Now About That Break-In

There will definitely be a call to the County Sheriff's office. And the insurance company.  And... well, let's back up a bit.

If you've been keeping up, you know we came home to a break-in, with the sliced screen, the towel on the floor, and old cameras strewn around.  We've discovered a bit of mischief in addition, but all in all, and with fighting covid, I hadn't found reason to file a complaint. But I went to bed tonight, waiting for sleep, and a sudden thought struck me. What if he stole...?

Of course I couldn't sleep. It was a matter of seconds to get up, and without even needing to turn on a light, reach for the pill bottle.... The bottle was exactly where I left it. Its contents weren't. My mother's ring is gone! 

I suppose most people have mother's rings with tiny stones, nothing elaborate, just representations of the love they have for each child by a tiny birthstone.  I came by mine another way. First, my youngest son was into collecting faceted gems at the time, so the two sapphires were gifts from him, 4x6 mm each, and a dark rich blue. Two September babies. The third originally was an opal for my October baby, one I picked up from a fairly inexpensive piece of estate jewelry, the same size but round, not faceted, and with a lot of red in it compared to today's typical market. It was old and fairly quickly cracked in pieces, so was replaced by a deep colored pink tourmaline, another gift from my youngest. 

It was the 18 carat gold metal, the custom setting, and all the channel set diamonds on either side which really made it valuable. Those came to me for almost free. They were in a lost white gold and diamond watch band that after 6 months nobody had ever claimed. The watch itself didn't run, the band too small for my wrist. So I traded the whole watch, some scattered bits of gold, and the three stones for a custom mother's ring. The jeweler who worked on it only charged me another $150. over the value of the gold I turned in for her work.

It had one hitch. The gold was soft enough that three times I needed to replace prongs or risk losing a stone. The third time, last year, I put off that expense, instead keeping the ring in a pill bottle in a pile of clutter in my room. Who'd look there with a huge jewelry chest standing in the room nearby? The jeweler charged me more than I chose to spend right then for the previous repair, and I figured prices only went up. He also appraised the ring formally back then at $4,500. I have those documents. No idea how the value may have changed in the meantime.

In the last few days we've discovered burn damage to some furniture upholstery. Unfortunately the piece is not ours but a lift chair on loan from a local company which furnishes accessibility equipment to seniors who need it, temporarily or longer. We may in fact be lucky no actual fire was started, just a quarter-size hole melted. But we have to call that company, explain what happened, ask them to remove their chair, and see if they still feel charitable enough to replace it. If not, some shopping has got to happen. They may very well decide to judge that we are not fit or responsible enough to receive any more of their assistance. Rich has tried to repair the frayed & broken cord, only to find out that the control box isn't feeding any power to it anyway.

There is one more odd thing in the house since we returned. A black stain is appearing on our living room rug. Now I get a cola or milk stain, crumbs here and there, dog fur and pine needles. Those come away with elbow grease and the right kind of soap and water. This one has the feel and smell of oil of some kind, nothing any of us would have used or brought into the living room. This gives the stain the reek of more malicious mischief. Like the burn in the chair where nobody smokes in the house.

Can we point fingers? Yes, though without proof, which is frustrating. "Tall Paul" we know for some of the mischief in his quest to burn his parents house down. Rich already filled us in on that one. He recently got the info that the Feds did in fact catch up with him and are holding him. Daddy sure ain't gonna pay no damn bail! The alleged motive behind the fire was so Paul could steal Daddy's guns. He was caught trying to sell one of them.

I wonder if he pawned the ring with nobody home yet to claim it stolen? Or just swapped it for something of more value, perhaps affections of his girlfriend, a known thief both to us and the cops.

Since I'm feeling much better, and tomorrow will be 5 days after using Paxlovid, I'm going to try that last covid home test to see if I get a negative. If so, I can not only get that x-ray taken but we can call in the cops and the insurance people, a plumber to get a stubborn drain snaked, and the chair's owners. And fyi, so far Steve has absolutely no symptoms. Hooray!

We have, however, called and cancelled our attendance next month at that out of state wedding, the one at the country club, the one which we were just informed involves a long walk down a hill to get from parking to the festivities. Sometimes life is just too much "fun" for us geezers! And right now, on top of everything else, I just don't trust leaving the house for a week or so.