Betty hit the luckiest of numbers today. If she weren't a car, she'd probably do well to buy a lottery ticket. (She's probably a month or two away from 18, anyway.)
I'm reminded of a time I was on a flight to the UK with a family seated a few rows away. One of the kids, a girl -- one can only assume, an eight-year-old -- began repeating "and eight! Eight is great!" in a way that emphasized "great" with such sincerity, such earnest and obvious will to communicate, that it verged on desperation. She worked it up into a mantra, until she was almost shrieking it, but without ever raising the pitch of her voice (though the volume made up for that). I never figured out what she meant by "eight is great," or how the parent seated with her got her to give up repeating it, and I suppose I never will. (She must have meant something by it, though -- she was clearly not autistic, and it held her attention for a good ten or fifteen minutes.)
In China, eight is a lucky number because the Chinese word (ba) sounds a lot like the word for wealth, or fortune (or luck, I suppose, as in our "he was very fortunate"). The Olympics will be held on August 8, 2008 because of the exciting confluence of eights in the date.
Being an honorary Chinese myself (haha), I've also converted to "eight is lucky"-dom and note Betty's accomplishment with pride.
She also passed the 88,842 mark today as I went to work, which signifies our 15,000 mile anniversary. I hope the 15,000 anniversary gift is a new partial exhaust system, because that's what I got her -- though it may be the car-gift equivalent of a blender.
Maybe I should throw in an oil change and a nice car wash just to be safe.
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