It Was A Rollercoaster Weekend

I'm back home from the show a day early because yesterday was exhausting. We parked the car in the lot yesterday morning and started pulling boxes out to take over to the show when Derek realized we didn't have my 2 clear plastic boxes with all of my jewellery and the cash box. We took what we had over to the booth and I set up while Derek went back to the apartment where we stayed over night. He checked the apartment, asked at the parking lot kiosk and traced every step he made the night before. When he came back to the booth he was so upset he could hardly see straight. We didn't know what to do next. Most of the items I was showing were gone. The booth looked empty except for the big red knitted ball. Soon after Derek filed a police report, he notified a board member of the show committee and told some of the artists around us what happened. The day mercilessly ground on. By 5:00 pm we wanted to go home and just as we started to pack up a couple of board members and a photographer came by and told me that I had won the best sculpture award. How bittersweet. There was a reception in city hall with drinks, hors d'oeuvres and speeches. We left right after. Sunday morning I checked the phone messages and couldn't believe my luck when I heard Hugo the parking attendant's message. Someone had handed in 2 clear plastic boxes and he had found my phone number on a business card in one of the boxes. We immediately jumped into the car and headed to Toronto. I was overjoyed to get all of my jewellery back. I was telling everyone how humanity hadn't let me down. Back home I started going through everything in the boxes and discovered approximately 1/4 of the work was missing. Who ever it was that found my jewellery box must of rifled through it and picked out some favourite things. So this weekend has been very bittersweet. I got validation of my sculptural work and someone didn't steal all of my jewellery.