�Some people have all the luck.� Usually, when Day-Hay goes around intoning this saying, there�s trouble. She means that life is unfair and that she continually gets the short end of the stick. But not yesterday. Yesterday she meant, �I�m having a lucky day.� I�m not sure I�ll ever convince her that, in many ways, she was making her own luck but she was.

Despite a mild cold, Mr. Philately reports that Day-Hay woke up quite happily yesterday. I didn�t see her then because I left the house to take Kat and her very large science fair display board to school before Day-Hay ever woke up. In any event, Day-Hay and I often have smoother days on days we don�t see each other until later in the day. I guess then it was luck in a way that I was gone before she awoke whether Day-Hay knows it or not.

She came home from school still bubbling. They had a pizza party at lunch and there was no Pepsi but she didn�t care. She was lucky, she said, because those who wanted Pepsi could have either Coke or Diet Coke. While she likes Pepsi better, Diet Coke is just fine with her. (She claims Coke is too sweet.) Never mind that this piece of luck on some other day would have been bad luck.

She beat her friend, P., at chess. He usually wins when they play although not always. It may have had something to do with her playing against her dad a lot recently and the book on chess that she is reading but never mind that. She won so she was lucky. She said she was especially lucky because T. came over and rooted for her. Somewhere in the conversation, she told me that T. liked to root for whoever appeared to be winning but she apparently didn�t put her play and his rooting for her together. No, it was more evidence of a lucky day.

Kat was home when she came home and Kat let Day-Hay do homework with her side-by-side at the kitchen table. Kat didn�t run to the desk in her room and close the door. Kat probably thought it had something to do with Day-Hay being cheery and being willing to sit and work but Day-Hay thought it was luck�spectacular luck.

Kat, who is working stage crew, had a final dress rehearsal for Grease tonight and Mr. Philately had a stamp club meeting so Day-Hay and I dropped Kat off and went out to dinner together at the local pizza place. I knew she had had pizza for lunch but I decided a good time together was far more important than nutrition tonight so we went anyway. Day-Hay considered that luck as well although I prefer to think of it as values.

Dinner was so pleasant and relaxed with good company chatting about good things that I felt magnanimous enough to let her go to the elaborate gumball machine. From my perspective, there was a connection between her expansive mood and my patience. From her perspective, it was just more good luck, especially when her gumball went through the basketball hoop and netted her an extra gumball (which she kindly gave to a little girl who was standing and watching.).

Her luck continued when I agreed to make candy with her tonight. That luck was also connected to her pleasantness as well as to her having gotten her homework done but never mind that. It was yet more evidence of luck.

Some day, if we have enough lucky days, she�ll make the connections. Luck is sometimes how you look at life and what you do with opportunities. When she figures that out, she can have all the luck most of the time.

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