Lost And Found @ MindSay

 

 

 

"...The inseparable me of the wandering you..."

 

In a nanosecond,

faith and imagination merge,

conception occurs,

we are (the visible) one.

 

With diffusion of light

we become less than one

and our eternal quest for

healing and wholeness

begins.

 

lovespirit

I read two related stories in the past few days about lost/found items on the New York transit system and around town...

First there was this:  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/nyregion/28about.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

Summary: The NYPD have been executing "Operation Lucky Bag" for almost a year.  Undercover police officers "absent-mindedly" leave purses, wallets and bags in public places, looking to see what happens when passers-by come across them.   Will they turn it in to an officer or a transit employee? Will they rummage through the bag to find any identification to call the rightful owner? Will they steal the cash first?  But since a police officer is watching, s/he can see what the finder is doing -- and make an arrest for theft.  Hundreds of arrests have been made, including many with no prior arrests or convictions.

In one case, a man and his wife found a Verizon bag with a phone and an iPod in it.  They boarded their train, taking the bag along with them. They claimed that they were going to search for a receipt or any other identifying information so they could return the bag to the rightful owner. The husband, who was the one who grabbed the bag, was arrested on the train.

It's a tough call -- I know that the mission of Operation Lucky Bag is to smoke out the criminal element and deter people from taking what is theirs. But doesn't this also deter potential good Samaritans whose intent is to find the true owner and return the items "lost?"  The police say that they're going after the ones who simply pick up the wallets and immediately take the cash. That's fine. But there's so much gray area here that could lead to potential entrapment.

If you see a wallet on a train platform, what do you do? Do you call attention to the fact that you have a found wallet by yelling out "Hey! who dropped this wallet?"  Do you just leave it there, hoping that the true owner will pick it up before someone with lesser intentions that you will? Do you look for a transit employee to hand it to, so the ownership of the found item is on that person?

Which leads to story #2:  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/nyregion/14lost.html?ref=nyregion

Summary: Investigators turned in 26 items to bus and subway workers last year, claiming that they were items found on buses and trains in the system.

Only 3 of the 26 items ultimately found their way to the New York Transit Lost and Found office.

“Obviously, the results are disturbing,” said the inspector general, Barry L. Kluger. He added that the investigation was not meant “as a sting operation” and that it was not possible to know if the missing items were stolen by transit employees or simply “wound up in the bottom of a drawer or in a wastebasket.”

The story also tells of a found earring that mysteriously left the enevlope it was placed in by a bus driver turning it in to the Lost Property office. Or of the $735 in cash that mysteriously made its way to a bus depot safe. Mystery is afoot in New York Transit...

But all of this brings up a good question:  What do you do when you see something of value which was lost? What have you done in the past? Do you feel it was the best decision?

Could someone explain to me why my sports bra smells like my ex? It's not a bad smell, but...this is a guy who never had any dealings with any of my bras, and we broke up over a year ago. He hasn't been in my house since then. I am baffled.

Also...my cell phone went missing the other night. Caused a major miscommunication and me getting home way late thanks to some brouhaha with my sister. Couldn't figure out where it went, the two of us concluded that she'd set it down somewhere in my lair when she wanted to use my charger. My lair eats things. Frequently. I have to keep things on top if I know I'm going to need them within the next two days.

By the time I woke up this morning, it had turned up - the kid had her amazing finding skills working again. Yay for the munchkin, but I can't figure out HOW it got there. In a potted plant. On the back deck.

What????

With all the going and going and going with this holiday season, do you find yourself exhausted?  I've been going downhill with exhaustion since Friday.  Had a nighborhood holiday drop-in at our home this afternoon and found myself speachless.  I had lost my voice. Could't say a word.  Had over 30 guests at the house and had to completely rely on my husband to speak for me.  Can exhaustion bring on loosing your vocal capabilities?

 

 

I'm off to bed.

 

 

There were many times in life where I felt unoriginal, like I had the most uninteresting existence on the face the planet. I don't really feel that way much any more, but sometimes appearances can be deceiving. If someone to look at my life over the last month or so they would have said my day-to-day world was about as dull as dull gets. I work and when I'm not at work I'm usually at home, doing things that by an large don't excite much. I don't really go out as my social network in this particular area is practically nill, and for some reason that doesn't really bother me so I don't feel at all compelled to change it. The way I define it though this current state I'm in I don't consider "real life". I tend to refer to it more as a "transitional phase". For one thing I'm living with my mom, whom I love very much but still I don't want this to be the case any longer than it really needs to be. Also I'm working at a job I have no passion for and its only purpose is to kill time and make money while I'm here. Aside from that I'm looking at finding a job back in the city where I went to college, and I'm formulating plans for when I get there of stuff I want to do as "real life" begins again. But for now I'm more or less in neutral, waiting to shift into a higher gear.

You would never guess by looking at me that I'd spent over half of this year wandering around Latin America, seeing and doing things that some people only dream of, living a grand adventure that no one could have guessed at. Not many people can say they've done that and that's pretty dang cool.

But having little time on my hands now has led me to looking around at things and events long gone by. I'm a horrible pack rat and my computer is no exception. I was looking around my computer when I came across another little chunk of my history. In terms of time it was a contained event lasting less than two days, but its effects were felt for quite some time after it occurred. This event was one of high adrenaline and a bit of drama, but once it was over it became one of those funny stories that served as an always acceptable excuse to tease me relentlessly, which I didn't mind. No one has mentioned it to me in quite some time. Most people who know about it/experienced part of it probably haven't even thought about it in a long time. But in the end it was one of my greatest adventures.

What happened was that one day, during a hike with some good friends I'd made in college I got horribly lost. We're talking search and rescue parties and everything. I spent the night alone in the wilderness cold and soaking wet with very little food and water and in the morning was picked up by a helicopter and taken back to safety. I had the time of my life. Some months later I wrote a storey to myself chronicaling the whole adventure and when I came across it randomly on my computer I just had to read it again. I remembered what it was like to write it; I remembered what it was like to LIVE it and all the things I learned from it about what it's like to live life and what having true friends feels like. I smile just thinking about it.

You would never have guessed this just by looking at me that I had gone through such a thing, but I did. And it further proves that my life has been far from ordinary and that I'm much more unique than I first thought.