Happy Hogmanay

So here's the deal. As I've said before, I definitely feel that Lucky Jodi can make a comeback in 2007. And since January 1st is not only the first day of the new year, but also my birthday, ringing in this special day right is of utmost importance.

Up until 8 days ago, I thought I had that wrapped up. Geordie was at a party about a month ago. He came back from the party with the news that Caroline & Trevor had invited us to their condo for New Year's Eve. They threw a great party last year complete with a delicious tasting menu of about 10 dishes with a different wine pairing for each one. Ah the wine. Long before the cheese course began we were playing "I never" and by time the last bite was taken it was time to dance. On the furniture of course. Needless to say we were pretty happy to be invited over again this year.

Except we weren't. Invited I mean. They weren't even having a party. Geordie had misunderstood (something like "we should do that again sometime" was interpreted as "see you at our place on New Year's Eve) and less than 2 weeks before New Year's, I was without plans.

Chris Tindal to the rescue! There was to be a bus. A party bus. It was going to Montreal. I LOVE Montreal. It is the perfect place to retrieve your lost luck/ring in the New Year/turn a year older. Family was secured for babysitting purposes. Yesssss.

Except Tindal turned the party bus into a rental car. And worse, he turned Montreal into Almonte. I'm sure Almonte is a very nice place to go to die-I-mean-party but it's no Montreal. And a party bus-read-minivan, even to Montreal, with just me and Geordie isn't quite the same as a party bus full of partying people.

So today, with just 3 days left to secure a plan, I turned to *sigh* google. My search went something like "luck new year's eve toronto" and it led me to some info about the Scottish celebration of the New Year called Hogmanay. Apparently, it involves torches and fireworks and whisky and shortbread. It starts on December 31st and can last into January 2nd. Now that's a party. Seems that the Scots (my ancestors incidentally) are a superstitious people (huh, that might help explain a little sumethin sumethin) who believe that what happens on New Year’s Eve affects the luck one will have throughout the coming year (see! told you!).

One of the customs of Hogmanay is "first footing" where friends visit each other's homes after midnight bearing gifts - whoever the first person is to cross your threshold after midnight combined with the nature of their gift determines what kind of luck you are going to have for the year. Apparently having a tall, dark, handsome man with a gift cross your threshold first is luckiest. Makes sense to me.

I don't know exactly how to get a piece of this first footing luck however. I mean, I won't be home for a while after midnight 'cause plans seems to have fallen into place today: Kirsty + Ryan (with brand new baby) and Geoff + Jen (probably without brand new baby) + Geordie and I (no more brand new babies for us) will go out for dinner at the funky Kubo Radio on Queen East and then those of us without brand new babies will head to the surely-debaucherous-probably-story-worthy-very-likely-hijinks-
inspiring-eclectic-and -often-beautiful-people-filled party at Bill Angst's.

I wonder who the first person crossing the threshold of my house will be after midnight. Does it count if it's us coming back to our own house? Probably not. Huh. So, um, see you at my place on the 1st? Early. Do your best tall, dark, handsome impression and bring the whisky and shortbread. This lady's lookin' for luck.


Oh, and if you're looking for a cool birthday present for me, I'd enjoy having my name added to the January 1st Wikipedia page under "Births." Although clearly you would be jeopardizing your Wikipedia credibility (wikibility? credipedia?), the upside is that I would love you forever.

Happy Hogmanay!

Lucky You

I'm not going to lie to you. I'm confident I'll start 2007 a year older (my birthday's January 1st) and a lot luckier. I'm already thinking of a new blog topic.

A random lucky thing coming up in 2007? The release of a new luck movie "Lucky You" (which happens to also be my favourite thing to say when I begrudge someone something but with a "well" in front of it, as in "well lucky you") which stars (drumroll please) Drew Barrymore. I love Drew Barrymore. She is one of my fave celebs. I like her sticky-outy chin. Probably 'cause I too have a sticky-outy chin. Anyway, I first caught wind of this movie while at a preview screening of Good Sheppard (Angelina, Matt, everyone else in Hollywood). How did I get there? Glad you asked. It was a lucky thing - I won the tickets by being the first person at my company able to name 2 of Canada's Top 10 Movies of 2006 (hint: I won, because I didn't say Bon Cop, Bad Cop) Wow wow wow was Good Sheppard so not good. Of course that makes winning the tickets so not lucky at the end of the day.

