Fond of the Found

Tea: White Grapefruit.

Music: U2, "Stay (Faraway, So Close)"

Time: Night.

People lose things. And when I find them, I take pictures.

Gloves everywhere. A fork in a grocery store parking lot. Yesterday, a chile pepper Christmas ornament on the lawn of the alternative high school.

It's nothing worth a "found" ad in the newspaper. If it were, I'd pick it up and try to find the owner. I just snap a few shots from different angles -- if the surroundings are interesting enough, that is -- and move on.

I've thought about building a collection of the found objects, for several reasons (and yes, one of them is that it would be sort of cool to exhibit a photograph next to the object itself). But I never have.

There's enough at my house already (various rubber ducks, interesting stones, animal figurines, etc.) to keep archaeologists busy for years if, say, Yellowstone blew up tomorrow and deposited a few yards of ash over the whole thing.

And besides, someone else might come wandering along, camera or sketch pad in hand, and see something entirely different in the same object.

So if you hurry, I'm pretty sure that Christmas ornament's still there.