Karma

The thing of it is, I do believe in karma.  I have witnessed "what goes around comes around" activity so many times in my life that it's hard not to believe in karma.

When I was in like 4th grade, I found a $20 bill lying in the street outside our house.  I kept it.  I, of course, shared with the MomUnit I found it and she said, "Its yours." I'm not sure if my little innocent mind was thinking I should put up "Found" signs or not for this $20 but I do remember thinking that someone was missing it.

Fast forward several years, and an instructor at TASIS said in one of my classes that if you find money in the street or in your path, you can bet that eventually you will lose that amount of money. That thought blew my mind.  I remembered that $20 I found and then remembered the money I had lost through the years.

Whether the instructor was a wise old man, or just spouting off life lessons, I will never know. What I do know is that I blamed karma on losing my camera card at the 3day.

I figured I had done some inexplicable wrong and this was payment for that wrong.  I couldn't pin point what I had done that was so bad to warrant losing ALL my 3day photos.  Surely a punishment so severe would help with the recall of such a horrible act.  Maybe it was a build up of acts. That didn't seem fair.

Then the call came in. The call from Carl at the Seattle Memorial Stadium.  I had called the stadium the Monday following the 3day to ask about a lost and found. You return calls made me feel as if there was no chance. I was 100% sure I had lost the card in the stadium. 

Carl's voice sounded fun and a bit eccentric on the phone when he told me he found the card.

He....found...the.... card....!!!

Wait, what?

That doesn't happen. I had already prepared myself to forget all the fun, fabulous, award winning photos I had taken.

I had already made plans to fix my karmic balance, or imbalance. 

He found the card!

I immediately went into overdrive and peppered poor Carl with questions about how I can get the card? When was he in his office? Where was his office? And could I come immediately?

I managed to contain myself long enough to wait until after work and then shot across the lake to get to Carl. My hero.

Carl, it turns out, has worked at the stadium for 20+ years.  He's one of those folks where his voice doesn't match his look. His voice was strong, deep and a bit of an accent.  He is 5 ft ... maybe.  Appeared from his office with long-ish greying hair, a cowboy hat, a leather vest, flannel shirt, black jeans and cowboy boots.  Now the accent made sense.

Carl was glad to have been able to return my card to me.  He invited me back to his office to look through the lost and found box just in case I had lost something else.  I declined.  Cowboy Carl was sketchy as it was, I wasn't about to go into a dark, off the beaten path office with him. 

When I thanked Carl, for the hundredth time, he said it was part of his job and that he and his side kick Bobby LOVED returning things to people. In fact, he said, he had the pleasure of returning a 4 carat diamond earring to a gal. 

So I have my camera card back. Yay. On it was 623 photos.  That plus the hundred I took on the other card meant I had a LOT of photos to review. And I loved reviewing them all. 

While I may not have taken an award winning photo this year, I still got some that made me smile. Photos I'll review for years to come and remember the fun 3days of cheering on the walkers, pretending to fly, singing, and laughing and a little bit of crying.

Here are some of my favorites.

Princess Lori pushing Blueberry into the sweep van.

Lady TaTa was awesome. She'd do just about anything I'd ask her to do. This request was that she jump off the ledge and pretend to be flying.

Day 2 Last Walker.  The last walker into camp always gets me.  The entire camp of tired, blister covered feet gets up and cheers them in. Its a beautiful thing.

Blueberry with us Super Walker Stalkers.

Lady TaTa has the flying down to an art.

Captain Double D (me) not so much. It's way harder than it looks.

My 3Day Family: Princess Carla, BigBro, MammoGirl (aka The Niece), Lady TaTa, Seattle SIL, me and Princess Lori.

P-Dot only made on appearance this 3Day.  She had the flu and didn't feel much like coming out to be in the photos (either that or I completely forgot 99% of the time). The firemen/women are a huge deal for the 3Day. They walk full gear, all 60miles - or as many miles as they can. The female fireman/woman was pregnant this year.  Crazy all the way around.

Such sparkle...and one not so sparkly.

Captain Double D and MammoGirl present and accounted for.

This lovely puppy was a Great Dane - she was very interested in Lady TaTa and Sparky.  The Great Dane's head could easily sit on the door of Sparky.

Three of my most favorite 3day peeps.

A sea of pink coming across the I90 floating bridge. Ignore all the traffic, that's typical for Seattle these days.  But do marvel and exclaim over all the walkers coming across. Yay Pink!

Me and my BigBro cheering on the walkers on Day 3.  BigBro inherited that hat from another guy last year or the year before.  He wore it with pride this year.

Be afraid cancer.  We're coming to get ya!

Synchronized flying. Don't try this at home.