing your child is going(going potty!) or they will suddenly stop

[Tine]

I don't really believe in luck of either kind. Nor do I believe that everything is random. I do believe there are natural laws we don't understand (like quantum theory, which I "get" just enough to be utterly befuddled -- and surely other laws as well) governing the way things play out in our lives.

That said, I should admit that I do believe I have some kick-ass Parking Karma. Heading to a sold-out concert, crowded downtown street? Late for a job interview? You want me in the car. I get a parking spot (usually free) every time. :)

P.S. Hi, Ami upthread (*waving*). Catholic Democrat here too. There are more of us than one might think!!

[Gina]

I am a completely atheistic, non-superstitious person but this year is certainly making me believe in runs of luck - in this case BAD. Let's see: January saw our house being burglarized (and us walking in with the kids on the burglary-in-progress). February was the death of my husband's grandfather. March was our oldest son hospitalized with a tonsillectomy and then a week later again with complications of the tonsillectomy (he is fine now). And April has been horrific. On Sunday my sister-in-law's baby, our nephew, died due to severe complications of preclampsia and HELLP syndrome. My sister-in-law is still in the hospital fighting for her life. And my grandmother died this morning. We are now trying to figure out how to coordinate going to two out-of-state funerals in the next couple of weeks.

I wish I were joking about all of this. All I have to say is 2011 had better improve or I just might go home and sleep and eat ice cream until 2012.

[zarqa]

Conventional wisdom says that thankful people are the happiest. To that end, I've recently gotten on this kick of teaching my daughter about gratitude. You know, so as to offset her expected inheriting of my naturally depressive "cup-half-empty" attitude.

SO at dinner and/or at bedtime we list things we're grateful for. One time after her list, she asked the inevitable "why"...why do we have this house and why do I have two parents who love me so much. And my answer, of course, had to be "Because we are very lucky".

So while many may attribute their wealth and happiness to a higher power (more power to them!), the answer in our house is always going to be "We are incredibly lucky." That's all. Some people are lucky and some aren't. You can do things to make your own luck but most time it's just random. And often nonsensical.

Sending good thoughts your way for a speedy recovery from the deluge of lemons being thrown your way.

[Sandra]

I believe in luck too - some people have better luck than others.

You might want to watch the Masterpiece PBS from-the-UK show "Any Human Heart". It's out on DVD and aired recently on PBS and last fall in the UK. There's one scene where the old father tells his son that there's only good luck and bad luck, that's all there is to life.

Anyhow, same idea, same theme, etc. etc.

[Lisa]

Another Anna, your comment had me nodding and saying "exactly!"
I also feel that I have, overall, been extremely lucky in my adult life.
The only thing is - I have really bad shopping luck. Supermarkets, clothing stores, pharmacies...no matter where or what I am buying, I always get stuck at the cashier's.
The person in front of me is paying half with a 6 month postdated check that needs to get approval from head office, and half with expired coupons.
The cashier is a trainee and takes 30 minutes to ring up a soda.
I've waited in the line for 45 minutes and it's finally my turn and there is a power failure.
Finally I came to the conclusion that if this is the universe's way of balancing out my good fortune, I'll take it...and will sincerely attempt not to get into my car after the next incident, slam the door and SCREAM like a mental woman "F*****G MOTHERF****G C*** S****G KIBINIF***!!!"
My latest attempt at this was today, after I zipped around the supermarket and got my shopping done in 20 minutes, then stood at the cashiers, with only one woman in front of me, for 40 minutes.
My attempt failed, and I am hoarse from screaming in the car.

[Libby]

Shannon, my heart is breaking for you.

Julia, I hope your bad luck is over, at least for the next biennium.

[gretchen from lifenut]

There was a game we played in elementary school called "Grosser than Gross" where the object was to submit scenarios of awfulness, trying to top friends.

Ripped-off toenail does well pitted against almost anything.

So sorry for the run of bad times.

