The Lord Giveth, and the Lord Taketh Away

Or maybe it’s more appropriate to say that we are in a continuous cycle of giving and taking. Feng Shui teaches that we really own nothing on this earth, not even the bodies we stand up in, as we certainly can’t take our possessions or our bodies with us when we die. So an appropriate response to any theft is to take a deep breath and say, “Well, they’ve come for it.” “They” being some representation of the world outside us or around us, some element that helps themselves to our possessions without notifying us, and “it” being some element that we expected to hang on to for the indeterminate future.

And after this weekend, the LT can say, “Well, they’ve come for the motorcycle.”

I'll put that more plainly: the LT and I came back from Beerfest to discover that his motorcycle was stolen, the wrenched-off ignition lock lying in the street.

Yes, he has insurance. Theft insurance, even, which you have to pay extra for with a motorcycle because of this very possibility. Yes, I was very attached to that motorcycle and am rather sad that we can’t ride it anymore. (That we know of. SPD may find it—the nice officer who came to take Mark’s statement about 1:07 this morning said the chances were better than average that he’d get it back. I’m not so sure.) In fact, my own father owned a motorcycle when he and my mother got married, which was stolen not long after they were married. He never replaced it.

The awful part is that LT has worked twelve hours a day every day this week and been called in to work twice in the middle of the night on top of that. (And last week, and for the next two weeks.) I put in eight hours of overtime myself, not including my normal tutoring. I was insulted at Beerfest by a boy who told me I needed acne cream. (Maybe if I repeat it enough, the sting of this remark will eventually dissipate.) Two lines of girls—the line I was in and an upstart line—both in line for the same four porta-potties almost got in a knock-down drag-out brawl, resulting in me comforting some gorgeous tennis-player-type blonde who was crying over being called “ferret-faced” by some female who was apparently shallower than Saran Wrap. Four security guards crossed their arms in front of the four porta-potties, sending in one girl at a time after that.

Fortunately the whole event paled in comparison to our triumphant entry, the LT and I able to buzz in for free and, more importantly, past a line that was miles long. (In any big city, free admission pales in comparison to being to skip the line or achieve free parking, for example.) A group of us went out for really good Thai food, disdaining to feed ourselves on fair food at Beerfest, and today, the ‘Hawks beat the Bengals and the Steelers beat the 49’ers. Next week, the ‘Hawks play the 49’ers. Should be an interesting game.

And tomorrow I get to work from home, a wonderful thing, and I get to try out a new salon on Friday (Vain, for those playing along at home) and most importantly, my BACK TO SCHOOL! Party is on Friday, and drinking games galore, fifty of my closest friends in costume, and a brand-new (to me) Polaroid camera to record the events will chase away a lot of ills. And even if it doesn’t, I keep putting one foot in front of the other.