Monday, December 03, 2007

"That's a great glove . . . "

It is winter-y in Brooklyn. It snowed over the weekend and things looked pretty on the way to church Sunday morning.

My daughter was very excited and we managed to get pix of her playing in the snow.

I have a blanket in the car for her, and now the scraper/brush is tucked next to the front seat.

I left the house without my hat, but was happy to have my scarf and gloves. This is my first year starting the wintery weather with gloves from the previous year. I managed to keep a pair together for an entire year! There's nothing worse than losing a single glove, because there is now one glove in the possession of a person who cannot use it and another glove in the possession of someone who also cannot use it. And for some reason I have had difficulty throwing away single gloves in the past.

My wife doesn't let me keep them now, and when I met her there was a box of "Winter Things" that included more than one single glove missing a mate. I did not move those single gloves into our apartment when we married.

Am I holding on to them thinking their mate will magically appear? Is it possible to find it? Can I backtrack and locate a missing glove? (I never have.)

Jennifer Gooch, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, seems to have asked herself similar questions about missing gloves. Unlike me, however, she has taken action by creating a website that displays the gloves she finds, in hopes of reuniting them with their owner.

Impressive.
If I have one person find their glove, then the entire thing is totally worth it," she said.


Under the title men's black leather glove, Strip District, On November 20, 2007, "shaun" found a glove posted on the site that looks very much like a glove I lost in 2003! I know it is unlikely that it is my glove, since I have not been in Pittsburgh since the mid-1970s and I'm quite certain I left mine in Manhattan, in the back of a taxi, on a warm Winter night.

I miss those gloves. They were very warm, and lined, and soft on the outside. I never did find a similar replacement pair. I've been using lined leather gloves ever since. I generally choose cashmere lining, so they are comfy, but I think I want to switch back to the suede outers, because the leather gloves are very uncomfortable if I touch my face.

Two women are alleged to be starting a New York City version of the site some day soon. I'll bet that will become a rather overwhelming project rather quickly! I see upwards of three stray gloves per day during my ten-mile, one-hour commute. I would not know how to extrapolate the numbers, but I'll bet there's at least a hundred thousand lost gloves in New York City each day.

Visit the site that started it all: http://www.onecoldhand.com/

Read an article from Associated Press: Web site seeks to reunite gloves, owners

In February, 2002, I lost a beautiful black silk scarf. I left it in the back of a black sedan on my way home for an after-party following a show at Carnegie Hall. I was wearing a tuxedo, and the black scarf was a wonderful accessory that night. I liked that scarf, it was at my mother's funeral, and lived with me in London. It may have visited Morocco with me, too. So . . . if anyone starts onecoldneck.com, please find my scarf!


Dick Mac Recommends:

The Divine Comedy
Dante Alighieri





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