The good news started Sunday night. About 2 hours after the US Airways supervisor told me that they simply did not know where our luggage was, a courier from Air France called me to say he was on his way to my house with one of our two bags that had been lost for a week. Then last night, another call came and Paula's bright red bag was delivered to our home.
Still there was no joy in Santa Clara last night. My Thinkpad, my precious, was still unaccounted for. My friend Scott had located it last Wednesday. On Thursday I had faxed (yes faxed) the credit card information allowing them to charge me about $100 to FedEx me my computer. On Friday, after my email inquiries went ignored, I confirmed that the credit card transaction had been processed.
By Monday, I was getting pretty worried about the computer, particularly the thousands of words in Global Neighborhoods notes and hundreds of pictures yet unposted on Flickr. I started realizing that my Quicken had not been recently backed up.
I kept thinking of Maude's line from the classic 60s movie, Harold and Maude
Why does 80-year-old Maude steal cars? Because people need to learn not to get too attached to things. I've become too attached to my Typepad. I felt like a loved one had been snatched away. I had paid the ransom and still I did not know if it would be safely returned--at least until the doorbell rang a little after 10 this morning. My "FedEx--it's okay to leave at front door" note was gone and their was a standard FedEx delivery box. Yep, it was from security at CDG. There was no stamp saying fragile. The value placed on it was about $60 US. I shook the box gently and heard nothing rattling. I gingerely, slowly opened the carton. There was my baby. It had a single layer of shrinkwrap loosely placed around it. I plugged her in and booted her up. FULL IGNITION. Everything works. My ordeal is over. Tonight or in the early morning, I will upload some of my favorite photos. Tomorrow, I'll start combing through notes. There will be more than a few blogs in them I am sure. Hopefully there is also a nice chunk of a new book. More than that is the exhilaration of the state of mind. Both Paula and I feel like dark clouds have been lifted. We are starting to remember all the incredibly wonderful aspects of this trip. We are both feeling really productive for the first time since we got back. Maude is right. We do get too attached to things.
