Room With a View

Last few days have been quiet — no weird dreams, no disturbing text messages, no contact with neighbors.

With the blinds being stuck to where I couldn’t open them up to let sunlight in, I hadn't even able to indulge in sitting on the couch, spotting neighbors on the walkway.

That changed on Wednesday, when Assistant Maintenance Guy finally showed up with a new track for the blinds to slide on.

Now I’m back to having a room with a view, and actually spotted the new Next-Door Neighbor arriving today, not with furniture yet, just to spend about 20 minutes inside …… checking out the place, I guess.

It’s an elderly female; so quiet, safe.

From the quick glimpse I saw of her, she’s nowhere near as old as I …… maybe late 60’s, and she looks stern, severe, boring, like Mother Superior at the Nunnery, white hair and all.

Won’t be any tea coming from or about her, and she’s probably even less into decorating for Halloween than former Next-Door Neighbor.

Though quiet, the last few days haven’t been exactly idle, as I’ve been a whirling dervish scrapbooking fool, getting the latest batch of photos into the Great Grands Creative Memory Book No. 12.

I'd been creatively stuck in neutral for a bit then, last few days, layouts began whirling through my head at rapid pace — pages and pages and pages were completed; layouts for other pages were documented so I’d not forget the ideas that had come to mind while I wait for supplies to come in.

At last Friday’s BBQ, a few of the residents asked for a print of the photo I’d taken of them at the photo booth. I’d sent those photos for processing to my usual 1-hour photo Lab and was surprised to get a ready in three days’ notice.

Maybe the photo lab was closed for the Memorial Day Holiday weekend, thought I, and patiently waited.

Three days later, on Wednesday, I get notified the order had been cancelled …… no reason.

Unusual, but giving the Lab benefit of the doubt, I thought perhaps they’d been so backlogged over the Holiday that cancelling orders had been necessary.

I resubmitted the order, only to receive another three-days to process notice.

WTF? People are waiting for their pics. It wasn't a huge order, just a handful of photos; and there was nothing naughty in the photos that would warrant cancellation, but whatever. That Lab is a favorite, but not the only in the area.

I submitted the order to a Lab at a drug store over by the college, and they were ready in 1-hour.

I picked the order up same day/yesterday, but didn’t get around to opening until this morning and found not only my photos, but people I didn’t recognize on an outing to San Diego Zoo.

Knowing how valuable my photos are to me, assuming this other family's photos to be just as important, I pondered the best way to ensure they got their pics.

For sure, I didn't trust returning to the Lab, putting the onus on them.

Fortunately, along with that family’s photos was the order sheet including the name, telephone number of the person ordering.

I ran the name through Facebook, but nothing came up.

I then thought calling the telephone number listed would be the most effective way of ensuring the family got their photos, but that calling the person could go very wrong for me because "no good deed goes unpunished".

I took a chance, called anyway, and she answered.

I gotta tell you, had that been me, I would not have accepted a call from a number I didn't recognize, but she answered.

I introduced myself, said "You don’t know me, but I yesterday picked up photos from the Photo Lab, and found your San Diego Zoo pics mixed in".

Fortunately, she didn’t think I was scamming or crank calling. Instead, she laughed, wondered how the Lab could make such an error.

Turns out she lives very close by, immediately jumped in the car, drove over to pick the photos up, saying they were important because were photos of her son, nephew, grandbabies.

She seemed a fun lady …… talkative. Said she wasn't too surprised about the mix-up, because she had questions about the woman she'd dealt with at the Lab when placing the order. Said the woman didn't seem very bright, LOL.

I didn't say so, but I was thinking I must have dealt with that same person when I picked up my order, because she kept asking my name, couldn't find the order until I pulled up the confirmation on my phone to show her the number and she realized she'd been looking through packages, not photos.

Interesting how the whole thing played out … how my regular Lab let me down, I had to switch Labs, and the mix-up got me involved in what followed.