There’s one day a month each month here in Australia that I don’t have to struggle with remembering how to write the date numerically. See, the entire rest of the world writes day/month/year instead of, as I learned and used for 32 years in the US: month/day/year. It’s the one thing, the one thing that I just can’t shake. I can handle looking the other way first (look right!) when crossing the street. I can deal with grams and kilos and I’m warming up to degrees centigrade. 
It’s just the damn date that I can’t reconcile. And let me tell you, I write the date a LOT at my job. I mess it up a lot and confuse a lot of Australians. But one day a month, I get a reprieve. Today’s that day.
Today’s altogether a very special date. It’s a deliciously easy to write 08/08/08. Symmetrical. I saw people getting married today (also an easy date to remember.) In addition, the Olympics start today in a disgustingly smoggy Beijing. Apparently, it’s an extremely auspicious in Chinese culture. If I remember right, the word for “eight” also sounds like the word for “luck.”
(An aside–Auspicious as luck/luck/luck would be, August also coincides with the “ghost” month in China, where their dead wander and must be appeased, a bit like what Halloween used to be for the Celts and British. Some people are very superstitious and many people won’t leave their houses. They have to do a lot of offerings to their ancestors. I learned this from a lovely Malaysian girl I met here a few months ago on a cruise up and down the Brisbane river, but that’s another story. More about ghost month and its ending festival here.)
In any event, in my sheer joy of writing 08/08/08 all day today, I came up with this idea for my sad, beleaguered, dead blog. Remember this blog? Probably not. It kicked up its little legs long ago and died. Why? Because it was BORING.
Who gives a rip about how much organic whatsit I ate or how good I am at keeping up exercising? Nobody, that’s who–not even me. So, instead, I thought, well, why not make a new blog about all the amazing/weird/fun/funny things I can do between now and 09/09/09? How I about I write instead about things I enjoy, things that were cool or odd or both? How about JOY instead of responsibility?
So, in that vein, here’s today’s topic: My Superpower.
I hear, far-flung, the distant cry of one of my four readers… “Well, what is it?”
My superpower is that I find money. I SEE money. All over. On the ground. No really, I find money lying on the ground ALL THE TIME. And no, I’m not surreptitiously slitting people’s pockets. It’s always money that is quite clearly parted from its original owner some time ago. In fact, it’s usually completely ignored by other people around me. Here, it seems to be $10 bills. I’ve found two. I’ve found $2 coins, 20 cent pieces, and often, five cent pieces. It’s all over. Lying on the sidewalk. But, that’s not because Aussies are loose with their money. They aren’t. There’s money lying on the ground wherever I go.
The most I’ve ever found at once was a $50 bill, lying in the parking lot of my apartment in Atlanta. No one was around and it was just lying in the middle of the parking lot. I’ve found $20’s several times–three or four that I can think of off the top of my head. One memorable time, I saw dollar bills lying around the edge of a Target parking lot. We hopped out of the car and followed the trail–I think we found four.
There’s money everywhere. It’s great!
Now, what’s your superpower? What are you naturally good at, or what weird or wonderful thing can you do?
And, if any of it was your money, sorry. Make sure you check your pockets next time. But thanks! I’m sure I put it to good use.