But maybe Lucky You will be good. The premise, according to this trailer, seems to be that Drew's going out with a guy who gambles. a lot. and at first she's all "that's so hot" and then she's all "that's not so hot." Exciting. Can't wait to see how it all turns out for her when this movie hits theatres early next year. I'll probably win tickets. And the movie will actually be good. Lucky 2007 here I come.

Ridicafun Here I Come.

You know what's lucky? Pulling a 6,000 word MBA term paper out of your ass when you start on Saturday, end on Monday and attend 4 parties in between. *Sigh of relief* *Cocky smirk* If not lucky, the rest of this week's at least going to be ridicafun.

Lucky Rabbit's Foot, Eh?

My sister brought me a rabbit's foot last night. This morning I woke up with hives on my face. Hives. On my face. I've never had hives before so I went to the drug store to ask the pharmacist what to do. I was going to a Canadian Club event at the Royal York Hotel featuring Rupert Duchene and Stephen Lewis speaking on the topic "Beyond philanthropy: creative engagement of the Canadian corporate sector" that would be attended by all sorts of people I hoped to make a good impression on. So clearly the hives wouldn't do. The pharmacist told me that Benadryl was my only option to get rid of the hives fast. I bought the Benadryl. Then I read the many warnings on the box. Warning #2 read: "Avoid activities requiring mental alertness." Now, I've had many a day when avoiding activities requiring mental alertness wouldn't be a problem but today was most certainly not one of them: I have an MBA exam to write tonight. So I kept the mental alertness and the hives and went to the event anyway. I spoke with many impressive people. Of couse they'll forever remember me, not as that incredibly mentally alert woman, but as that woman with the hives. Stupid rabbit's foot.

Not Above Joining a Cult

I'm less ashamed than you might think to admit that I have just submitted my plight to the website buyhisluck.com. I sent my name, birthdate and my short term goal ("getting my luck back"). The idea is that some dude named Tomas is going to send me his positive vibes and soon I'll be renewing my membership at Club Luck. If it all works out, he'd like a donation. Totally fair. There isn't a single testimonial on the site yet. I kinda like that; I mean, at least he didn't make any up.

I'll let you know if Tomas tries to suck me into a cult. If it brings my super sweet luck back I'll consider it. Hell, I bet cults are full of hijinks. I like hijinks.

Anyway, yesterday things were looking prettty good. I had a little lucky streak going for about 3 hours there. Then I went to visit a good friend. And by good friend I mean the good-friend-for-now-but-still- highly-suspected-of-stealing-my-luck kind of good friend. I demanded my luck back. Good Friend asked if he could hold on to it for a while longer. Nope, I said, don't mean to be an ass, but really can't spare the luck any longer. So, I tried the violent hug. Except Good Friend Luck Stealer is stronger than me and out-violent-hugged-me. Looks like he kept the luck. Possibly stole more. Man, today was shit. Every lucky thing that happened yesterday was reversed today.

My sister, Caitlin, is bringing me a rabbit's foot tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed.

How to Steal Luck

Here are two theories on how to steal luck:
1. The Magic Kiss
2. The Violent Hug

The Magic Kiss
In the chick-flick-tacular Just My Luck starring Lindsay Lohan, Lindsay's character, Ashley, is the luckiest girl in Manhattan until she kisses an unlucky guy named Jake at a masquerade ball and some magic happens that switches their luck. Hilarity ensues as a now very-unlucky-Ashley tries to find the person she kissed (oh yeah, not only were they both wearing masks, but they didn't get each other's names before they kissed...classy) to retrieve her luck.