[Robyn]

Can I quote you? Please?

"Steve looked horrified. Caroline wept. Patrick said oh gross and Edward kissed me lovingly on the ear. Then Steve raced off, Caroline continued to weep, Patrick disappeared and Edward asked if I could help him get a little breakfast."

God, that stuck me as so damn funny. I haven't laughed spontaneously like that in forever. Thanks, as always, Julia, for your stories, and the lovely (hysterical) pictures that you paint for us with your wit and words.

I AM sorry it came at the expense of your toe - I'm still growing back a thumbnail I slammed in the car door 3 months ago and it's a bit%h.

[Rbelle]

How very timely. This morning, my husband called my cell phone, as usual. I didn't answer, as I was changing the baby, which is also usual. So he called my home office phone, which is not usual, prompting me to assume there was some emergency and then very quickly thereafter recall that I had a teleconference in 20 minutes. Turns out there was no emergency - it was pure luck that my husband had decided to try that phone rather than wait for me to call him back, and yet more luck that doing so prevented me from remembering my teleconference half an hour too late while standing in the public library. I don't believe in divine intervention and even if I did, I don't think any god would bother making sure I didn't end up looking pathetically unprofessional by missing a middling little business meeting while in pursuit of another Charlaine Harris novel. But random coincidence just seems unlikely to have saved my bacon today. So luck, yes, I believe.

And like a previous poster, I quite irrationally think the littler bad lucks are somehow holding bigger ones at bay. A month after my wedding, I remember thinking everything was going too well. A week later, I was hit by a car (suffering only a broken collar bone and some bruises). I was actually a bit relieved (on many counts), and took it to mean I would experience otherwise wedded bliss for at LEAST a year. I realize this is ridiculous, but like some people turn to god and prayer, I cling to these little superstitions. If I didn't, I think I might die of worry.

Here's hoping you've had your run, and now have several great months ahead.

[Monica C.]

For those (relatively) minor annoyances/problems, I have three words:

MERCURY IN RETROGRADE

For serious issues (e.g., war, death, disease (e.g., things that people in some other countries deal with every day), luck plays no part, in my opinion.

Fess up, what words did you utter when you hurt your toe?

[elsimom]

I can't think about luck because I have to keep my stomach from lurching every time I think about your toe - omigosh there it goes again.......
Luck - I do and I don't, and I think some of it is perspective - For a long time I felt I led a charmed life and I worried about when something bad would happen, because really, nothing bad had ever really happened, and then over the course of several years my dad had an aortic dissection (which he survived) and I thought "well, there you go, it had to end sometime" but he recovered - SO - and then my son was diagnosed with Type I diabetes (which is not cancer, and does not take away his ability to run and jump and laugh and dance if we can prevent complications) and later my (then) 18 month old daughter broke her femur, which was a horrible horrible experience, but from which she recovered fully. I find that I still worry - I will always be a worrier - some of these experiences have made my worries concrete, and some have simply reminded me that for all my worries, I don't have some of the worries that others do. I also realize that the reason I thought I led a charmed life had a lot to do with how I looked at it - and so I just try to keep looking at it that way.
B

[Queenie]

Honestly, I don't understand why people are so excited about the wedding of people they don't know. Personally, it irritates me that the UK government is cutting important programs and services to the bone, but forced to pony up for the costs of security, etc. for this thing. It's ridiculous and shameful.

Okay, rant over. So sorry you are having a bad run--hope it all improves soon!

[elsimom]

Oh - but I do have to add that in my experience there can sometimes be a "confluence of crap" - where several things conspire to go wrong at once. In your case it sounds like the phrase may be literal in the basement ;)

[becky]

its not luck you moron, its positive attaction....duh

[Kathleen999]

I think what we call luck is just really the random flip of the coin. Sometimes things go well, sometimes badly. When we have a run of great things, we think it's good luck. When we have a run of bad things, we think it's bad luck.

