did you know that there’s a superstition that claims one should not sit down to dinner with a group of 13 people, or one of you will die within a year?

or that friday the 13th is unlucky because jesus was in a group of 13 people at the last supper? that judas, the betrayer, was the 13th person to arrive at the dinner?

or have you been in a hotel elevator and noticed that the floors skip mysteriously from 12 to 14?

for some reason the number 13 has long been considered unlucky and especially so when combined with a friday. if you google, you’ll find various postulations as to why this might be, but suffice to say that except for the few cultures where 13 is considered a lucky number, it’s a world-wide phenomenon that people approach friday the 13th a little warily. just maybe a certain horror movie by that name might have something to do with it!

now i’m not a particularly superstitious person. i’ve been known to put my shoes on the bed, spill salt and among many other things, i’ve broken a few mirrors in my time. so friday the 13th to me is only significant because my step-daughter was born on that day.

however, despite my lack of superstition, this past friday the 13th turned out to be most peculiar. i mentioned in my previous post that i have a new personal trainer.

• friday morning we go for our customary 20 minute walk to start off my session. 5 minutes in we get flagged down by some guy who needs directions. i spend about 5 minutes google-mapping on my iphone and explaining how to get there. good deed #1.
• scarcely 5 minutes later, down a little cul-de-sac, i spot a remote control lying in the middle of the road. as i click it, open sesame, the gate of the house next to us, opens. so there we are, spending another 5 minutes ringing the bell trying to rouse the inhabitants with the only thing stirring being the dog protesting our presence. i decide to go back later to return the remote. good deed #2.
• another 5 minutes later i spot a stray dog on the pavement ahead of us. oh no! as we approach, a smell worse than death sends us recoiling! OMG! the dog has obviously rolled in something pretty vile-smelling. it has a collar, but no tag and when i see it drinking out of a disgusting drain, the short of a very long story  (which involves a lot of people seeing him running around all morning and doing nothing to help) is that i take him home and then the bf takes him to the linden vet who’s agreed to take him. good deed #3.
• 

as for my work-out session, all in all, i get in about 15 minutes of my session before my time is up.

the aftermath of good deeds #2 &3: when i went back to the house belonging to the remote, another long story short was that the neighbor had lost the remote and was ecstatic when i came to return it. as for the dog, turns out he was chipped and re-united with his owners (i went to check on him on my way from work and was more than bummed to discover that they leave him out in the cold, but that’s another story).

what a decidedly strange day. if i’d been even a little bit superstitious, i might have thought it had something to do with it being friday the 13th! turns out it wasn’t a great day for physical training, though it was obviously a day for being in the right place to help out someone else.

ok, i admit it.  maybe i’m just a little grateful that not everyday is like this particular friday the 13th. anything peculiar happen on yours?