it’s not about you

Yesterday we went to a Christmas tree farm with my friend Jenni and some of her friends. The farm was about an hour north of the city, near Sebastopol. We got a CityCarShare and loaded up the kids and went. It was really nice to get out of the city and go for a drive - it ’s absolutely gorgeous up there. We even passed through Sonoma County, and saw a lot of winery fields. That makes me want to go visit wine country next season.

So shortly after we got to the Christmas Tree Farm, I lost my sunglasses. I cannot tell you how many pairs of sunglasses I have had in the last five years - they always either break, or I lose them. When Judah was just over a year old, Joshua’s parents took all of us to Seattle, where his brother Andrew lives, for a week-long vacation. We spent part of that in Canada, in Victoria. I lost my sunglasses prior to that trip, so while in Canada, I bought another pair. The VERY NEXT DAY, I was getting Judah either in or out of her car seat in the van, and while I was lifting her up, my head, with my brand-new, day-old sunglasses perched on top, hit the dome light over her seat and my sunglasses promptly broke right through one of the lenses.

I handed my camera and my sunglasses to Joshua yesterday at the tree farm while I stepped into the porta potty with Judah (couldn’t they have a real toilet? I’m just sayin’…). When I got out of the toilet, he handed me back my camera and I asked him for my glasses.

“You didn’t give them to me,” he said.

“Yes I did. I gave you my camera and then I handed you my sunglasses.”

“Well I don’t have them.”

“What do you mean you don’t have them? I JUST gave them to you.”

“Are you sure they’re not in your bag?”

“No, I handed them to you.”

So we checked the bag, and checked it again and checked the whole stroller, and the ground where he was standing and even checked the porta potty, even though I was 110 percent sure I hadn’t taken them in there because I distinctly remember handing them to him (why would I need sunglasses in a porta potty?). I was pretty frustrated at this point, because I KNOW I gave them to him and for the life of him, he couldn’t remember, and because I just bought those sunglasses TWO WEEKS AGO and had already lost them. I started back to the car to retrace my steps wondering where in the world they could be, when I saw them on a table by the tree-wrapping stand. One of the workers said someone had found them on the ground.

Good. I like them. And they cost me 15 bucks.

So later, Jenni found the tree she wanted (a three and a half foot little guy) and was trying to cut it down with a saw, but she wasn’t having any luck. She asked one of her friends to do it (whose name I keep forgetting) because, she said to him, “You’re a man.”

“Nuh-uh,” I said. “Don’t play the gender card! Give me the saw!” And I proceeded to cut down her small, little tree. Right before I bent down to start hacking away at it, I took my rings off my finger, and made a little bit of a show of putting them in my pocket, so I would remember where they were (do you see where this is going???). I successfully cut down the tree, posed with it, and then reached in my pocket for a tissue so I could blow my nose. Yeah. That’s right.

We walked back up the slope to get her tree all taken care of and ready to go home, and into the barn where they were selling popcorn and pre-cut trees and ornaments and homemade soaps and things. I remembered then that I had taken my rings off and reached in my pocket to put them back on. I quickly found my engagement ring (that was my great-great-aunt’s wedding ring from the 1930s) and reached back in for my wedding band, and COULDN’T FIND IT. Panic started welling up and I used one of the words I had said I was going to stop using around Judah (and think I startled one of Jenni’s friends in the process).

I started calling for Joshua over and over and he asked me what was wrong and I could hardly get the words out because this wasn’t real, I hadn’t really lost it, surely it was in that little fifth pocket on jeans (that didn’t actually exist on the pair I was wearing) and it had to be there because I did NOT just lose my WEDDING RING. But I did. He parked the stroller next to me and said he’d retrace our steps back to the tree where I had taken it off. I took the stroller and the kids and went to the tree wrapping station to look around on the ground and tell the workers I had lost my ring, in case anyone turned it in. Then I went back into the barn to tell someone there.

Apparently, I was not the first person that day to lose my wedding ring. The woman had me write my name, phone number and a description of the ring down on some paper. After I finished doing that and was talking to her to give her a more detailed description, Joshua walked up next to me and held up his hand…with my ring around his pinky finger. I put it back on, put my arms around him and immediately started crying. He said he found it right by the tree I had cut, under some branches. He said if someone had stepped on it, it would have probably been pushed into the dirt and he might not have found it.

In the car on the way back, he asked me what I was thinking and feeling when I realized it was gone. He wondered if it was different for me to lose it than if he’d lost his ring. I told him I didn’t know, that I was trying not to think about it until I had to. That we would do what we could to find it first, and if we had to leave without it, well, then, I didn’t know, since he did find it. He said he’s never taken his off, and then tried to, but couldn’t get it over his knuckle. I take mine off sometimes to do dishes, or cook, or when I used to go swimming. It reminded us of our friend Mark, whose ring looks like it’s slowly being absorbed by his finger. I don’t think he’s ever taken his ring off.

(By the way, Mark - Happy Birthday, man. What are you - 50 or something? Just kidding.)

So while we had fun at the farm, and Judah had a blast, what with the hot chocolate and all the trees and the tiny little horses and the hayride and all, it was a really weird day for me. We got back into the city, went to Trader Joe’s while we still had the car, and went home. We pulled into the garage and unloaded the car by the entrance to the building. While Joshua was putting all the kids and seats and groceries into the elevator, I pulled the car around and parked it in our spot. When I got out, I noticed that Judah’s trike, which had been locked up with our bikes, was just sitting on the ground. I thought maybe it had somehow gotten loose, so I put it back near the bikes for Joshua to take care of in a bit.

That’s when I noticed something was missing - namely, Joshua’s bike. I was in too much of a hurry to get back inside and help him get everything upstairs and unloaded and fed and to calm the crying baby, so I didn’t have time to inspect it. I asked him if he knew his bike was gone and he said, “My bike is gone?” and I said yeah, your bike is gone. I asked him if he lent it to Amy, who had come over the night before, to ride home on, and he said no, she rode her own bike.

Sure enough, someone had stolen it. Whoever took it cut through both of the cables that were locking our bikes to each other and to the fence. Which means someone had to have gotten into the garage and spent enough time to get through those cables (someone once tried to steal our bikes in Dallas and tried to saw through the cables with no luck - they’re pretty great cables). Mine was still there, we think because there is a U-lock going around the body and the back tire, so the bike can’t be ridden. Joshua was pretty sure he had used a U-lock to either do the same with his tire or to attach the two bikes to each other. I guess we had overlooked that.

So the trike and my bike were brought in and wiped down and are now going to be stored in our apartment - I have no idea WHERE, but hey. I have that been-violated feeling that I hate whenever something gets stolen or broken into, or one of the two has been attempted - times of which I have lost count over the past few years between bikes and cars. Arrgh.

What’s really frustrating is that we have two doors on which you must use a key in order to get into the building, and you have to use a clicker to get into the garage. To get out of the garage, you have to pull up to the exit door and get out and press the open button. Then to close it, you have to pull through and get out again and go press the button again. It’s a little annoying, but it’s not that big of a deal. We can’t tell you how many times we have walked by and the exit door has just been left open. It’s pretty frustrating, because we have always said that someone could just walk in and take something, and well, there you have it. They could also just walk in through the garage door and come into the building without needing a key. That’s something I am going to bring up with the landlord when he calls me back.

That’s pretty much the end of my story.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 11:58 am and is filed under Body & Soul, Community, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.