However, my sister is supposedly very lucky at games of chance and I sometimes am too. One of my twins seems lucky like my sister (who has all the Irish genes of the family, I have the Scandinavian) and he actually looks like her. The phrase "luck of the Irish" has crossed my mind a few times. His twin brother is convinced that he is always out of luck. I honestly do think that most of it is the way we perceive it, although I find myself thinking this very superstitious way now and then.

Sorry about your toe and other misfortunes. I ripped off my fingernail when I was a kid and yow! That hurt.

[Crystal]

My husband's favorite saying is if we didn't have bad luck we'd have no luck at all. Does that answer your question? I point out that he has quite the nihilistic streak (considering mine rivals the Mississippi that's quite a statement) and we've had some extraordinarily good luck, but.... nihilism beats rose colored glasses puny asses.

Yulp.... that is quite an extraordinary streak though, Julia. Hoping the stump is... ick... well, whatever we can hopefully expect that could be good about a stump thusly bloodied. Let's just find a way to ditch the bad luck, shall we? This month has positively sucked for lots of people. The Bad News has overstayed it's welcome.

It would be loverly if Patrick could ditch the sinus issues. I got one of my kids to Neti once... It was a bit like trying to irrigate the unholy offspring of an octopus, a snake and a goose...

I am excited about the impending nuptials. Diana died the year after my Mom, my eldest son was a wee tender little boy, and the thought of her leaving behind her devoted boys broke my heart and drove me to stand hours in line with a less than excited John at the British embassy in Dallas so I could sign a guestbook. Silly, a waste, but it just sucked. I'm thrilled to see William seems much more centered than his father or most of his siblings at that age, and that he and his betrothed seem to be well matched and truly in love. The mother in me is glad he'll have the love of what seems to be a very good woman. I've been Tivo-ing all the pre-wedding fluff... Satellite, I've missed you. :) I remember vaguely Diana and whatshisfaces wedding (sorry, I'm bitter), and Andrew and Fergie. That one I was prepping to head to Disneyland with family, and sat bathing and preening watching Sarah Ferguson sparkle her way down the aisle, wishing I had her sparkle, curls, russet hair, and joie de vivre... Alas, I did not. But I was positively happy on that day, unusual for angsty goth teen extraordinaire. :)

Speaking of Tivo, will I ever stop drooling when watching Nigella Lawson? Cooking, eating, extolling the virtues of one luscious ingredient after another, looking earnestly at the camera. What IS it about her. Now I have three shows of hers to record. Heaven.

[Pam L]

The comment above about the cost of royal weddings made me remember what an English friend of ours said. He said the royals are mostly for tourism these days, entertainment value that brings people to the country to gawk at Buckingham Palace etc. They make appearances and do charity work to keep them out in the public as they are basically an industry, which pays for itself and also supports a lot of the country. I'm just sayin.

[Amelie]

Yes to luck both bad in good - in one 6 week period my 10 year old was injured and didn't die only due to luck (according to her doctors!), I was given less than 5 years to live, and my husband needed major back surgery "right now". 6 months later we went to a school function with hundreds of people, bought 5 raffle tickets and won 3 prizes (for the first and only time ever). This was the start of our changing luck - my daughter recovered fully, my scans have stayed clear for 7 years, and my husband was not crippled, he got promoted, etc. We have other runs where lots of seriously bad stuff has happened all at once - and some runs of really great stuff.

And I am positive that applicances talk to each other - if the toaster goes on the fritz the car will need expensive repairs, the fridge will die with a full load of groceries while I am away for the weekend, and the toilet valve will break flooding the house. (15k in damage during the one hour I was shopping to fill the fridge that died). We say that it was either bad luck or we seriously ticked some applicance person off in a previous life!

[Nicky]

I'm also excited about the wedding!!! I even want to take some time off work to watch it!

[tgsdmom]

So sorry about all the misfortunes.

