As we get the last of the boxes unpacked and things put away, we're both discovering things that are…missing. Sure, some of it is inconsequential stuff that can easily be replaced, but other things are irreplaceable.
Case in point, two (of three that I owned) small, one-of-a-kind, clay gargoyle masks by Tucson artist Miles Thompson:
I'd had these little fellas since the late 90s, successfully surviving several moves unscathed. But now they're gone.
I could've sworn I rescued them all, during our pouring over the contents of the house prior to the restoration companies coming in, but sadly I have only found the third, and largest of them.
While not missing from the things we were expecting to get back, there are other items that we failed to pull from the house before the restoration company came in and judged what was salvageable and what was not. Chief among those was a banker box of CDs that had been located in the one closet the firefighters absolutely trashed. Now granted, I haven't played a CD in years—other than to rip them to MP3—but this box held the disks that had special memories and which I'd wanted to hold onto. I didn't see it anywhere during our walk-through (and frankly it wasn't even on my mind at the time), nor did I see it inventoried in the list of objects the restoration company pulled when I did think of it weeks later. I consciously chose to abandon my DVD collection—another stupid decision despite not even having a DVD player hooked up anywhere—along with my old Kenwood KR-7400 receiver. Even though I didn't have it hooked up anywhere, it was something I'd owned for nearly 20 years and wish I'd kept…
The only thing I know for sure that's missing from Ben's belongings is an original framed photograph of he and his grandmother when he was a kid. Fortunately, that was something I'd scanned years ago and through the magic of Photoshop restored the colors. so I was able to print out a new copy. But still, it's not the original. Waiting now to get a new frame for it, but that's on hold because the frame we want (to match the photo of he and his other grandmother)—like it seems with everything we want to get from IKEA these days—is out of stock.
But back to the gargoyle masks, it appears Miles is still working and producing masks. I'll never be able to replace these masks, but they're being sold by a nursery* in Tucson, and I should be able to find suitable substitutes. Our original plan was to head south yesterday and hit up the nursery, but they're only open Wednesday thru Saturday…
*I bought the originals from Antigone Books on 4th Avenue. I didn't even think of checking with them because I'd assumed that they—like so many other GBLT-centric bookstores—had gone out of business years ago. I was wrong. So when we do head back to Tucson a few weeks from now, I'll check there as well.