Friday, May 01, 2009

I don't know why people say "Rabbit rabbit" on the first of the month.

Here it is the first of May, which is also Buy Indie Day (support your local bookstores!) and would have been my mother's 68th birthday -- I guess it still is, so I hope she's having a Gibson somewhere with her parents, my cousins' Nana Kiely, my aunts Patti and Judi, my cousin Regan's husband Terry and everyone else she loved while she was here.

But I woke up this morning and said, "Rabbit rabbit," and I have no idea why I did this, or what it's supposed to do.

I first heard about the "rabbit rabbit" superstition from my high school French teacher, Mrs. Rhodes, who said it was a Breton custom (where I guess it would be "lapin lapin"). Wikipedia disagrees with this, ascribing it to Bromley, Kent, and dating it only back to 1954.

One disadvantage of going for walks with a large dog is that we rarely see rabbits. It's raining today and tomorrow, but we might go out looking for some on Sunday.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a lovely thought. Nora O'Brien a friend from my early days in LA just passed away this week and I hope she's there with them.

Lots of love on what has to be a very hard day.

-kathleen

Ellen Clair Lamb said...

I saw her obituary and wondered whether you or Moira knew her -- what an awful shock.

Jen Jordan said...

I always say ,"Rabbit, rabbit." My mom always told me whom ever you said this to on the first wouldn't fight with you for the whole month.

Tah Groen said...

I just sent out a tweet!! Ha Ha...

Can anyone answer this "Rabbit Rabbit" question? I am curiously intrigued... http://twurl.nl/bkuo26

Let us see what happens? :-)
Tah