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I have met in person three people who won big in the lottery. These days, I buy a lottery ticket about once a month, just in case. All three of the winners I met (all Oregonians) spent and saved their winnings responsibly. As for other luck: I had a traveling job for 7 years. I flew several times a month every month, and was never in an accident. I was also driving on those trips. No accidents. So I feel pretty lucky.

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My life has seemingly been a series of lucky breaks, but the luckiest one might be getting cast in Our Town at the Old Globe back in 1975. Not only because the play changed the way I thought about life but because I made some lifelong friends, like the handsome guy who played the milkman, Russel Redmond. Fourteen years later we got married, and our honeymoon continues.

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I feel like my life has been lucky even though there were some times that were very hard.

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"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." I love that life is like that...those moments. And of course, the best prompt for fiction writers: "what if..." I'm lucky enough that butterflies come here, thanks to my landlord who plants milkweed and will sometimes text me to come see a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. Thanks Betsy, for all these topics.

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Excited about me winning the lottery! Your post about butterflies made me deeply contemplative — and my thoughts led to the two great essays about moths — one by Virginia Woolf and the other, Annie Dillard. What am I reading now? An Anne Carson essay called “Eros Bittersweet.”

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An entertaining post. Your lottery story reminds me of the man who preyed to God every week the night before the lottery draw asking that he should win it, but he never did. Out of frustration he shouted at God “I don’t believe in you any more.” Then the man heard a voice in his head. “You’ve got to help me here. Please buy a ticket.” As my old neighbour, now long gone, said, “You have to be in it to win it.” So it is with life. It really is chance. Every day is a roll of the dice. I loved the little stories today. One Lucky Old Bunny 🐰

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