The Eight Fold Pith* – 08:08am 08/08/08

On this day, and at this time, I find myself reflecting on my favorite number.

The luscious and curvy No. 8.

Thinking back on my early years, learning to count, learning to write, building items into clusters of 2, 4, 6, 8! I never knew just how much I DID appreciate the comfort of round, slightly bottom heavy numbers, taking them for granted.

No rummy hand was complete without one (sometimes all 4), and what would we do without the Crazy Eights’ name sake

The Octagon (thank you, Chuck) was the best movie ever the year I was 8 years old. My favorite video arcade besides the one my dad owned and ran for some years, was called Pieces of Eight. I could spend  a few hours with just 8 quarters.

I got my tonsils removed on the morning of my 8th birthday (Nov 2 1979); I got lots of presents that year, for sure. It was the shortest birthday ever, since I slept the whole night before, then at 8 in the morning they woke me up for my surgery at nine, whereupon that gassed me back to sleep. I slept the whole day, not awakening until near midnight.

(Actually I did wake at one point earlier, blurrily lifting my eyelids, looking around the room, like you see in the movies; slowly,without focus, until sitting in a chair at the foot of my bed, watching over me, I saw my father. If i was terrified of the surgery and its unknown dangers, they all melted away in that second it took to recognize his form, the colours he wore, his smell from across the room.)

Right now is the one and only time it will ever happen** that I¬† (or we if you count you) will ever exist in a moment of 8’s. In one year, one month, and one days time (plus an hour and a bit) we can celebrate 09:09am 09/09/09. But it’s just not the same.

Those crazy, crazy 8’s.

_{*def: Pith
** no I don’t count 08:08pm, that’s 20:08 and that’s cheating.}