Datebook: Sunday, July 30th

I’m packing slowly.

We cannot leave until Tuesday when our coach figuratively blows the whistle around 10:30 and then we hop in the cars without opening doors to jettison north in a version of Amazing Race 2006. This year, thanks to the costume stop, we are out of the race from the start. I am relieved. Each year teams discover new routes to get there that “shave off” 10 minutes here and 5 minutes there, but ultimately these treks have down sides like waiting for sheep to cross the road or waiting for the next mule to hook up to pull your car up the canal.

The problem with packing early is that you have to allow for travel clothes. Do you want to waste a good outfit in case you see Antonio Banderas/Kevin Costner at the first rest stop on the New York Thruway, or go with comfortable?

Comfortable always wins. Regardless, my clothes will look like a spare coat for a Shar-Pei, and the stains will make people wonder if I work in a day care center. My luck ensures I probably will meet at least Harrison Ford in this condition.

Luck.

I have had many conversations with my daughter about luck.

Going into a competition, we all know that skill and training are steering what happens on the ice. But. None of us can forget that luck, or fate, enters into the picture.

We have our lucky object that we bring to every competition (no I can’t tell you what it is because that brings in that whole karma swirling overheard thing, but, it is an object that is commonly found on a Monopoly board—that isn’t much of a clue really because I just envisioned Boardwalk fries and my daughter could argue it could be anything from Barneys New York, although that is technically on Madison and not Park Ave.)

All skaters have similar objects that are to hale the good luck karma rays. One of my friends, whose daughter GOT OUT OF SKATING (when parents say it, that’s how they say it, all caps, underlined, as if—hang on, someday it will happen. When kids say it, it is “she stopped skating” lower case, lowered voices, with implications that she will need years of treatment and monitoring now that she doesn’t have a life). Anyway, my friend bought her daughter and her partner the “little blue engine that could” and each had them in place at the rail while they skated. The skaters thought this cute at ten but clearly embarrassing at sixteen.
But, you cannot nix a former good luck token. Ever.

You also can’t try to supplant it.

In March, while looking at one of the 3,820 catalogues that arrive daily at my house, I found this adorable little shamrock bowl that came with a packet of four leaf clover seeds. So, I ordered it, imagining growing four leaf clovers, plucking them, pressing them, and distributing them to the five teams at our rink as little mementos of hope for the season.

This became a horticulture nightmare. Finding the right amount of water and the right window for light became a daily ritual of inspection and adjustment. When the tiny seedlings finally popped up my cat discovered the tasty greens and chewed the budding heads off.

So it was late June before I was finally able to survey my crop, my 1/billionth acre of clover. And, I discover, that is what it was. Clover. Just regular 3-headed clover. I kept waiting all month for the 4th head to break loose much like I waited when I was 12 for other things to develop. But nothing changed. They were 3-leaf clover.

Think of the irony of that.

Still, I tried to salvage the message. I harvested my crop. I pressed them. And I presented them to my daughter to keep one and give one to her partner with the message that “You Make Your Own Luck”.

I know.

It could be a Mastercard priceless moment commercial.

My daughter said, “They ripped you off didn’t they?”

I smiled at her like Madonna (not the singer) but it came off more like Barbara Walters thanking Star Jones for her years of service to “The View”.

“The point is,” I tell this 17/18 year old Doubting Thomas, “The obvious luck was in the container. In fact, it was the container. Just like you, you are the container. You hold your own luck.”

I feel wise for a moment and imagine writing and baking fortune cookies for the teams next year.

Then I hear her ask her father, “What does that mean?”

Moral: Don’t forget to pack you original good luck item.

1 more day.

Mombo #9