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Monday, August 29, 2016

Rainbows and Hay Fever Season

Rainbow at the end of my street!


I’m sort of superstitious but Scotto is worse.

When we met twelve years ago he started this whole thing where we have to say ‘bless you’ when one of us sneezes.

I find it very annoying. 

For a start, he always sneezes twice, never just once, always twice. So I have to sit and wait for the second sneeze because otherwise I’ll end up saying ‘bless you’ twice which is a waste of breath and really pidges me off. 

His second, follow-up sneeze can take over a minute before it develops and that minute can be a very long minute. I twiddle my thumbs, fidget and check my phone waiting for that damn second sneeze. I hate putting my life on hold like that.

The second annoying thing is that when he says, ‘bless you’ after I sneeze, I am mandated to say ‘thank you’ which is tiring in the extreme. He sits and waits for me to say thank you too, so I can’t get out of it.

I drew up the courage the other day to ask him if we could just stop with the whole ‘bless you’ thing. He scowled at me as if there was something intrinsically wrong with me, as if I’d asked him to accompany me on a naked, moonlight romp dancing around a slaughtered goat or something.

“Why? Why don’t you want to say, ‘bless you’ after I sneeze, Pinky?” he demanded. "What is wrong with you?"

I had no valid reason, sigh, so I still have to do the 'bless you' thing.

Spring and hay fever season are about to start too. 

Shudder.

As I’ve told you, I’m superstitious about crows. They’re harbingers of death. If I see one I immediately look away and pretend it’s not there or sometimes throw a rock at it.

Rainbows, on the other hand, are a sign of good luck. We had one that finished right at the end of our street recently. I’m still waiting for the good fortune from that sighting to befall itself upon my body and teach me proper grammar, though. I’m sure it will appear soon.

Imagine my delight when we found this shop on our trip down to Byron Bay last weekend.




I bought a rainbow umbrella and a pair of rainbow leggings, which are a thoroughly inappropriate and unseemly item of clothing for a woman of my age to be buying but I don’t care.

They sold so many different items I could have walked out of the shop dressed from head to toe in rainbow if I’d wanted.

Other things I think are signs of good luck coming my way are, seeing a shooting star, finding a coin head side up on the road, having a lady bug land on me, plus seeing rainbow lorikeets (as long as they aren’t flying into my windscreen at the time).

Things I won’t allow into my house include peacock feathers and opals.

My ex-husband wanted to give me an opal engagement ring all those 28 years ago. He had a bunch of opals his mother had bequeathed to him. Thankfully, the ugly, milky things had cracks in them and the jeweller refused to go along with my ex’s cheapskate antics.

Fancy trying to fob off your late mother’s old, tissue wrapped, cracked opals on your future bride.



That’s got to be a bloody bad omen for a marriage I reckon.

Your weirdest superstitions?