Missing Peace

The epic stolen wallet story has been meowed to the tree tops, the store windows as I walk by, and the little worms in last year's apples.  In other words, it's over, with the gracious St. Anthony providing closure.  I was so happy.  Other people came forward with stories of this man coming up with lost rings and lost loves; I shall light a candle for him, which I did.

But how can this get better?  A STATUE!  You know Catholics, even a few of the lapsed ones, are big on representations of dead people who supposedly died in exceptional grace, and it's sort of like collecting Star Wars figures in my mind, no smirking intended because, boy, St. Anthony has come through enough to grant him some respect at this address.  A statue.  Someone to talk to besides cats.

From eBay, selection was easy, nothing too frou-frou, just a simple fella with the painted eyes looking in the same direction.  Representations have St. Tony holding a stem of lilies for his purity, and often a baby Jesus who was found in his arms while having a vision.  Don't forget that the man was ill most of his life, and was treated by medieval medicine based on the Greek idea of your humors out of whack.  Blood letting, rubbing a lump of lard on the patient then feeding it to a dog.  Well, you see.  The deck was stacked against living very long, for those remedies are as effective as butter on a burn.  Like Mom did when the iron left a red streak on my hand. Big fat double spoonful of nope.  But maybe they give you visions.

I waited for the box.  I waited for the cat food and cat toys which were to be delivered by the carrier that isn't the postal service.  The seller's feedback button fussed and harrumphed, let's get on with it, already.  Then came the notice!  Delivered!  Yay!  But to whom and where are a mystery.  Tweren't me.

A case of cat food, a cat playhouse, and two cat toys were missing from my door in the apartment building besides the 3 pounds of St. Anthony statue.  In my mind, and it has happened, the delivery was put at the right number door in one of the six other buildings.  I truly don't believe it was stolen by my neighbors, most everybody knows everyone else, yet, yes, there is the chance.

I let the pet company know, and their response was to send another duplicate order out to me, free of charge.  That's $70 worth of cat stuff.  This is the company known as Chewy, and brother, they are a part of what is right with the world.  I'm still embarrassed that they did that, but maybe their losses create a substantial tax write-off.  The gesture gave me warm fuzzies, and the cats, well, they are busy playing cat boss with their new fort.

But the other seller, who mailed St. Anthony out on his pilgrimage to my home; they are investigating through the carrier whose name begins with F, and hopefully the GPS or satellite eyeball in the sky will figure out where the package was left.  Not every neighbor in every building has golden wings of honor, and maybe this was a delightful gift of manna from heaven for someone and their own cat.

Maybe it was their poor little scruff of purr who's fed leftover noodles, and the owner saw this as an opportunity to better the feline menu, also with a catnip stuffed raccoon, and a cat fort.  Maybe they recently turned a corner and could use a saintly resin reminder that this ain't all about their own miseries.  Maybe they lost the last written note from a love who went to Greece to teach belly dance and would like to find it to put under a pillow.  I don't know, but maybe that load of stuff was needed elsewhere.

Yet to me, this speaks of irony.  My St. Anthony statue, who is accorded as the finder of lost things, is itself gone with the wind.  Lost.  It's a shame that the small business on eBay is going through a search and rescue, as am I, EXCEPT from this end, Fedex does not want to know anything about me.  Because a signature was not required, they claim no responsibility for where the package was left, which to me is a bunch of hooey.  I know the seller mailed Tony out, I know it wasn't received at my end of the transaction, and can only hope he shows up somewhere.

The conundrum is, who to ask for help finding St. Anthony when he took a left turn at Albuquerque? It's the essence of self-help, asking Anthony to find Anthony, similar to myself at the end of high school, when no clue of who, where, what, or why appeared to magically take my hand.  Now that would be an interesting course of study for teens; what the hell are you supposed to do after taking that last step off the terrazzo floor outside the guidance counselor's office and into the real world if you weren't going to college?  How do you get to your goals?  St. Joseph, patron saint of jobs; St. Matthew, a tax collector for the Romans, the patron saint of finances.  The Archangel Chamuel is a patron of love.  That's enough to get you started; at least, started thinking about things and how to really get there.

I was up at 5 a.m. today to be ready for a doctor's appointment at a preposterous time with a bit of testing tossed in.  Makes for a long day, and the night now pulls at my coattails, whispering of jammies and a bit of a read before.  It's an odd winter, full of fog with smallish puddles of snow every so often, which means more mosquitoes next year if the weather doesn't get cold enough to freeze them off.  But, now it's time to gather the cats.

Sleep well and long, it is still winter, when the outside world bundles up while we watch through glass windows.  Cozy and dark, woolen afghans old as grandmothers and grandfathers, pillows and clocks, cars heading home, far-off channel markers sounding plaintively in the harbor, sleepy children, tired animals, both grateful for a place inside.  Let go the day, have saints and wishes paint your dreams. Good night.