So this weekend was wonderful! The Inman Park Fest. was fantastic and the Atlanta Freedom Marching Band sounded top notch in the parade. Directing the band and dancing down the avenue was so much fun! There is such an amazing atmosphere at the Inman Park Fest. There were families, teenagers, college students, gays, straights, hippies and suburbanites. The booths of niknaks and art were beautiful and fun. Oh! And I got a wonderful haning deck chair to go under the porch. I forsee many many evenings spent in this wonderfully comfortable chair reading and enjoying my tea while surrounded by my garden of flowers and vegetables.

This Sunday, I finally took my younger brother to Six Flags; this fullfilling a promise I made to him when he was in 8th grade. For those playing the home game, that would be six years ago. So let it never be said that I don't keep my promises. I would like to think that this is a fine example of monastic patience and perseverence as opposed to my laziness and procrastination, but I know better. Nonetheless, thanks to my good friend Erin, we were able to go and get discounted tickets and we had a blast, even if the last sight of my favorite pocket knife was it twirling artistically towards the ground as I was hurtling along the Superman Ride.

In other news, my car was broken into last night while I was at Russ' condo in Atl. I was parked in midtown which makes this the second time my car has been broken into in that area. Unlike the first time, though, when they just ganked my pool cue and a walking cane, this time they were far more thorough. I lost all my CDs, check book, two credit cards, the owner's manual to my car(what the hell are they going to do with that?), my insurance info for health and vehicle, cash and change, my new sunglasses (yet again, cheap walmart glasses stay with me for years, but the minute I breakdown and get a nice pair they wonder off), my French language lab of cassettes and text books, my house keys and work keys, and my rosary.

They stole my rosary.

Does this not strike anyone else as terribly out of place? Who stoops to stealing from someone, violating their space and property and then steal the instrument and symbol of prayerful practice? B*tch of it all is that it was the rosary given to me by my first spiritual father years ago that had been given to him by his spiritual father. It was the first rosary I ever had and the one that started me on my Christian contemplative exploration. God only knows how many laps I had prayed around those beads. It wasn't even a nice one. Just a simple rosary of plastic beads and a little pewter cross.

But, really, it's just stuff. The window will be replaced. The checking account has been cancled and the credit cards have been taken care of. The CDs will take forever to replace, especially since some I will never be able to find again, but I'll always find more CDs. They open the trunk through the back seat but only found loads of books and left those untouched. They at least left my Rumi book. I'll find a new pair of sunglasses (probably from walmart this time). Overall, I'm rather calm about it, as opposed to two and half years ago when it happened the first time.

I was furious then. I kept imagining seeing the person who had stolen my cane and my pool cue walking down the street and then being able to get it back and be sure they paid for it by beating the ever living hell out of them. That was then.

Now, I can only hope and pray that whoever it was that felt the need to rob me they can find stability in their life so that they never have to victimize others or victimize themself again. I pray that if this person was young, this does not become a habit for their life. If they are older, I pray they find help to escape this cycle. The romanitc optimist in me prays that maybe if their conscious leans in need of hope, perhaps that rosary that did me so much good will be the spark that allows them a new path to discover. Or maybe they'll just throw it away when they realize its worth so little to someone who doens't know what it means, to someone who thinks they can make their life by taking from someone else's.