Somehow, although smelly flooding, miserable toe and car problems are quite bad, I am especially troubled about Patrick. I really want to know he is totally and completely over his ailments.

I do not believe in fate. Being lucky or unlucky by chance is a fact of life. No mystery behind it, though - even when it gives such an impression. You toss a coin enough times and you're bound to get a long sequence of heads. This is how chance works. So sometimes you're bound to have streaks of good random things or bad random things happen. Of course, you can affect the chances of such streaks by the way you behave. Anyway, if I go on, you'll get so bored you might add this as your 8th mis-happen so I'll write no more...

[Bill Dueber]

My sincere condolences to Steve re: boxes. I bought ours from an actual box company (as opposed to, say, the back of the liquor store) and they've lasted us through three moves so far. Which is a good thing, because they're freakin' expensive. I've got like $400 worth of boxes down there, and they're not being recycled anytime soon if I have anything to say about it.

Which I do.

My wife doesn't seem to mind them, unless she's been telling me she hates them and I haven't got the hint.

[azita]

Ouch! I'm with you on avoiding planes and maybe even balconies for awhile. Re luck: I'm with ^ AnnaN above.

Re royal wedding: I'm not enchanted by Kate but I like her. Despite missing almost all coverage of the wedding, I have to confess I am all about the dress and can't wait to see what it looks like and who the designer is. [Would love it if it's McQueen's Sarah Burton]

Herewegoajen: So sorry about your baby. Hope all will turn better soon.

[Maria]

I don't know who said it, but I, too, am agnostic about luck. But I somehow do believe a bit in karma, or that to give much is to receive much--that putting out good energy makes you get it back. I don't think it makes good things happen for you, just that you get good energy back. The more I type about this, the less I'm able to explain myself. Call me Kafka.

But YAY about the wedding. I am trying to decide whether I am going to wake up early or whether I am going to record this and then refuse to watch any other television until I can see the dress (and the cake. and all the glorious hats) "live."

[Nimble]

Luck: Magical thinking is seductive.
Royal Wedding: I woke up this morning hearing all the coverage (on NPR) and thought 'okay, it will finally be over today.' But it's not til tomorrow!!!

[T.]

Excited about the wedding too. I must have a lot of 6 year old girl left in me. I can still be completely captivated by a beautiful princess!
Yes! I believe we can be down on our luck, or in what I call a "golden time" - when everything just goes our way. They can last weeks, months , years. Looking back, my twenties were certainy a golden time! I am ready for another in my 40's!

[Juliag]

Mathematically streaks are inevitable...and expected. To have luck evenly distributed over the population and/or over time would be as un-random as you could possible imagine.

And, I do believe bad can lead to bad...good can lead to good. So streaks are even more likely in some sense. I mean, like with health (or plumbing)...one point of weakness or failure can put stress on the rest of the system and you're more likely to notice or have another problem occur.

I don't know if it helps me or hurts me to be a mathematician sometimes?! It's all logical. But doesn't take away the stench of water damage...which we also have had a run of...

[Carrie (in MN)]

Ach your toe!!! Ow ow ow.

Logically I don't believe in luck, but in my secret squishy core I really do. We've certainly had those runs of bad luck and runs of good fortune as well.

I'm enjoying the royal wedding too, but I'm hiding my interest for fear of being mocked. The world news is so bad, so awful, that I can barely stand to read the paper. A little fluff is a nice break. I'm a serious person - I have a serious job and I keep informed on serious topics, but I also embrace the fluff (read the funnies, see fluffy chick movies, escape into historical fiction). It's a balance thing.

[Moosilaneous]

I tend to be the believer in our family. However, even my eminently logical husband succumbs to the appeal of luck. He (relatively logically) bought an outlandish number of tickets on a lottery where the odds were relatively good and the prizes amazing. He was not overly discouraged when none of them payed off because he acknowledged that we have already been lucky beyond our wildest dreams with the births of two healthy girls: both statistically unlikely, but one of whom overcame staggeringly bad odds.

