"Everywhere I Go It's Raining Pennies From Heaven"

Perhaps I should become an expert in procrastination...

Today, in order to continue my quest to become a penultimate procrastinator, I lost my purse...
You know, that thing we women carry around like a camel's hump- And it is without a doubt as vital and life giving to us as any hump is to a camel.

At lunch, my friend Ellen, nodded sympathetically. She reinforced what we both know to be true- sometimes a purse just needs to be lost. Perhaps I needed a day without bank deposits, shopping or unnecessary driving. Perhaps losing my pocketbook was the universe's way of saying, "Slow down! Relax!"

So the two of us had a leisurely lunch at the Pavilion- a Greensboro institution that I had up until now, never made time to visit. I got to spend time with someone who is wise and serene and a true treasure- again a universe intervention as I always want to spend more time with her than I ever do. We talked about intentions and positive imaging and once again, why I haven't heard from Dad.

"I know, you'd like the dream where it's as real as life, but maybe he's there in little ways," she says.

Because Ellen knows about these things, I really listen. She tells me about a psychic who said sometimes these "signs" take the form of scents or birds or, she says, money.

Now money seems completely incongruous to me. Why would a dead person drop manna from Heaven, so to speak? I mean, it's not like they walk around with spare change in their pockets...or is it?

"Have you found any money in strange places lately?" she asks.

Which is when I remember the penny.

"Well," I said hesitantly, "last night there was a penny on top of my covers as I crawled into bed and I remember putting it on my bedside table so the dog wouldn't get it...At least I thought I did but this morning, there it was back in the bed again."

She nods.

But when she drops me off and goes on to the bookstore I find a penny in the driveway, then one on the sofa in my office. I am looking for my dang purse with no luck but it is totally raining pennies. Everywhere I go I am picking up pennies- not other money, just pennies.

"Very funny, Dad," I mutter. When I search my car and find 4 pennies in a clump on the floor of the back seat, I look up and say, "What? Am I getting hot? Is it under the seat?"

I am being sarcastic but the more pennies I find, the less sure I am about this being coincidence.

I clean up the Christmas decorations- well, I make a path through the den at least and clean the kitchen and mop the floors and find more pennies but no purse.

Finally I sit down to write because really, what else can I do? It's obvious my purse isn't in the house. I give up and try to focus on writing my fiction the same way I do these blogs- from my heart. And just as I get discouraged, the Youngest Unnamed One returns from school.

It is pointless to ask if he's seen my purse- hell, he can't even find his shoes in the morning! But I ask and he says, "Remember, I brought it in here to you last night. You put it on your sofa."

And I remember. I remember coming into the den in the middle of the night because the dogs were snoring in my room. I cleared off the sofa in the darkness and went to sleep. In the morning, still sleep deprived, I folded the sofa back up.

The Youngest Unnamed One and I realize there is only one explanation...The pocketbook fell down the gap as the sofa was opened...and there it is, on the floor exactly where it should be, underneath the sofa.

Along with a penny.

Go figure.