I remember a scene from one of the Trixie Belden books I obsessively collected as a child. Trixie leaps out bed and says “Rabbit rabbit” on the first of the month. Twitter suggests that while the residents of Sleepyside-on-Hudson say “rabbit, rabbit,” Britons say “a pinch and a punch.” I assume they then punch each other. Violence is never the answer, Britons.
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Gary update: he has seen the GP and is off to see the neurololist. The pain has visited, in order, his jaw, ear, neck, throat, brain, and eye. Still, most of it is not ER-worthy pain.
6 responses to “Pinching Rabbits”
Trixie Belden! I wanted to be her. Maybe that subliminally explains my inexplicable love of the Hudson River Valley.
I read all the Trixie Belden mysteries too. I was just thinking about the one where someone was poisoned by Waldorf salad (arsenic) because of the current apple juice scare. I also read Robin Kane and Meg mysteries, did you?
I’m sure they’ve checked Gary for Trigeminal neuralgia (a.k.a. Tic douloureux)? I had it on BOTH sides (very rare) for over a year in the ’70s, and the pain can feel like a red-hot bar passing through the cranium from side to side, and your eye can feel like it’s going to fall out.
If that’s what he’s got, he has my greatest sympathy. Doctors don’t know how to diagnose it or how to treat it.
It’s always been ‘Bunny white rabbits’ in our house (English mother) but they have to be the first words you say when you wake up to get good luck all month. At school ‘A pinch and a punch for the first of the month – pig’s return’ meant you were a pig if you tried pinching and punching back. First step on the path to a ‘Lord of the Flies’ scenario.
I have never heard of this tradition, ever, but I do have a friend who lives in Croton-on-Hudson.
Becs – I always thought, why couldn’t the writer have made Honey homely too? Zayrina – No! I was loyal to Trixie. My favorite of course was the one when they visited Saint Louis.~~Silk – Ah yes, I’ve had one occurence of TN and I will never forget it. I think the treatment might the drug he’s already on for epilepsy.Big Dot – According to Wikipedia, pigs may then declare Magic Mirror Glue. Tami – it sounds very proper.