In which I consider the wheel of fortune

Luck, I don't need to tell you, goes only so far. It's like love in that it's easy to take for granted, impossible to guarantee, and difficult, once it's gone, to recapture. (Also, it's just as easy to spell. It's easy to overdo it with the similarities, but as has been amply proven, I have allllll day to waste time stating the obvious.)

The Keelhauler is an extraordinarily lucky person, and I say so looking over my shoulder, fearful of taunting whatever power it is that governs luck--I guess it would be Lady Luck, or Dame Fortune--can I call you "Dame"? I am wary of upsetting her, having experienced what it's like to have her turn her back on me.

But the Keelhauler, I would say, is overall very fortunate. He's almost cocky about it, which causes me to nervously warn him not to tempt fate. He doesn't listen, but that's another subject. When I get angry at him for doing things I consider dangerous, he doesn't understand. I have a vision of luck existing as sand in an hourglass, (like the days of our lives). I dread the day his luck runs out, and he doesn't understand why I think it will.

This morning, he drove down to LA to meet with a buyer for the sofa I've advertised on Craig's list. He called me on the way back to let me know that the sofa had been sold, and that he'd be headed up here to go racing this afternoon. Half an hour later, he called, and by his somber "Hey, it's me," I knew something was up. "I just got pulled over," he said, and explained that he was waiting for the policeman to come back to the car.

It was no great crisis, and all that happened was that he got a ticket for turning right on red at an intersection where that is disallowed. But it's the first time he's been pulled over in more than five years, so my mental image of the hourglass came into sharp focus when I hung up the phone.

"I had an omen of this, this morning," he said. He'd parked on the street in LA, not noticing the signs for street sweeping. When he returned to his car, the "nice parking meter lady," as he called her, was writing out a ticket. He got in the car, accepted the ticket, and said, "OK, have a nice day!" She called back, "You have a nice day, too," and drove her little vehicle up to the next car. The Keelhauler sat in his car and read the ticket, noting the forty-five dollar fine, and thinking, "Great."

Then, he looked up to see reverse lights on the little parking control vehicle. She was coming back. She rolled down her window and said, "Give me that ticket." "Great..." he thought again, and handed it over, ready for another fine.

She tore the ticket in half, and said, "I can't tell you to have a nice day and then give you a ticket. Now, you have a nice day." And then she drove away.

Were I a spiritual type, with literal tendencies, I would interpret these two events as a strong signal that the Keelhauler needs to pay attention to the signs around him. He got the first warning this morning, then a stronger warning in the form of a ticket. And if I believed that these things come in threes, I would advise him to keep his eyes wide open, because the next sign might be one he needs to read.

And really, the idea that he needs to read the signs isn't at all supernatural--it's literal and mundane, and would have prevented both incidents. The nature of the close call, however, tends to make me feel anxiety instead of relief, makes me think about how much sand might be left in the hourglass. I don't know that he views it the same way.

P.S.

As soon as I posted this entry, the page went blank. I eventually fixed it, but now I'm thinking it was Dame Fortune flicking me on the head, just to remind me she's here. Because it's fun for me to imagine giant invisible authority figures who have it in for me.



Star of the day. . .Fortuna
posted @ 12:31 p.m. on September 20, 2006 before | after

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She lay awake all night,

zzzzzzzzzzz......