Lost: Beloved Nikon Coolpix l4

I look for my camera every day.

We lost it back in the beginning of June, soon after we moved. Perhaps it got sick of taking before pictures, and took a vacation until we are ready for afters. I prefer to think of it as an abduction through no will of its own. The four friends who were over to help with the house that fateful day would never have taken it, but they would have mindlessly put it in a box or drawer out of harm's way.

I find myself asking anxious questions: "Should I have purchased a flourescent camera case? Should I have gotten one of those beeper tags from the home shopping network?" (No, and No.)

I find myself looking in the same old spots I searched the day before, and the day before that as if it will somehow magically appear. Friday, Daniel said we wouldn't leave for the pumpkin patch until we by-golly found the camera. After we searched through every open box in the barn we gave up and left anyway. Every once in a while, like last night, I think of a new ("new") place to search and I am relieved, not because I found it, but because I haven't run out of places to look. Hope springs eternal.

I had been wanting an upgrade, but this isn't the timing I was hoping for. I am saving my birthday and Christmas pennies for a Mac book. That's a lie, actually. No one gives you money for your birthday after a certain age, which I have, in fact, passed. I am saving my own pennies.

In any case, go home. Treasure your shuttered friend. Tell it how much you love it, and how lucky you are to be together. Wipe its little lense tenderly. For me.