What goes up. . .

Tour de Cure this year was an interesting mix of nostalgia and
being in the moment. I enjoyed the company of my fellow
cyclists yesterday, and I also kept flashing back to riding with
Sandy and Colleen in 2007. That year, it took us two hours
longer to do the route. But I can't figure out now why we
did it at all, when Sandy had only been done with radiation
for a couple of weeks, we'd ridden very little while she had
cancer treatment the previous eight months, and I was still
healing from splitting my lip and otherwise banging myself
up as I hit the ground with my face a couple of weeks earlier.

I've been having a good day. Tour de Cure went well yesterday. With beautiful weather, Colleen, Cynthia, Greg, and I enjoyed the 42-mile ride, and I got home in time to get a few other things done. This morning, I woke feeling energetic and I was out in the garden early enough to get some work done preparing the bed for the tomatoes before the sun caught up with me and pushed me elsewhere. I have also done some cleaning and some puttering and some navel-gazing. All in all, I was feeling pretty centered. As has been the case recently, I've been missing Sandy terribly one moment, and feeling her presence the next.

As I toured the garden, though, I found an iPhone and a stocking cap at the back of the yard, near the artichokes. I know they haven't been there terribly long because I check on the artichokes every couple of weeks. I brought the phone in, charged it, and hoped to find the name of its owner, all the while puzzling over how it could have gotten there.

These yard decorations delighted us in 2007 and pleased me
again yesterday. While I didn't remember much of the route,
there were points like this one that sent me back in time.

The phone is password-protected, of course, so once it was charged, I had no luck getting into it to find the owner's information. However, several text messages appeared on the screen when I first turned it on. (Seems like Apple should create a way that you can password-protect your data while also providing some way for someone who finds your phone to contact you, yet not actually display private messages before you've even logged in!)  I did a little detective work, and it seems very likely — almost certain — that the phone belongs to the would-be intruder. So now I'm creeped out and shaky all over again, imagining him stumbling around back there. And I'm angry again, too.

I called the precinct and was told they don't have records of property reported missing at the main desk; I'd need to call back tomorrow when the property desk would be open. (It's Sunday now.) But I explained the situation to the guy on the phone and he agreed that it was probably the intruder's phone and that I owed the guy no favors. In fact, he said he'd probably throw it away if he were in my position.

So now I'm debating whether to bother calling the property desk tomorrow. I may attempt to wipe the phone clean and see if it can be rehabilitated and put to use by some charitable organization — or just take it in for electronic recycling. I'm unnerved even having it in the house. Were Sandy here, she would be trying all the techniques I've found online for wiping a phone clean without needing the password. I think I've figured out the intruder's identity thanks to the Facebook page of a buddy who texted him. Sandy would either be planning to contact the guy and yell at him, or she'd be talking me down as I made plans to do so. Mainly, she'd be here for me to vent to every time some new thought came to me, or every time I just got so angry again I had to share.