Friday, February 13, 2009

Fascination, obsession, disaster and downright silliness

Triskaidekaphobia has religious and historical significance, the fear of Friday the 13th. Some Christian traditions have it that at the Last Supper, Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th to sit at the table and that for this reason 13 is considered to carry a curse of sorts. It may have also affected the Vikings—it is believed that Loki in the Norse pantheon was the 13th god. More specifically, Loki was believed to have engineered the murder of Baldr, and was the 13th guest to arrive at the funeral.

In 1881, an influential group of New Yorkers led by U.S. Civil War veteran Captain William Fowler came together to put an end to this and other superstitions. They formed a dinner cabaret club, which they called the Thirteen Club. At the first meeting, on Friday 13 January 1881 at 8:13 p.m., 13 people sat down to dine in room 13 of the venue. The guests walked under a ladder to enter the room and were seated among piles of spilled salt. All of the guests survived.

All the above information is courtesy of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that I love.
And it is paraphrased so you can go there and get the exact content for anything just about.

Horror near Buffalo New York where we had our first deadly plane crash in over two and half years all died including one in the home that was destroyed on the ground; a Continental #3407 originating out of Newark New Jersey crashed killing all 49 onboard, and one man in the home that was hit.
Sadly, one on the plane was a woman, Beverly Eckart, whose husband died in 9/11, was one of the victims.
What a devastating night in the northwestern portion of New York State.

For us our day was much tamer, but not without our own minuscule brand of excitement.
Ever since my mobility scooter was ordered we had been given a tracking number with a major ground delivery service, which allowed us to follow its progress on its journey across the country from its point of origin in Seattle Washington.
It was put in the system on the 5th of the month and we were first told it would take seven working days so I figured next week on the 17th or 18th allowing for the holiday.
But to my pleasant surprise by the 6th the tracking info said it would be here by the 12th, whoopee!
Over the next several days we noticed it had made it all the way to Nashville Tenn., at this point it was close to I75 which would bring it south to here! But delivery would be the thirteenth, yeah?
By the tenth it skipped us and went south of us to Fort Myers and was on the truck by 4:11 A.M. on the wee hours of the morning of the thirteenth to be delivered on, you got it, on the thirteenth!
We are only 45 minutes from Ft. Myers, maybe an hour, and so by one P.M. I was wondering where on earth my new ride could be?
And so I called the toll free number provided by the company, and tried to act cool and said I know this might sound silly to you but I was given the tracking number and it says that my delivery would be today but according to the information on your site it was put on the truck at 4:11 A.M. and has no new info and usually it gives a departure time, and so I was wondering if my package would be coming today?
The pleasant male voice on the other end of the phone said yes it will be there before 5 P.M., I said thank you and hung up, but I made a mental note to call back at about ten to five if it still wasn’t here.
2:18 P.M. I hear a loud motor, a truck outside, and yes it is the ground deliverer, hip, hip hooray! They were here.
The package weighed more than a hundred pounds but the delivery man stood with it in his arms when I said that the one side was drooping I hope it isn’t broken?
He said if it is just call right away and they will pick it up, I said OK not too sure, and then asked don’t I have to sign something?
He said just your first initial and your last name and so I did as he finally put the heavy package down for me to sign, and then with all the niceness of any civilized person, he asked, where would you like me to put it?
I showed him and thanked him.
My husband kept our canine son outside while this went on; otherwise he gets quite excited with company, any company.

As soon as hubby came in he tore into the box and I took the battery to charge it up the directions said a minimum of three to five hours, we both took it for a test drive before dinner, it was a smooth mover.

And here I am now writing about my day. Tomorrow who knows where we may go…

Good night to all and to all get moving too.

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