752

April 1, 2009

For the past decade or so, a puzzling phenomenon has been happening to me.

The number 752 keeps cropping up. Most mornings and evenings when I look at the clock, it says 7:52. When I’m on the treadmill or cross-trainer, I’ll look down and see on the timer – 7:52. At a hockey game, I'll look at the game clock and see 7:52. I’ve played the Pick Three Lotto with lucky 752 several times, but without success.

I’ve heard other people talk about seeing the same number all the time – 911 is a popular one, and in fact I do see that sequence quite often and it’s not in news accounts of the most famous terrorist event in history. They say 911 means to live for the moment. So what does 752 mean?

Especially in the last few years, I’ve been wondering about the significance of 752 in my life. I came to the conclusion that it had something to do with the seventh month of my 52nd year, like something momentous might happen to me. Since I was born in October of 1956, this month that we just entered – April of 2009 – happens to be the seventh month of my 52nd year. Sure enough, something major has occurred in my life. I’ve left a job that I worked at for more than two decades and have taken a new path in life.

I moribundly had been thinking for a while that maybe 752 signaled my demise, as in the appointed time for the grim reaper to come calling for me. There’s still 29 days to go for that, but I don’t think that’s what the number gods had in mind. I think it pointed to this as the time for a major life change.

As for today, it was calm and without much of the mental and emotional turmoil of the past couple of months. I busied myself tying up some loose ends, making some telephone calls to a couple of old friends, doing some housework and mostly trying to get my plans together for the coming 12 months.

I had to laugh when Judy called from D’Youville College, where she is a nursing professor, about 4:30 in the afternoon to say she’d be late for dinner. Here, I’d been slaving over a hot stove for an hour, fashioning some turkey balls out of egg, bread crumbs, milk and, of course, turkey meat to flavor the jarred pasta sauce and spaghetti. Mr. Domestic!

I told her, “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll keep the dinner warm." I actually enjoyed whipping up the evening grub. I think my calling may be as a househusband. A man slave.

Judy loved the dinner, by the way.

Tomorrow I’m headed to a seminar about filing for unemployment. That, in itself, is a new experience for me. (Do one new thing every day!) Today I tried filing for benefits but the state’s Department of Labor computer stated that the two days I’d worked this week made me ineligible. Try again Monday, the computer told me.

As a longtime breadwinner, I still had some minor anxiety about not shuffling off to work (what a bunch of robots we are!) at the appointed hour, and then I started thinking about paying bills a year from now. Ugh. I hope that ugly beast stops rearing its head.

Anyway, I’ve got to teach myself to enjoy these five weeks before school begins – to make it entertaining yet productive. Why not just relax? That’s difficult for a man who has been a worker bee for 31 years, gathering honey for the queen bee’s hive.