Black Sheep

I've heard that the Year of the Sheep is one of the more unlucky ones in the Chinese zodiac. I'm certainly beginning to think so. A couple months ago, monshu had the idea of a small dinner party for New Year's Day. We would invite two couples: Nuphy and the Swiss Miss and Ottr4bear and Rubeus. Since couples tend to plan as a unit, this would make scheduling easier, right?

Well, first we learned that the Swiss Miss wouldn't be in town after all. No problem, we thought, maybe we could invite another mutual friend. In fact, when we found out that Padre Jaime would be around, we invited him. This was about the same time that monshu's kitchen sink began leaking. Fortunately, he was able to get a plumber to fix it before the end of the week (at the cost of a couple hundred dollars and two days of missed work).

The day before the plumber came, Rubeus had a family crisis and flew out to Florida. He was scheduled to be back on the day of the banquet, so we eventually decided to postpone it a week. (The traditional Chinese celebration period lasts ten days.) This meant that Padre Jaime couldn't attend, but a Dutch acquaintance of mine will be in town, so we invited him instead. (He hasn't gotten back to me.) Today we found out that Rubeus will still be out of town on that date and Ottr probably won't make it either. monshu is frustrated, and I don't blame him. He'd scheduled a day off work, rescheduled it, begun shopping, etc.

I joked that our problem was having six attendees, since six is not a lucky number in Chinese numerology; five, for instance, would be much better. Maybe it's that, maybe it's the feng shui of the dining room, maybe it's the Eight Pillars of the people involved. It's time either to call the whole thing off or bring in a consultant.