January 23. Day 23. One for sorrow

 When I was in high school a girl in my class ended up in hospital with a broken leg because of a magpie. Technically it was the car that broke her leg not the bird but she was so traumatized trying to escape a swooping magpie that she walked into the path of the car.  This may be why since the 16th century magpies have been considered a bad omen. One for sorrow, the rhyme starts. So if I was superstitious I would say this explains why I have been feeling like I have been engulfed by a great big ball of sadness today given that the total number of magpies I encountered was one. But let's be honest. I have been feeling like crap all day and I only saw the magpie late this afternoon.  But that's the thing about superstitions. They are not rational. If you are a believer you can make the facts fit. The FACTS are the magpie did me no harm unless you count eating stale rice crackers from my mum's back deck. It may even have done me a favour given the age of some of the food in my mother's pantry. I can't find any proper explanation for the black dog feeling but it has nothing to do with a black bird, of that I'm pretty certain.