Keeping it in perspective

So, it has been a crappy week. Battling a cold, sore throat, tummy problems, and on Thursday I fell on my tailbone after playing with Rachel on the play structure at the Madeline Parish down the street. Also doing a lot of decluttering of the house, which makes me mentally and physically exhausted.

We hired some folks to do landscaping clean-up and interior deep cleaning. The landscapers did a terrific job, as did the interior cleaners -- we can now see out of crystal clear windows, our garage is swept and everything looks picture perfect -- except that a member of the cleaning crew stole my digital camera (with images of Rachel and of my trip to Africa last year that I hadn't downloaded yet) and two pieces of jewelry that had great sentimental value: a ring Grandpa made for me and a necklace Drew's mom gave me years ago.

I called head of the crew, Elmer, last night and told him about the camera (this was before I discovered that the jewelry was missing). I told him I wasn't interested in going to the police, I just wanted my camera back. To his credit, he believed me at once because he had thought it odd that the guy assigned to the hall closet was cleaning out the shelves and not just sweeping the dust from the floors. He had immediately fired the guy this morning after the guy told him, "I can't give you what I don't have," which I thought was an odd way to construct a sentence. Turns out the guy's brother is also part of Elmer's crew, and the brother offered to go to the guy's house and get the camera back. Took him 45 minutes to do so, but he got it back. Elmer was horribly embarrassed and said this hasn't happened in the 37 years he's been doing this work. The guy had worked for him for 7 years with no incidents, although his wages were being garnished for non-payment of alimony.

Later I was able to search the house and discovered the two missing pieces of jewelry. I called Elmer again and told him that Drew and I are beyond angry at the his point, and that he had the weekend to come up with the missing jewelry or I'd go to the police on Monday. He sounded truly whipped at that point and said he'd do whatever he could to help.

So at Drew's suggestion I ended up having drinks and dinner with a friend of mine who just moved here after she and her husband lost their house, which was underwater anyway, to Hurricane Sandy. "Your job for the next three hours is to tell me that it's just STUFF," I said. She didn't exactly do that but she was extremely sympathetic. Best quote of the evening, "You're IN it," she said. "I'm not." (Meaning she's far away from Long Island and dealing with house stuff remotely while she builds a new life in a wonderful city). I proceeded to order two cocktails, a mess of seafood off the happy hour menu, and for dessert we went to a fabulous ice cream place, Ruby Jewel, across the street.

And when I picked Rachel up from Parents Night Out at St. James, I suggested we spread out our picnic blanket on our freshly mowed backyard and look at the stars. "That's the best idea EVER!" she said.

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Today's cute Rachel saying (because I'm finding it hard to smile tonight):

"I love silly words like wombat," she said at breakfast. "I could say that all day! Wombat wombat wombat wombat!"