Today is July 13th. Normally, the 13th of any month is a lucky day for me, because 13 has always been my lucky number – but today proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt – because today has been one of the greatest days of my life.

Everyone has good days, days where you get a bunch of things accomplished, days you receive something in the mail that you have been expecting for quite some time – or even days where you enter a new chapter of your life – today was all of those things and more – and today just happens to be the 13th.

The first amazing thing that happened to me today was getting my father’s chain back. In November of last year, the woman I was dating at the time who I let wear the chain broke up with me, and as a result, was not going to move up to New York as we planned. After the breakup, I did not receive my chain back due to the fact that she got into a serious car accident – something I did not know at the time. Assuming she just never wanted to send my father’s chain back to me, I sent her a very nasty e-mail due to the anger of losing her and, I thought, the chain. A friend of hers who always saw me as the man who was stealing her best friend away read the e-mail before she did and decided that I did not “deserve” my chain back – and kept it until a few weeks ago when my former girlfriend discovered it in her house and, after a big fight with her friend, sent it back to me. After one unsuccessful attempt to send it, she re-sent it again yesterday by FedEx – and it arrived today – on the 13th. Thanks Mary, thanks a lot.

After placing the much missed chain around my neck, I then went on a job interview I had scheduled with Fillmore Real Estate. The job was offered to me by John Reinhardt, a good friend and long time colleague who ran into me at a meeting I attended last week. Hearing that I was going to be laying out the official newspaper for the Brooklyn Board of Realtors, he asked me if I would be interested in doing marketing for Fillmore, because as the company’s President, his goal was to take the company in a new direction. And after a wonderful two-and-a-half hour meeting – I am now Fillmore Real Estate’s Director of Marketing – a job I will begin on August 2nd – but got on the 13th.

In keeping with the day’s positivism, I purchased something I have had for the past five years, but never exactly owned on my own – a cell phone. Working for New York City, I was always given a cell phone as part of my duties as a Public Information Officer. But now that I am a civilian, it was time to get my own, and so I did – and now have joined the 1.2 billion people on this planet that have a cell phone of their own.

Besides all of those wonderful things that happened today, I spoke to Doug’s mother for the first time in over a year, and my dear friend Deborah sent me a gift that I coincidentally received today – it was a Palo-Alto 100 Meter Relay Champs T-shirt – that just happened to have the number 13 on the back of it…

…I told you 13 was my lucky number.