Lucky Saturday?
Nov. 19th, 2006 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayMy son James left his backpack, containing two $60 textbooks and a biology project and a graphing calculator, sitting outside the entrance to a grocery store on Friday afternoon. It disappeared.
Yesterday, James and I got up early and went back to the store. The manager said that no one had put it in lost&found, so we assumed theft and began dumpster-diving in the areas around the store. No luck, mostly... did find a woman's purse, though -- empty, with nothing to identify it, so I left it there. Towards the end, I saw a guy picking out soda cans from a trash can. I approached him and asked if he'd seen any backpacks while out harvesting cans. "Been ripped-off?" he said. I nodded. "Actually, there's a backpack in this one!" he said. And behold, half covered in newspapers and debris was James's backpack, complete except for the calculator! I don't think he quite realizes how lucky he was to recover it... otherwise, he would have had to earn the $200 to replace the contents and backpack.
This morning search, though a success, left me in need of a shower and hence late to dim-sum withinflectionpoint. But that was OK... she and I lingered over coffee made with eggnog (she was out of milk ;) and then meandered around Oakland before finding the restaurant we wanted. And I experienced the dim-sum process, with pushcarts and servers trying to convince us to select one of their dishes. And I shared some bok choy and pea sprouts and shrimp balls with Joanne, as well as some delicious elastic dessert thing filled with dark sesame. Mmmmm.
And on the way home, I sawbaiku at last, in a Denny's parking lot in San Leandro with tenacious_snail.
And had a good time out withpatgreene, despite us both starting out a bit weary (I'd just braved Costco on the Saturday before Thanksgiving).
Yesterday, James and I got up early and went back to the store. The manager said that no one had put it in lost&found, so we assumed theft and began dumpster-diving in the areas around the store. No luck, mostly... did find a woman's purse, though -- empty, with nothing to identify it, so I left it there. Towards the end, I saw a guy picking out soda cans from a trash can. I approached him and asked if he'd seen any backpacks while out harvesting cans. "Been ripped-off?" he said. I nodded. "Actually, there's a backpack in this one!" he said. And behold, half covered in newspapers and debris was James's backpack, complete except for the calculator! I don't think he quite realizes how lucky he was to recover it... otherwise, he would have had to earn the $200 to replace the contents and backpack.
This morning search, though a success, left me in need of a shower and hence late to dim-sum with
inflectionpoint. But that was OK... she and I lingered over coffee made with eggnog (she was out of milk ;) and then meandered around Oakland before finding the restaurant we wanted. And I experienced the dim-sum process, with pushcarts and servers trying to convince us to select one of their dishes. And I shared some bok choy and pea sprouts and shrimp balls with Joanne, as well as some delicious elastic dessert thing filled with dark sesame. Mmmmm. And on the way home, I saw
baiku at last, in a Denny's parking lot in San Leandro with tenacious_snail. And had a good time out with
patgreene, despite us both starting out a bit weary (I'd just braved Costco on the Saturday before Thanksgiving).
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-19 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-20 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-19 10:07 pm (UTC)Impressive sleuthwork on finding James's backpack!
And, that Denny's parking lot seems to be a popular drop-by meeting place... :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-20 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-20 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-20 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-20 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-20 02:19 am (UTC)I'm glad you had so much fun, and thanks also for tracking down
no subject
Date: 2006-11-21 06:36 am (UTC)