Finding Things

Ever lose something, look in all the logical places, give up, and then find it weeks later, in a place where you really haven't looked before, but which it's so unlikely that it would actually be there that you suspect interdimensional gnomes borrowed the thing and then returned it as best they could, given the shift in position relative to our dimensions?

So, a few weeks back, I realized that I couldn't find a card reader which had a 2 gb card in it. I checked to see if anyone at Columbia University's Games Club might have found it, and I was not surprised when no one had. Then, I noticed I'd lost a pair of stylii. I've got a collection of the things in different styles. I checked a couple of places, on the off chance I'd moved them to a different bag when going to a convention (I rediscovered a bronze hair ornament that way), but I didn't find them.

My current book bag is a Kelty Red Rock, very comfortable when I use the straps to distribute the weight, and it holds a fair bit. I put the stylii in the front compartment, along with pens and the like. I usually put the card reader somewhere more secure, but I thought I remembered putting it in a bag of medicines in the front compartment. And, occasionally, I discover that the front compartment is unzipped. So, my hypothesis was that I'd left it unzipped, and the stylii and the card reader had fallen out.

Today, I made my way home through the icy rain or the rainy snow, juggling walking stick, dying umbrella (I had to hold it open), and bag containing book I'd just finished reading and new shower curtain. I'd scotch guarded the backpack, and, when that hadn't seemed to prove effective, mnemex gave it a second coating, which helped. But, either because of the angle of the wind or because the rain / sleet got heavy, the umbrella didn't shield it perfectly, even before it broke, and the bag got damp.

Specifically, the small compartment in front and the compartment behind it got damp. So, when I got home, I emptied these compartments out. Nothing seemed ruined. Even the tissue packs weren't waterlogged. So, I had a bit of scotch, put up the new shower curtain, cleaned out the kitchen sink, had dinner, and settled down next to the bag. I stuck a hand inside the second damp compartment to see how it was drying, and felt something on the other side of the fabric, the side nearest the smaller, outer compartment.

I stuck my hand in the outer compartment and felt nothing. Hm.

Now, between these two compartments, there's a sort of pocket. I usually ignore it because anything put there is vulnerable to the elements and to slipping out. But now, I stuck my hand inside.

I found the missing stylii, the missing card reader, and a pen I hadn't realized had gone missing.

All of these were dry. The card reader is functional, and the card inside it still works.

Now, it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that I missed the compartment I was aiming for, or that I assumed I packed something that had slipped between compartments. But, is it not equally likely that one of the gnomes needed to borrow some stuff and misjudged ever so slightly when returning it?

Quick Familiarity

I finished In the Night Garden, so I listened to S. J. Tucker's CD, For the Girl in the Garden with songs inspired by it and passages read aloud from it.

Why are these songs, most of which I've not heard, already feeling so familiar?

(Self: Well, technically, you probably heard them all once, on the way back from Darkovercon, in Susan's car, and being drugged on dramamine, with consciousness coming and going, they may have sunk deeper into your subconscious, and you heard at least one of them at the NYRSF event, so you heard one at least twice, maybe...)

This is the right time for me to be reading and hearing this stuff. I doubt I'd have enjoyed it nearly so much as a kid.