My Town Monday: San Diego and the Jacaranda Tree

There are a couple of things I love about Monday.

First off, everyone in my house trundles back to school or work after the weekend. I really look forward to a quiet morning of writing. Secondly, I enjoy posting these little My Town Mondays. I've learned a lot about San Diego County. Also, I enjoy reading others' posts of their environs. Please feel free to join in. If you do throw up a MTM post, let us know in the Comments section of the My Town Monday blog. Or even leave a message in my Comments section below. I have Admin privileges for the My Town Monday blog, and I'll hop over there to add your link.

Okay. About San Diego. Did you know the jacaranda is our official urban tree? In Southern California, they bloom twice a year (fall and spring). This is unusual. Apparently, the springtime bloom is prettier. I've never noticed this, though.


Kate Sessions (November 8, 1857 – March 24, 1940), a California botanist and horticulturalist, brought the jacaranda tree to San Diego. Ms. Sessions' nickname is "the Mother of Balboa Park." She planted hundreds of trees in the Park (cypress, pine, oaks, pepper trees and eucalyptus) from seeds from all over the world. This is the statue of her in Balboa Park. We also have an elementary school and a park named after her.

Phoenix, home to my thirteen year old fictional detective Sherry, has a lot of jacaranda trees.

Pretoria, South Africa is known as the Jacaranda City because they have planted so many of the trees. In this city, the trees bloom at the same time as their end-of-the-year exams. There is a saying in Pretoria that if a jacaranda bloom falls on your head, you will pass all your finals.

I think I'll drop a jacaranda bloom on Child #2's head before he takes his two AP (Advanced Placement) exams this spring.

Oh wait! At the University of Queensland in Ipswich, Australia, students refer to the jacaranda tree as the "exam tree" or "purple panic." Here, superstition says if a jacaranda bloom falls on your head, you'll fail your exams.

I guess I won't drop anything on Child #2's head!

Please check out the posts by the other My Town Monday participants by clicking here.




From: http://www.sandiego.gov/citizensassistance/facts/fast.shtm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacaranda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Sessions

Friday the Thirteen

Are you a paraskevidekatriaphobic?

Paraskevidekatriaphobia is an irrational fear of Friday the Thirteenth.

You will look very smart if you toss out this word around the water cooler today at work. However, if you stumble over this word's many many syllables, people will think you splashed vodka in your coffee. The latter could result in some unlucky circumstances.

Thirteen has been considered an unlucky number for forever. Some strange superstitions surrounding the number 13 include:

If 13 people sit around a dinner table together, all will die within a year.
Hmmm. This could come in handy the next time I'm throwing a dinner party. As in when I really don't want to invite a specific someone, I'll say, "I'd love to have you come to my fancy schmancy dinner party that everyone is SoCal is all hyped up about attending. But, unfortunately, I suffer from triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13). And you'd be my 13th guest. And we'd all die. So, as a favor to you and your loved ones, don't even think about showing up at my dinner party.

Don't give your baby a name with 13 letters or he/she'll have the devil's luck.
If only the parents of these people had known: Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo. I have just done a quick count. Phew. None of my children has a name of 13 letters.

Friday has been considered unlucky for forever. (Not in my life, though. I've pretty much always looked forward to Friday. Since, you know, it's the start of the weekend, a good evening to take advantage of happy hour or order pizza for dinner because you're sick to death of cooking which you've been doing all week long.)

Here are some superstitions about Friday:

If you change the sheets on your bed on Friday, you'll have nightmares.
This totally explains why my children won't change their bed on Fridays. And here I thought it had to do with chore avoidance.

If your ship sets sail on Friday, it'll have bad luck.
I'm driving to Malibu later today. Driving. Good. I'm safe from the bad luck thing.

Sorrow will enter your life if you clip your nails on Friday.
You have probably never heard of this superstition. Because information about it has been suppressed by manicurists. But now you know. So, if you insist on getting your nails done on a Friday, well, you're just asking for trouble.

To complicate matters, Greece, Romania and Spain believe Tuesday the 13th is unlucky. For Italians, it's Friday the 17th. This information could come in handy when looking for airline deals.

So, how about it? Anyone out there brave enough to share a superstition.






From: http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/friday_the_13th.htm,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskaidekaphobia,http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Friday_the_13th