Lord preserve your poor tootsies! My fingers are still crossed for Patrick, but now I have my toes in on the action for plumbing recovery.

Hang in there. I hope the wedding provides joyous comic relief. A friend of mine spilled the beans to my 3.5 and 5 year olds so I have to watch it now. I'll be phoning that friend to make sure she is up at that ungodly hour, too, just to make it a bit even.
Now that I'm committed, I can't help but remember where I was when Diana and Charles got hitched... maybe the royal family is in for a bit better romantic luck now?

[CM]

My bad luck period was August of 2004-December 28 2004...

I am pregnant with my second child...due date early Jan 2005 and in August of 2004...
Not one, not two but three hurricanes went directly over my house...no roof forever.

4 year old gets pneumonia in November (I didn't even know he was sick), December 4 year old breaks his arm after finishing a breathing treatment for the pneumonia he was unsteady and stood up and smack, I knew it was broken from the sound.

Our streak of bad luck ended when baby boy was born Dec 29th...the roof did get repaired, we did survive financially, no lasting damage from the broken arm and although his lungs have been sensitive from pneumonia he appears to have outgrown most of it 6 years later.

[Another Julia]

Have you ever tried Simply Saline mist for Patrick's nose? It is super-gentle, being a mist and all. They have a number of different mists, but I have used this baby one and the children's one for my kids. Patrick might prefer the sensation of a mist over that of a water hose. Maybe?

http://www.simplysaline.com/Products_AllergyAndSinusRelief.aspx

[katie]

luck/fate - yeah, count us in the group of nice people (i hope people thing of us as nice) who keep having shit happen. everytime the going starts going good, he gets laid off (2x in the past 5 years), i get laid off (in november! while pregnant!), the AC dies in august (we're in DC!), both cars go flat, something. it sucks and i just don't know how much more i can take.

royal wedding - there's just something so sweet, normal, wholesome, and unscandalous about it that makes me so happy and excited. throw in the european history major in me and the fact that i was only 3 when diana got married but i still remember watching and our 5 year daughter who is just into princesses enough to know the difference between a disney princess and a real one and you get a recipe for a household my husband is looking forward to vacating ASAP for work in the morning. i think i'll make pancakes.

[Kim]

I totally believe in luck. And Dinosaurs. AND Dragons. And I think that acknowledging that there is such a force as luck in the universe, and asking the universe nicely if it could please turn it around so the good kind starts blowing yours and everyone elses way, is absolutely a viable option. No guarentee that it will work, but it's worth trying.

I almost just typed, 'but what harm could that do?' and as I firmly also believe that the universe likes to screw with us sometimes, I make a point of not inviting that kind of stuff in.

Speaking of bad luck, *my* Steve was having a bad night (close friend's mother is in the hospital with kidney...weirdness. he's worried about her, and his friend) and when he called me last night he was needing to hear something amusing. I read him your post and it sure did the trick. See? Your bad luck stories inspired a positive mood-lift.
Amoung his favorite parts were "fustian, claptrap," "kids-today-with-their-hothouse-parents-I-swear," and -the top one- "Patrick responded by bursting into flames."
He Loves your writing, even though I'm the one following every week. You and yours are easily my favorite internet family to catch up with, even when things are not going so well, because you're just so damn talented when it comes to expressing the nuances of life ranged from Mundane straight on through Extrordinary.

Hang in there, your luck's going to turn around, I just know it.

[Geeky]

First, let me get the medical recommendations out of the way. I have allergies and sinus problems and here are my recommendations: I used a neti pot for years, but I switched to a squeezy bottle. You can get it from Walgreens, and it is made by Neil Med. It's quicker than a Netipot and it actually cleans your sinuses better. Patrick might be more inclined to do it if it's quicker. Also, don't try to save money...just buy the pre-packaged salt packets and use at least two. I use three because higher salinity will draw the water out of swollen sinuses.

