So during yesterday's morning yardwork break, I was weed-whacking the parking strip. (Have I mentioned that I have become completely enamored of Ryobi cordless power tools?) And I spot a plastic card under the edge of one of the lavender clumps and it turns out to be a Clipper card. So having determined that there's no easy way to notify Clipper of a found card, I put a sign on my fence about it and inviting the owner to ring the bell to pick it up from me. (Wondering what the likelyhood is that someone would lie about it. And whether it's on an auto-load account. So maybe I'm creating more trouble for the owner?)

Anyway, someone did take me up on the notice and rang my bell to ask about it. At 6:30am this morning.

Now, this isn't actually a problem, as I'm more or less supposed to be awake at that point, though I did have to take the time to throw a robe on. It was a kid (older teenager?) -- I think he's someone I chatted with about my little free library at some point -- but it turned out he'd lost an entire wallet and not a Clipper card, but was hoping that maybe I'd been being cagey about the nature of the find for ID purposes. So it wasn't his, alas. I think maybe he was feeling a bit embarrassed about having clearly gotten me out of bed for nothing, but I'm actually delighted that people feel comfortable talking to relative strangers in this neighborhood.

So I still have someone's unclaimed Clipper card. The location suggests that it fell out of someone's pocket when they were getting into our out of a car, so I'll give it a couple more days for people to have a chance to see the notice. Then I'll try to find out how to report it found and get instructions what to do with it. (If it isn't a registered card, just one that gets cash added, then there's no way to find the owner. But people who commute regularly often have significant sums on the card and may have auto-load activated, in which case the account needs to be dealt with.)

# # #

The blackcurrant curd came out wonderfully -- a lovely dark veinous-blood color, rich and flavorful on a plain scone fresh from the oven. With that as the snack accompaniment for tea, I figured I could choose something robust today. So Bingley's Lapsang Souchong ("the favorite tea of Sherlock Holmes" it says), a pine-smoked black tea.

If you'd asked be before I started drinking it, I might have expected not to like Lapsang Souchong. It's a very strong and bold taste. The smokiness is consistent from the loose tea, to the aroma, to the taste. And I love it. I tend to save it for when I'm in a certain mood -- or when I have a blackcurrant curd that I want it to stand up to. It's like drinking a campfire in the woods, which conjures up wonderful memories.

Brewed at 190F for NLT 5 minutes and left in the pot. (In reality, since I put the scone in the over around the same time I put water in the pot, it had brewed for about 10 minutes by the time I took the tray into the office.)