The "Steals" Part

"Steals" is what Inga, my landlady, calls the people who broke into my apartment while I was sleeping and stole my half-functional digital camera, ipod, and wallet. No, this was not THAT big a deal, and while yes, it was frustrating, I am forcing myself to maintain a positive and unfazed attitude about it, which as you can see may be a vain attempt. But really, I mean, it could be worse, right? I'm still typing into the same computer, using the same passport and listening to music through the same headphones. Three out of six accessories. Not so bad.

The problem was that when I arrived home with my hands full of groceries, including two of the 5-liter water jugs that are the ubiquitous lifeblood of this city, I really had to pee. And while I was peeing I forgot all about the fact that I had not locked the door. I remembered the door only the next morning, when I realized that several things were missing from my desk. Which is when I realized that "steals" had snuck into my apartment while I was sleeping and taken these things. Bummer.

In case you care, I just realized that there is an elegant circularity to this story - you see, I was peeing out water I had drunk from a 5-liter jug early that morning. The fact that it was the last water in that jug meant that I needed a new jug, which was precisely the jug I carried into the apartment when I suddenly desperately had to evacuate the water from the old jug. If I hadn't drunk the water from the old jug, I would have needed neither to pee nor to carry the new jug, and chances are I would have locked the door like usual and woken up the next day with a camera, ipod, and wallet sitting on my desk where I had left them.

This is a long and fiction-free attempt to explain why there are no pictures on my blog. The other excuse has to do with the unfathomably high cost of electronics in Latvia, which may in fact have something to do with the persistence of whichever steals were checking nightly to see if my door was locked.

BUT, I get to go to BERLIN tomorrow, and there, against all good sense (considering the euro-dollar exchange rate), I am dead set on buying a camera. I know, I know, edge of your seats...