I am not, by nature, a superstitious person.  I don’t avoid black cats or the number 13.  However, New Year’s Day 2011 was the first New Year’s Day in memory that we did not celebrate with a traditional “good luck” dinner.  Mom has always been in charge of that, and this year, she was strangely silent.  No dinner invitation.  Perhaps Mom thought my older sister would pick up the slack.  Nope.  And truthfully, I hadn’t even thought of it until dinner time yesterday.  So, we had home-made tamales and green chili instead of the usual fare…Chicken Long Rice for longevity and all the Asian accoutrements and, as a nod to one of my mom’s best friends who hailed from the South, black-eyed peas.

Mom always warns us to do fun or relaxing things on New Year’s Day too because, she told us, what you do on the first day of the year, you’ll do all year long.  Therefore, no dusting or vacuuming takes place on January 1st.  Funny though…I seem to do both of those activities a lot during the  year.  Hmmmmmmmm…  Might I do those chores more often if I did them on the 1st?  Food for thought.  I did manage to squeeze in some doll work yesterday, so that might be a good thing.  More doll work and play in 2011?  Won’t hear any complaints from me!

Back to superstition…so, no traditional “good luck” dinner last night, and what happens this morning?  My daughter’s car door handle on the driver’s side breaks.  The other door handle is frozen shut.  With her father’s help, she does manage to get into the car.   The car won’t start.  Another “Hmmmmmmmm…” moment for a non-superstitious me.

I wonder if we have any black-eyed peas in the freezer?