2 in 2 million

I have been engaged in an ongoing battle with the net on my basketball goal. It all started when I first installed it. I remembered that one should give the loop a twist before putting it in the ring on the rim. Theoretically, this would keep the net on the rim, no matter how powerful the swish. It did not. (In no way do I attribute the net's inability to stay attached to my ferocious shooting skills.) So I tried the double twist. This didn't work either. Then I tried no twist. No dice. I'm back to the full twist. For a while, the front two loops and one on the left side were off. I lived with it. A few days ago I backed the Jetta up to the pole, climbed on the trunk and reattached the net once again. It held up for a short time, then one of the loops on the right side found its way free. Fine. One failed loop. Not so bad.

Those with great affection for basketball know about "hanging the net," where you make such a perfect swish that the net gets hung up on the rim rather than hanging down as it normally does. Today, while shooting, I went beyond perfection. I made a shot with such precision and concentrated force that it defied logic, physics and sports science to truly hang the net. The Perfect Shot. Rotation, trajectory, speed, temperature, light, humidity and mood were all just so. Cosmic forces aligned and combined... Saturn was in the third moon of Venus and the Earth's moon was in retrograde. The lone loop that was a free dangler whipped it's way back toward the stars and... rehung itself. I've never seen it before and doubt I will again.

Some of you know that while in New Orleans in February a similarly magnificent event took place. To set the scene, we got to visit a house in the French Quarter with some lovely, welcoming people. The house was complete with a balcony that you got to by walking through some gigantic windows. I was well fed. My belly was full of authentic gumbo and a couple Red Stripes rounded out the meal. The first parade of the season was going through the French Quarter on that night. We were a short walk from the parade route. We caught the tail end of the parade then cut across a few blocks to catch it again as it looped back to the east. We watched a few floats go by and had some laughs at the creativity as it moved passed. One might call the floats irreverent. One might call them raunchy. One might get back to the story. As expected, beads were constantly being thrown from the floats into the crowd. As I was looking at an approaching float, a set of beads landed around my neck. Not on my head, not hanging on one of my ears, not hitting me in the face, not tight on the front and loose on the back... but landed perfectly - perfectly - in place. It was thrown from at least twenty feet away from a moving vehicle and settled precisely in place around my neck. Lifetime New Orleanians around me had never seen it happen before. Neither had I. I won't forget it. They might.

From my artist's collection (click photo for full gallery experience)