Interesting questions about believing in luck. One thing I do know: if you were born into a basically loving and functional family, you are indeed a lucky person. The family we were born into makes the difference between being an emotional prince (or princess) or pauper.

Until you asked this question, I never realized how much my perception of “luck” when I was a child was colored by the fact that my beloved father dropped dead of a brain anuerysm when I was nine years old. (He wasn't even 35. What are the chances?) My dad wanted kids and my mom did not, so after he died she was bitter and resentful and didn't handle it well. (Took it out on the kids, married an abusive asshole who hated us.)

I realize now this started decades-long bouts of envy. Most of my peers could not relate to my situation and were blissfully unaware of the horrors life can hand out to you in a New York minute. And many had parents who loved them and were not resentful of their very existence. I envied them all.

I do think there are people who seem charmed....nothing bad ever seems to happen to them. However, maturity, therapy and 48 years on this earth has made me see that life eventually gets us all with hard times. And I've also learned not to compare my insides with other people's outsides because looks can be deceiving. You might think someone has a perfect life or marriage or job, but only the people who are living that life really know what's going on.

My own life seems to have phases of bad luck every 10 years, starting with the aforementioned incident. When I was 19, I lost my first love in a gruesome breakup and I was very depressed. When I was 29, I was getting divorced from Husband #1--we had no kids and no business being together, so it wasn't a bad thing. Unfortunately, at age 39, I was also getting divorced, and this time it was a complete shock to me. (I found out my ex was cheating with a married woman, and oh, did I mention my grandmother was dying and my mom was battling stage 3 cancer? My mom and I reconciled by that time.) Luckily my mom lived, but boy, that was a rough time. (At least I was able to spend all kinds of time with my grandmother.)

Someone at work (an ass) mentioned to me, somewhat accusingly, that I had a "bit of an edge" to me during that time. (And this was someone who knew my situation.) Seriously? It took everything I had to get myself to work. Given all that I had going on, just managing to stay employed showed I had guts and determination. I wasn't going to let my divorce ruin my life.

My 49th birthday is looming on the horizon, and I could be nervous, but I am not. (Well maybe a little. I do hope that I've had enough bad luck, whatever you call it, for my lifetime, but I know it doesn't work like that.)

The Indigo Girls said it: the blessing and the curse, they are one and the same. The summary I’ve given above makes me sound like my life has been awful, but it really hasn’t. I consider myself a happy person and I’m growing and learning each day.

I am fortunate because I’m remarried to a wonderful man (made this one wait four years!) and we’ve had 10 happy years together. If bad times come again, I know he’ll be there for me.

And I know I can live through hard times, and I’m a fighter. Despite hearing from my asshole stepfather that I'd never amount to anything, today I have a master's degree (cum laude, no less) and I'm successful and respected in my field. I'd like to think my hard times have given me compassion. I give much away and I volunteer my time to animal and people charities.

It's also given me compassion, particularly at work. I treat everyone with kindness, because you truly never know what people are going through. I don't make snap judgements about people...someone could be having a bad day or a bad year.

[twingles]

Absolutey believe in luck, being born at a lucky time - whatever. I have twins too (age 10) and they are both fairly lucky but one WAY more than the other - I swear that 5 minutes made all the difference.

I had a friend in college that was soooo lucky - once there was some sort of contest and the prize was a trip to FL....we joked she would win....she did.

[babelbabe]

My inherent, genetic bad luck is tempered by my husband's extraordinarily usual good luck. sometimes. which works out well for me but not always for him. I TOLD him about the Matus black cloud when he married me and he did not believe me, so his problem. nonetheless, keep hold of the tape - useful for plugging drains, impromptu bandages, and whatnot...

[Amy S]

I'm with you on the wedding. I mean - how often does a girl marry her prince charming and literally become a princess?? And you're right, she is most lovely.