Pictures Coming

Ah, the tragedies of life. On Friday, I was able to take a number of pictures of Elianna, with the batteries finally dying that afternoon. On motzei Shabbos (Sat night), I got the camera on long enough to snap the one picture currently on this blog before it shut itself off again. That night, I went home, uploaded the pictures to my computer, and went to sleep. The next day, I got a ride into the city with OD and SIL and their kids to visit Serach. Another good friend had gotten there about 5 minutes before us and was already holding Elianna. I snapped a few more pictures with my supposedly fully charged batteries, and then the batteries died again.

SIL was kind enough to give me their extra rechargeables to use for the next few days, so I put the batteries in the case - the new Canon Powershot A510 my mother had gotten us hadn't come with a case, so I was using the case from my old Pentax, which was big enough to hold the camera and extra batteries. In general, I'm the type who loves taking pictures, and when I have a reason to have a camera on me, I keep the camera with me. I also didn't want to leave it in the room while Serach was sleeping, so when the friend and I went to get some "lunch" at 4:00, I took the camera with me.

Unfortunately, we discovered that the cafeteria a couple of buildings over in Mt. Sinai was closed already, so after a minute of debating, I calculated I had plenty of time to go to midtown, eat, and get back. Worst comes to worst, I could take a cab back if Serach wants me to. As we were about to walk into the restaurant, the friend asked why I was holding the camera - I told her why, and added that this way I can see the pictures of Elianna I had already taken (come on, new dad... :) ). We headed to Circa, and though it was almost closing, we were able to get some food and sit down to eat. When we were about to leave, Serach (who'd called once while we were on the way there) called again and asked that I take a cab back and to bring her some dessert. I bought two black-and-white cookies, they put them in a bag, and we left.

The friend went her own way to go shopping, I got into a cab and went back. My father called me and was talking to me about the crazy UConn/George Mason game most of the way, and I was still on the phone when I walked into Serach's room, holding the cookies. About 20 minutes later, I wanted to take a picture - but couldn't find the camera. I spent the next while continually looking around the room for it... but as you can guess, never found it. I called 311 and filed a lost item with the Taxi & Limousine Commission, but have yet to hear anything. My mother called Circa, but they didn't find anything; I'm reasonably certain (as is the friend) that I was holding it when we left. The likely place I left it was the cab. It's too bad the TLC wouldn't let me describe the driver ("we don't have a box for that information") - he sticks out quite a bit. He's short, white, with an Islamic goatee... and pigmentation on most of his face that's black. That would help identify the cab, but alas...

Thankfully, the camera does have pictures on it. If anyone would find it and turn it on, they'll not only see pictures of a newborn baby, but a picture of the awning of Mt. Sinai hospital. If they put two and two together, they might think "Oh, this must be someone's who just had a baby at Mt. Sinai!" That of course requires someone trying to return it as opposed to keeping it, but there's at least some hope.

There were only about 5-10 pictures on the camera that I hadn't yet uploaded, and thank God I'd already done the all-important first pictures - or I'd be going nuts. For now, we have my mother-in-law's camera to use (nice, big, pretty screen, camera itself doesn't work all that wonderfully - when will people learn that it's the pictures that matter!?), and when I figure out how to upload the pictures, I'll be able to put some more good ones up. In the meantime, if anyone finds a Canon camera in a Pentax case...