lost, found, stolen

honestly, i'm a little surprised when i find anything i'm looking for

A tally of the things i walked away from this summer:

at the bottom of Lake James-

my spare truck key

a pair of well-worn sunglasses (the kind you have to have someone unlock from the display case)

a pair of $38 eyeglasses strongly resembling the ones you pay $12 for at the movies (i miss life being in 3-d!)

a spouse’s earring ($3 flea market bling)

at the YM’s blood drive-

a fancy daypack containing: my membership card, goggles, training fins, waterproof ipod case, dermatologist approved sunscreen,  my hopes and dreams for better health

a bag of blood

at… how should I know?  I’ve looked everywhere!-

my primary set of keys with the sweet knife i’ve snuck through countless airport screenings, my one housekey, that so well worn ’96 truck key (they’ll turn up)

Now lets even things up with an inventory of the summer windfalls:

out of the dirt-

a boggling variety of  volunteer heirloom tomatoes.  compost magic has been strong this year.

at the ymca lost/found/stolen barrel-

my swim fins and speedo trunks (emptied out of my stolen backpack!), one pair of medium boxer briefs, stolen by me, along with some green surfer trunks i’ve yet to actually try on, someone’s phone/address book, which i did not take home but got me to thinking that the y’s lost/found system is seriously broken.

in the Y parking log-

ten dollahs cash money!!

at the bottom of Lake James-

the other earring we threw in after the lost one.  On a lark i dove in after sinking silver and there it sat gleaming in the murky depths like Gollum’s birthday present.

in the parking log of the Lake James campground-

a badass couple who were kind enough to cram us in with their camping gear and drive our sorry backsides back to town.

at the salvage spots-

sweet scrap artefacts

barnwood, and rusty roof metal

at a puppet show depicting the evils of the prison industrial complex-

Sarah R.  Although she tends to plunge the miter saw with dangerous vigor through dimensional lumber, she was invaluable in the campaign to add upper decks to the manshed/pirate ship.  Luckily Sarah was taking a break from her summer job operating a rickshaw in our nation’s capital.  Unluckily for me, she had to go back for her last year in school, where she’s fabricating a bicycle to complete her liberal arts degree.

Not attending the puppet show, which also included a satire about children being organically raised for meat production, but also a huge boon for backyardia construction projects: my pal Mary BP.  She’s quick with a speedsquare and dropped all kinds of sweet adventures in my path this summer.

Mary’s adventures:

harvesting, without permit, old growth bamboo down by the river and railroad

harvesting, with permission, honey from her and Ingrid’s hives

an evening surrounded by beautiful, sour smelling tatooed ladies and bearded mountain boys listening to local roots/blugrass/circuspunk bands and culminating with Hooray for the Riffraff, a delightful group from Nawlins.

Not to worry, mother-in-law, all the ladies I work and harvest bamboo with are into other ladies, not smelly carpenters.  Don Draper I am not, unless the light is dim and you squint.

For now I’ve decided to do without housekeys and eyeglasses, allow the distance its fuzziness, and attend to the closer harvests.

A final summer find/steal.  Now i can pretend walking to the Y is a video game.  Thanks, Sarah!