Curiouser and curiouser

My dad called me earlier this week saying to call when I got a chance. His message was so casual that, coming two days after he last talked to me, I was sure something had happened (probably something awful, like he finally got diagnosed with cancer). Turns out that his wife got a teaching job they'd applied for in Wales, Alaska for the coming school year. So, yep, my dad will be off in an extremely isolated, 100-person subsistence hunting community starting in August. I'm surprised the VA is letting him do it, but as he says, he does do better in an environment with fewer people. If his health holds out he'll probably be very happy. It's strange to think of my dad off hunting walrus with the Inuits and having adventures, and it's odd to think that at this point I really don't seem to be a disappointment to him. My mother says I wasn't in the first two years of my life, either. I don' t know... I'm too used to thinking of myself that way. He is so much more tolerant of different choices now that he seems like a different person, but still, after all the trouble we had, how could it be that I am not?

Also, I keep losing things that should be important to me and finding that they aren't. I didn't like it when I lost one of my favorite earrings a few weeks ago, but I didn't panic or feel awful, and I used it as a reason to get back into beading (I have the right pearls now, but still haven't actually remade the earrings). I didn't like it when someone stole my $400 watch from the gym overnight, but then, it never did keep very good time, and it was kind of dumb to spend that much on a watch in the first place. My new watch is prettier. Now I don't know where my brass rat (that's an MIT class ring) is, and I really really don't like that... I've lost and found it many times before, but this time I found evidence that the coin pouch of my purse was open for a while, and I often keep it there when not wearing it, so bad things could have happened. Still, I'm not really panicking. If I can't find it I'll call Balfour to see about replacing it; if I can't replace it I'll buy a graduate rat before hitting the job market again, and that will be that. Again my lack of disorientation is disorienting. I really don't want to test the limits of this phenomenon, because the only frequently-worn accessory I have left to lose is my engagement ring, and I don't want heisenbug to kill me.

Edit: I found the rat. It was sitting on my desk at work, somehow pushed back far enough that my monitor hid it from view unless I leaned WAY back. (It was also hidden from view when I was standing up on Friday, cleaning my desk off specifically to look for it.) Other places it has hidden over the years, when lost: inside an armchair; in the left pocket of some pants or other in the laundry, many times; behind a couch.