TheBanyanTree: Let There Be Light!

[Margaret R. Kramer]

The weather people keep threatening that there is a lot of cold air bottled
up in Alaska and Canada and the bottle will eventually break and we’ll soon
be shivering underneath our jackets instead of basking in the sunshine
wearing nothing but a T-shirt or a sweatshirt.  But as each day passes and
our thermometers kept smacking 50 degrees along with sunshine, we believe
them less and less.  Yeah, sure, it’s going to get cold in Minnesota – when
pigs fly.

So there I was on Black Friday, wearing nothing but a sweatshirt and jeans,
tackling a project I’ve been dreading for a few weeks now – hanging the
outdoor Christmas lights.  I’ve been thinking and thinking about how I
wanted to set up the lights, what colors to use, and how to plug them in.  I
bought the pine garland and wreaths on Wednesday (another beautiful day and
the garden store wasn’t crowded at all).  So I hung the greens first.  They
looked nice.

I keep my Christmas lights in two large totes in the massive garage.
Because the garage is so massive, I had plenty of space to spread out the
lights strands.  I keep my holiday decorations in our upstairs storage room.
The Christmas ones are in green and red totes, and it was easy to pull out
just the wreaths and decorations I wanted to hang on the back and front
doors without digging through every tote.  In our old house, I had all our
stuff stashed in the crawl space.  Subsequently, I had to haul out all the
totes just to find what I wanted.  What a difference a house makes.  This
new house is very efficient for us.

The beagle and the black cat chilled in the backyard while I decorated our
deck.  Then I did our side garden and finally the front of the house.  Ray
came home just in time to help me put a new deer figure together, then he
put it out in the front for me.  My Christmas lighting is low key.  It won’t
win any contests and it certainly isn’t going on the “must drive by list.”
It’s simple, but nice, and I did not climb on a ladder.

Inside, I wrapped some fake garland on the handrail for the stairs and then
wound white lights around it.  I also hung white lights in our kitchen.  I
was done!  And it was painless!  It had to be the spring-like weather.

I started our holiday letter.  I’ve already bought our Christmas cards.  I
have a few presents.  I feel like I’m ahead of the game.  How can I be so
organized about Christmas and then lose my laptop?

I bought a laptop computer about four and a half years ago.  We really don’t
use it much at home since Ray and I each have our own desktop computer, but
it was great for traveling.  I could use it for writing on the road and Ray
could use it to play games.  We could download pictures as we took them and
check our email if we had an internet connection.  We used the DVD player to
watch movies.

We brought the laptop to Chicago with us.  It made it through our whole
trip.  Susan was going to pick us up at the airport, but she got confused
and went to the wrong terminal and then when she got to the right terminal,
she went to the wrong level.  To make it worse, she didn’t have her cell
phone with her, so we couldn’t communicate directly, we had to go through
Asher, who was at home.  It was frustrating for us and for her.  I was
steaming, because when I get home, I want to get HOME.  We finally took a
cab from the airport to our house.  Then I got mad at Ray because he wasn’t
digging his wallet out fast enough to pay the cabbie, so I got my backpack
from the seat behind me, we were in one of those minivan kind of cabs, and
paid the cab myself.  I slid out of the cab, and shut the door.

It didn’t dawn on me until about a half hour later that I left the laptop on
the seat behind me, right where my backpack had been.  I was so angry that I
did not grab the laptop when I got out my backpack.  I called the cab
company I thought we took from the airport.  Ray drove out to the airport
and talked to the cabbies.  The next day I went out the airport Lost and
Found.  They had two laptops, but not mine.  They checked with the cabbies
for me.  No luck.  I’ll check the lost and found again this week and I’ll be
at the airport next week for work travel, so I’ll check again.  We did have
a tag on the computer with our address and phone number, but we haven’t
received any calls.  I can’t help but feel someone got a free computer.

Fortunately, because we didn’t use this computer much, we don’t have any
personal files on it.  I didn’t do banking or pay bills or even buy things
on it, so there shouldn’t be any identity theft.  I didn’t use this computer
for work things, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

But I’m mad at myself for getting so angry about a relatively small thing
and then letting that anger cloud my better judgment and ultimately losing
valuable item.  The question is why can I keep my Christmas stuff straight
despite different stressors and then not remember to grab my laptop when I
was angry?  Sometimes I feel like my brain has a big black hole in it and
sometimes when I’m trying to retrieve something from my brain cells, I can’t
because it fell into the black hole.  Is this the beginning of Alzheimer’s?

I’m in the process of filing a claim with our homeowner’s policy.  Somehow,
in spite of my worn out brain, I might be able to buy a new laptop for us
for Christmas.  If I can remember . . .

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be
careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.
~E.P. Powell