Omamori: Lucky Objects and the Luck of Friends

I have a new omamori hanging on my wall. The little packet of good luck, about 1 x 2 inches, looks much like the pictured one from wikipedia, although the pictured one is for good luck in studying and mine is for good luck in marriage. While she was at the Todai-ji temple complex in Nara, Japan (which includes the largest wooden building in the world with the largest Buddha statue in Japan; all you can read more about here on Abby's blog), my friend Abby picked this up for me.

Such an object leads to many lines of contemplation. Obviously, I could investigate the history of omamori and mention omamori etiquette (apparently one does not ever open it, because that would allow the luck to escape, and, while luck does not expire, if I needed a new one, it would be proper for me to return this one to the shrine). I've been wanting to start a series on lucky objects. The general Chinese and Japanese fanaticism about luck and superstition is also certainly worth exploring (a result of lacking a fanatical religion? an artifact of sales to tourists? something necessary in high population densities?). And I'm intrigued by Abby's comment that she bought me a omamori for good luck in marriage, "Not that I think you need it," and my reaction, "even those of us fortunate enough to be married to The Mister (or someone else equally appropriate) need all the marriage luck we can find." But what strikes me most about the packet of luck from Abby has nothing to do with little red objects, Japan, or marriage, but rather the wonder of friends.

It overwhelms me a friend researching cnidarians at a remote lab in Japan would put extra effort not only into finding me a lucky object, but finding me the right lucky object ("I didn't want to give you a random one like the one you buy for good luck on tests"). This is a friend who I knew in grad school for two years and may not have seen in the three years since she left Kansas. Yet I'm not surprised she found me a cool object. I'm just overwhelmed by how lucky I am to have made such friends and how lucky I am to have kept such friends.

Thanks.

Stick Bug Sex

I was lucky in having gorgeous fall weather for ecology lab today, lucky that one of my students noticed this pair, and lucky that they were still going strong half an hour later when I returned with the camera.

The insects, of course, are getting very lucky.

The lighting was the only unfortunate part of the whole incident, and I feel prurient enough with this quality of images; imagine if you could see any better where he is sticking that stick.

Is "unlikely" the same as lucky?

I gave an exam today with population growth problems. The answer to the first problem was 245. The answer to the second problem was -254. I made up all of the numbers and didn't know the answers before giving the test. While I could have figured out that 0.53x800x(1-800/2000) was the inverse of 0.53x800x(1-800/500), the likelihood that I would arbitrarily pick three numbers (800, 500, and 2000) that would give identical inverse results is well, statistically very very unlikely.

Meanwhile, the chem prof. did a demonstration in which 1 g of something led to 1 L of gas (or .1, I forget), a situation which only occurs under specific temperature and pressure, which he was not controlling. Also very very unlikely.

So maybe it's my day to buy a power ball ticket. Yet somehow, having done something statistically improbable with numbers doesn't make me feel particularly lucky at all. Lucky must be more than unlikely.

But is does make my grading one step easier.

Our Rodent Friends

As to the goings on of our rodent friends: In August, all of our newly ripe grapes were on the vine one evening and gone the next morning. We believe a groundhog to be the culprit.

We left town on a Friday when this beaver dam was half built. It was complete by Sunday and completely gone a week and a half later.

We had a good chestnut crop this year which the squirrels seem to have taken advantage of, as there are nothing but spiked shells left for the humans.

The chipmunks have not learned to fear Mr. Splashy Pants, and she has not learned they exist, but someday she'll notice and stalk them, just as diligently as she hunts the bees in the gomphrena.

Growing like a whale

Well, Mister Splashy Pants isn't weighed in tons yet, but she has grown considerably since this photo was taken. She's just as cute but can jump much higher now.

MBiL: Indie Boys are Erotic: I Know I'm the Lucky One

I've previously mentioned how I don't want this blog or this luck resolution to turn into a tacky recounting of how fortunate I am. I've also previously mentioned that my sibs-in-law are one of the truly luckiest encounters of my life (seriously, I could explain The Mister, the Mister's parents and my parents based on genetics or sound decision making. That my brother [MB, long story] and My Brother in Law [MBiL] could turn out to be adult friends and marry people I would want as friends [MSiLs are way cool*] is just lucky. And I think they would all like each other as well; among my favorite wedding photos it that of MSiL [Mister's side] talking to my niece [my side] in German in preparation for her big flower girl moment**).

So, disclaimers having been made, I declare: I am so lucky! MBiL made me a compilation CD of literal luck songs including tunes from as diverse of artists as The Moldy Peaches ("Indie boys are erotic/ makes my eyes bleed/ tight pants are exotic/ some loving is what I need"), Freedy Johnston ("I know I'm the lucky one."), Chuck Berry and Warren Zevon. Of course, the CD was tucked in a box of funky Japanese stuff (MBiL recently spent a month working in Japan) and the Mister assumed it was a CD of Japanese music for his birthday and just tonight mentioned that we should listen to this lucky CD that I didn't know existed. It's fabulous. More on lucky music later, but for now, thanks to MBiL. You and deine Frau are a great lucky "But wait, there's more" bonus of life with the Mister. Someday we'll even talk to you regularly.

*Nerdy ecologist aside: one of my students recently answered on a test that a characteristic of the Boreal Forest Biome is that it is "very cool"; ever since I have wanted to use the phrase "cool like the boreal forest".

**This is not the photo I was referring to, but it would have been taken at the same time. I'll claim that because MSiL is also a professor, I don't want to "out" her on the internet as a relation of mine, but it's really because I can't quickly find the correct photo.

Lucky Professor's House

As mentioned in the previous post, sometimes you need a certain book, but frequently you don't know what book you need. Maybe it's just my heightened awareness, but this year I have felt particularly lucky about reading the right books at the right time.

Last weekend that meant walking into our book room and noticing Willa Cather's The Professor's House for the first time. It was lucky timing, because I was feeling gloomy about grading my first big batch of tests (I have 15 students who answered that there are 10 or fewer cells in a tiger!) and I encountered Professor St. Peter, who would "willingly have cut down his university work, would willingly have given his students chaff and sawdust-- many instructors had nothing else to give them and got on very well-- but his misfortune was that he loved youth-- he was weak to it, it kindled him. If there was one eager eye, one doubting, critical mind, one lively curiousity in a whole lecture room full of commonplace boys and girls, he was its servant."

Professor St. Peter was a necessary reminder that students have always been lackluster and university life has always been full of silly politics, but that's not why he was teaching in 1920 and not why I'm doing it now.

As for the book as a whole, I loved it. I don't know why. Plot-wise I can't decide if I think there's too much going on or not enough going on. I found Death Comes for the Archbishop altogether a much better book. Still, Willa Cather charmed me with her fantastic descriptions of the midwest and the southwest and college life, and I plan to read more of her.

Photo of the side door to this professor's house, taken in early July to be a contrast to the June flood photos.