Synchronicity

After finding myself on "Found" magazine's website this morning, I found this on my way to work this morning.

I'm guessing it's a homemade flash card (there are three schools near our apartment).

It turns out that there is some basis for the info on the card:

"Bay leaf , Greek Daphni, Romanian Dafin, Portuguese Louro; is the aromatic leaf of several species of the Laurel family . Fresh or dried bay leaves are used in cooking for their distinctive flavor and fragrance, which are used for their flavour in cooking. It was also the source of the laurel wreath.

"A laurel wreath is a circular wreath made of interlocking branches and leaves of the Bay Laurel , an aromatic broadleaf evergreen. In Greek mythology, Apollo is represented wearing a laurel wreath on his head, and therefore the expression of 'resting on one's laurels.' A wreath of bay laurels was given as the prize at the Pythian Games (one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece, a forerunner of the modern Olympic Games, held every four years at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi) because the games were in honor of Apollo and the laurel was one of his symbols ever since his unsuccessful pursuit of Daphne.

"In Chinese folklore there is a great laurel tree on the moon, and the Chinese name for the laurel, , literally translates to 'moon-laurel.' This is the subject of a story of Wu Gang, a man who aspired to immortality and neglected his work. When the deities discovered this they sentenced Wu Gang to fell the laurel tree, whereupon he could join the ranks of the deities; however, since the laurel regenerated immediately when cut, it could never be felled. The phrase ('Wu Gang chops the tree') is sometimes used to refer to endless toil, analogous to Sisyphus.

"In Greek mythology, the tree was first formed when the nymph Daphne changed into it to escape the lustful pursuit of the Olympian god Apollo. Daphne is the Greek name for the tree."

"Found" again

For the second time in a year, one of my submissions to Found Magazine has been chosen "Find of the Day."

In fact, it's just 12 days shy of being exactly a year since I found myself on the Found site.

I've made several other submissions to "Found" that I thought would get chosen before this one -- including a MUNI repair order pointing out that the driver's seat smells like urine, a City Car Share damage report on the back of which someone had scrawled directions all over, over which someone else had scrawled "I LOVE SATAN" and a prayer card.

"Found" submission

I have submitted four things to "Found" magazine in the last month or so.

The most recent one (and the most colorful one, literally) I found this morning. I can't make out the name on the back entirely ("Sister Mary Keven"? "Sister Mary Reven"?)

This was on the sidewalk on the street where I live. It was very, very damp when I found it, but it doesn't seem to have suffered terribly from being on the sidewalk. Which tends to make me think that it had not been there very long.

It's more than fifty years old, so I would assume that it's of enormous sentimental value to whoever lost it. Otherwise, it wouldn't (a) still exist and (b) be in such good shape. Maybe I should post a notice at the old folks' home across the street?

Found's "Finds of the Day"

To end the week, I had a pleasant little surprise -- something I submitted to Found Magazine last July made "Finds of the Day."

It's an 8-1/2" X 11" transparency that I found in the gutter on the corner of Sanchez and 17th Streets. After I scanned it and submitted it to Found, I hung it over my desk on my cubicle wall. To date, no one in the office has ever noticed it there.

Actually, it seems that it was one of two "Finds of the Day" yesterday, Thursday, June 12, but I didn't actually see it until this morning.