ain't no runnin from karma

paying the fees, paying the fees. the fees'll get you every time. that's just a small reference to what's happened in my life this week, which in turn really goes back about 8 weeks to the time of my brother's visit to Chi-town.

that weekend, i found thirty bucks. The first find was, i believe, a legitimate "finders keepers" situation: we were exiting a Currency Exchange, crossing the McDonald's parking lot on Western and Armitage, and bam! a ten dollar bill lay in the open sun on the sidewalk, with no one in sight. I hesitated briefly, remembering the Buddhist precept i had repeated at temple the preceding week: Take nothing which is not given. Hell, if this isn't being given, i don't know what is, i thought, and scooped it up.

the second find was perhaps, a little shadier. It was night, it was raining. Pouring, actually. I was with S., passing under the glittering awning of the Palmer House Hotel in the Loop. As yet another wealthy couple jostled past me to enter the building, i caught sight of something stuck in a puddle beside the couple's taxicab. A twenty. Without hesitating this time, i swiped it and ran. Yeah, that's right suckers. I ran.

The Black Eyed Peas had a song in the early nineties, went a little something like, Ain't no runnin' from/Karma ain't no runnin'. And so this week i had to pay thirty bucks for someone to take some photos of my work. ANd you know what? I was glad to do it. This was a really great person, someone who should have probably found that money that weekend in October but they didn't. I'm glad to be the vehicle to pass along that karmic packet!

Poll: Should i attend the Illinois Ornithological Society's Winter Gull Trip at Starved Rock Jan. 29th? It promises to be a morning of punishing cold. hmmmm...