But you must have wondered about the mysterious way small objects seem to disappear.

Nothing of great value--small things, like pencil stumps, safety pins, stamps, corks, pillboxes, needles, cotton spools--all sorts of things?" Mary Norton, The Borrowers Avenged, p. 9

List Friday--Lost and never regained items. Sponsored by Mrs. Pom. (forgive the crazy formatting...I'm losing my patience...)

Loretta already knows that I have great fun with List Friday. It just so happens that I'm trying to come up with a list for parents and children of good audiobooks for the summer (you know, for those long car rides.) AVOID Ben and Me. It's by Recorded Books and the reader is dull as a doorknob (are doorknobs dull?). But as soon as I put in The Borrowers, I listened all the way home and part of my morning commute. Which put me in mind of lost things, of course.

1. Two rings. One was a Christmas gift that year and the other I bought at a Renaissance Festival while in college. I took them off for a nap and I swear the Borrowers got them, because they were nowhere to be found later on. My mother has now gotten in the habit of giving me rings for Christmas and I need to tell her to stop. I only need one for my right hand and I have one, with three amber stones.

2. A teardrop earring. Probably on my first movie date with Daniel. We went to see Jerry Maguire and I lost my earring. I found the other one a few months ago and am glad that I lost that one, because the teardrop earrings I now own are much more stylish.

3. My watch! It's a men's watch I got at Target while in grad school. It's a men's watch b/c men's watches tend to have a second hand that is a different color from the hour and minute hands. The second hand on this watch was red. I love that watch. It's been lost since Christmas, when I got a new watch from my mom. (You don't think she got rid of my old watch...)

4. An earring that I know is under my couch, but I probably won't find it until the next time I move the couch...it's from Brazil and it has an opalescent sheen.

5. A lot of money in Internet scams. Ugh.

6. A bracelet that I bought at the Highland Park yard sale just a few weeks ago!! It is beautiful, with glass beads of multicolors.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster

(Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art")

7. Marla Kuhn. She was my friend in 5th grade, I think. She moved, or I moved. I think of looking her up every once and awhile. She was the first friend I fought with. We played Barbies by making elaborate houses "Borrower" style. A bowl was a swimming pool, books became floors or walls...

8. Sally Brown. We were best friends in fourth grade. Then, right before she moved to China, she told Troy Zepeda I liked him. We reunited in the seventh grade, when we were both living in the DC Metropolis, but after that I lost her. I'd run into her mom occasionally, who volunteered at a thrift shop I liked in Falls Church.

9. Sally Himmens. I think she wigged out when I went manic. I did get better. It's such a shame that people are so afraid of madness, however temporary.

10. Tanya Dill. I went to her wedding shower, I went to her wedding. But after that, I lost her. She never answered calls, or emails, or letters.

11. Boston...in the process of losing. I talked to her every day when she had her chemo treatments for ovarian cancer (the kind she should not have survived.) We've called each other on our birthdays every year for 17 years. There are things I wouldn't tell anyone but her.

But I can't bear to think of this beautiful day (It is GORGEOUS here in da Burgh) to only be thought of with lost things. So a few found ones...

"I once was lost, but now am found..." (John Newton, "Amazing Grace")

1. My commonplace book. It was lost for months and months in the wreck of my apartment. It has all my favorite quotes and poems, including some that I've written.
2. The earrings I'm wearing today. They are clear Brazilian crystals. I tend to take earrings off before bed and sometimes that means they get caught in the carpet. I've lost and found them about 5 times.
3. my friend Lorelei. We had a few years where we completely did not talk and then somehow one of us started back up again.
4. my other friend Sally--she was totally into the kids for a few years there, but now we talk occasionally and even go to the movies! (Yes, I attract Sallys like moths to the flame)
5. Stamps. You know, they aren't as many cents as the new ones.
6. Contact solution--two bottles. I knew I bought some.
7. Kleenex--pink. (I only buy pink.) I now have three extra boxes.