Shamrocketship: Very Superstitious . . .

. . . writing's on the wall . . . Very Superstitious . . . ladder 'bout to fall.

When you believe in things that you don't understand then you suffer . . . Superstition ain't the way.

Stevie Wonder

I am a bit superstitious. Probably no more or less than many other people. I'm not afraid of walking under ladders or breaking a mirror, and I consider the number 13 my lucky digits. But you'll never see me pick up a coin that's tail-side up, and I drive extra carefully for one mile whenever the number 666 rolls around on my odometer. And then there are these two guys. I call them The Two Stooges.

The Two Stooges are part of a collection of netsuke I have here on my desk. I've been collecting netsuke for, I dunno, it's been about 20 years or so since I got Stooge One (the guy on the right); he was my first netsuke. They're about two inches tall, and are entirely carved from one solid block of ivory (don't sic PETA on me; mine were made before harvesting ivory was illegal). The Stooges are special in a number of spectacularly-interesting ways.

First, they are among the very few non-animal netsuke I have in my collection. (Go ahead and say "oooh" and "aahhh.")

They're also special because they are considered "trick" or "animated" netsuke. They have moveable parts. These two guys' faces can flip to another side that shows a completely different expression. Neither side is friendly, but one is just a little more grumpy looking than the other. (THAT info was so special, I'm sure you're picking yourself up off the floor right now. I'll wait.)

And I wish I could show you the faces on the other side of their flippy little heads, but I can't right now. Because things are going OK lately. Other than that relationship implosion I mentioned the other day. But otherwise, well, we haven't had an earthquake in NJ lately, have we? Things are pretty OK.

I hear you thinking what the hell is she talking about? I'll 'splain. You see, somehow, years ago, I got the notion that flipping The Stooges' faces to the other side would result in a change of my luck. I tried it a few times and it seemed to work. Things not going so good? Flip 'em. Things got better. (Isn't that incredibly special? Yeah, I knew you'd agree.)

I remember one time when things were going not-so-bad but I was feeling sorry for myself and wanted something good to happen so I flipped 'em. Bad move. Things got a lot worse. That's when I knew that to flip 'em could be dangerous unless things were really bad and I imagined there was no way they could get worse.

So the moral is, don't flip flippantly. Flippant flipping is potentially dangerous. You must respect the flip. The flip is reserved for dire circumstances. And I'm not there right now. So I can't show you the other side, OK?

P.S. If you jumped to the Wikipedia link to read about netsukes, I assure you mine are worth nowhere near those prices you saw. They are, therefore, not worth stealing. And if you did, I know karma would bitch-slap you anyway.