In the end (warning: plot spoiler... 'cause you would never guess this twist ending) Ashley finds Jake, gets to know him (before she realizes that he's the luck stealer), falls in love and doesn't want to take the luck away from him 'cause she loves him so much and all. But 'cause he loves her too he insists that she take the luck back. Then they figure out that they can just pass the old luck back and forth by kissing, which they intend to do all the time. So it all works out in the end. Shocker.

The Violent Hug
However, in Intacto, which looks MUCH MORE INTERESTING (I guess that's not a super huge challenge) I don't think everything works out so great in the end. The movie is about a crazy lucky guy, Federico, who is employed by casino owner, Sam, to outluck everyone at roulette tables. When Federico tries to leave the casino, he's cast out and violently stripped of his luck with a hug from Sam (a scary, scary hug of course). Wanting revenge , Federico sets out to create a dream team of lucky people (sole survivors of crashes and stuff) and tests their luck with increasingly dangerous and terrifying dares to find out who's the most fortunate. The stakes are high: only the luckiest of the four finalists will emerge intact. Get it? Intact. Definitely check out the trailer.

So those are the two theories I'm working with so far in the quest to find my luck and retrieve it. The magic kiss and the violent hug. And while there's a lot more research to be done, what's fairly certain is that this holiday season everyone can expect a kiss and a hug from me.

The Investigation Begins

My first blog post in June was back when I was still luckyish. I had nothing to blog about. I'm not big on my kitten's so cute blogs. I considered an interactive manager-marketing chick - television professional -mom-mba-hijinks-renovation-mean girl- beer-candor blog. Meh. Boring. Well maybe not the hijinks and candor, those aren't boring. Perhaps fodder for another blog.

Anywayyyy. I lost my luck last July. The exact week that I lost my luck is easy to pinpoint. I left my bank card in the CIBC machine in Commerce Court at 5:57pm and was robbed of my daily limit by 5:59pm. $1000 in case you're curious. Not 3 days later I contracted a viral eye infection that landed me in the emergency room and then kept me home and quarantined. I spent the next two days wearing sunglasses while trying to work on my computer at a distance of 1/2 inch from the screen. Then I got to go on "vacation." Vacation and quarantine are an unlucky combination of words. Oh, and of course my bike was stolen from work while I was quarantined at home....

Anyway, there was a lot more bad luck in the months that followed but I don't like rambly blogs despite being a rambler so that brings me to two days ago when I told my sister, Caitlin, that I thought someone stole my luck. She said I was crazy. Then yesterday at 11pm I heard a loud cracking sound. So, um, now there's a tree lying in my yard. A giant tree. Roots and all. It looks like this.


Just so we're clear, I used to be really lucky. I won stuff. I was in the right place at the right time. Things turned up ro....


[OMG. I swear that I finished that last paragraph and clicked "publish" and this whole post disappeared. Which was crazy ironic (and perfect) since it's my first blog post about bad luck. And it's kinda happened to me not once but twice recently: last week I spent most of one night working on a paper (mba craziness, remember) and lost the whole thing by 2:30 am and spent until 4:14 trying to retrieve it unsuccessfully (obvi) and then cried a little (very grade 10 of me, all of it, i know) and had to wake up at 7 for work. Anwyay I was like, my luck is truly crazy bad, but then I got the post back after a while (like quite a while, after logging off and doing other things) and I'm like, I'm not that unlucky, yay, but then I thought wait, if something lucky happens when you're posting about bad luck, that kind of ruins everything and is kind of unlucky in and of itself. Right? Right? Just agree and look at the tree again. And let's move on. Here's the rest of the above paragraph...]

...ses. And now, not so much. So I'm going to investigate. I'm going to find out who stole my luck and try to retrieve it. If you have any hot tips, don't be shy. And if you stole my luck, give it back please.

What to Do When There's Nothing to Do

This is the title of a book we owned when i was a kid. I figure I can write this blog when I have nothing else to do. So pretty much never. We'll see. At the very least, now that I have a blogger account, I can post comments to my friend Chris's blog. Chris blogs about energy - sorry, the environment - , which is cool, but that's not why I read it. I mostly read it 'cause of the funny links he often includes. Like this one. Gold. Pure gold.