It's just a "thing"

9:00 a.m. I look at this photo, the one Laurel took of me right after I took Brianna into my arms for the first time (where I'm trying not to show that I have tears in my eyes) and I realize that a camera is "just a thing."

It's gone, of course. I knew it would be. I don't want to point fingers, but I had the camera in Alice's apartment, because I showed the photos to Alice Nan, and when we got home, I didn't have the camera, so somewhere, someone in that place found it and it's not surprising that it wasn't turned in.

It's just a thing. And I brought a back-up camera with me. I feel terrible that the photos are gone because they are irreplaceable, especially the video of Alice meeting her great granddaughter for the first time. But Laurel took photos so the day was recorded on film. And a camera is just. a. thing. But I still feel so bad for losing the camera, especially since it was a gift from Peggy.

9 p.m. It's been quite a day. Tom called and asked if we could come by at 1 instead of noon, so we did that. We stopped to pick up lunch at someplace called Habit Hamburger in Goleta. While Walt was getting the food, I was checking out the action across the street. I never did figure out what was going on!

(The guy in the blue jacket has a movie camera on a tripod. I posted a very brief video clip here.)

We got our food and drove over to Tom and Laurel's. Brianna was really zonked out and slept almost the whole time we were there.

But she was still passed around, so I got to sit and hold her for a long time, and I just happened to be making a brief video when she decided to fill her diaper. The sound effects were impressive, in one so small! Check it out yourself here.

After we left Tom & Laurel's we drove down to the beach to take photos of the spot where Jeri and Phil are going to have their wedding in August, so I could post them for Jeri tonight.

Then I dropped Walt off at his mother's. I had a couple of errands to run, (fruitless, as it turned out, unfortunately), so I took the car and went on about the errands. I stopped for an iced coffee and called my mother to check in and give her a report on how things were going here and to gush about her new great granddaughter (whom she probably won't meet until July).

When I got back to Alice's, Walt was on the phone with Alice Nan. Bless her, she was unwilling to accept that the camera was gone for good, so she had checked with lots of people at the place (fortunately, she is there often and knows everybody). It turns out that there is cause for cautious optimism.

One of the servers remembers finding the camera and giving it to the hostess, who said "Oh that must belong to Mrs. Sykes' daughter-in-law," and gave it to someone to put somewhere for safekeeping before shutting down the dining room for the night. So theoretically, it is there somewhere and several people know that it's there somewhere (which I am assuming makes them financially liable for it, since they (a) found it, (b) admitted finding it, (c) admitted that they knew who it belonged to, and (d) admitted putting it somewhere for safekeeping.

But the person who supposedly put the camera away for safekeeping wasn't working tonight and they were unable to reach her on her cell phone. Theoretically, they will contact her in the morning, hopefully before we leave for home.

My back-up plan, in case we can't get the camera tomorrow, is that when/if it does turn up, Alice Nan can give it to Tom and Tom can keep it until I come back again and in the meantime I'll let him know how to upload all the photos to Flickr, so I don't end up with a bunch of baby pictures of a baby who is 4 months old before I ever get my hands on them.

Oh yeah...and the perfect topper to this story? Guess what the name of the person who has put the camera somewhere for safekeeping is.....

Brianna! (Seriously!)