JAN: We don't like to think of ourselves as superstitious. But we all are. A little bit. I, for one, am totally convinced that all the Red Sox's problems this season are Joe Girardi's fault (NY Yankees manager) because he jinxed the team by saying we were the #1 team this year, the frontrunners, the team to beat. (And yes, he was trying to make us believe the Yankees were the underdogs.) I also am semi-convinced the rally caps my son and I wore during the 2004 playoffs are at least partly responsible for the Red Sox winning the series division.
Okay, that's how ridiculous I am. So on this Friday the thirteenth, what's your silly superstition?
ROBERTA: I love black cats, but not running across my path. And I won't walk under a ladder. And like you Jan, I hate to say things are going really well, for example: geez there was less traffic than we expected. That's asking for trouble and we all have to knock wood...
RHYS: I believe Hank asked me during an interview whether I was at all superstitious and I denied it. But I have noticed--if I'm up for an award and my hair looks good when I'm getting ready I don't win. If I can't do a thing with my hair and it looks awful--I win. But I can't make myself deliberately make my hair look terrible! My mother's family (Welsh influence) were horribly superstitious and had all these little mantras (drop a spoon, get a letter, drop a fork,visit from a lady, drop a knife, visit from a gentleman). I find myself muttering those things on occasion!
HANK: Rhys, you are too funny. Listen to this. On the night I was nominated for the best-first Agatha, I found a shiny shiny penny on the floor by my banquet seat. I snapped it up..and it was from 2005--the year I first started writing. I was SO HAPPY. And I won! So, of course it was the penny.
This year, nominated for Best Novel,I also found a coin! I was SO happy. I picked it up--and it was a Canadian coin. Sigh. And Louise Penny won. (Pretty funny on several levels...)
Am I superstitious? YES. I will not put a hat on a bed or shoes on a table.
DEB: I didn't grow up in a superstitious family. The only thing I can remember really worrying about as a child was "Don't step on a crack or you'll break your mother's back." Since my mother is ninety this year and her back is still okay, I must have avoided a lot of cracks! I've had several black cats, and only worry about walking under ladders if I think a can of paint might fall on my head.
I do worry about the reverse jinx, though. If I think, or say I think, I'm going to win an award, or that someting particularly good is going to happen, etc., I'm afraid I'll jinx it.
And I collect little tokens; a cardinal feather, a shell from the beach in Florida, a pretty little fragment of aqua tile I found on a morning walk. There's no real significance to these things, except as ties to moments that made me feel happy.
Love your penny story, Hank!
JAN: I never even heard of the not putting a hat on the bed. And I only don't put shoes on a table for hygienic reasons -- which just goes to show -- how many superstitions there really are - I can't keep track of them all.
So what weird superstitions are you in denial about? Come on fess up!
