Parallax

Today I took Riley to the groomer's to get her claws clipped & ears cleaned out. The place was really busy, so Riley was spooked - when the lady took her to the back, she started shivering, put her ears down, and kept looking back at me. I offered to help, so I held her and itched her butt while she was clipped and cleaned.

Since she was all upset by that, we went to the park afterwards. Livejournal told me I should get back in contact with some old mangroves, so we did just that.

On the way back we found a little table set up with necklaces and trinkets, made of bone, manned by a grizzled old guy in a bright Hawaiian shirt. He and Riley greeted each other like old friends and I browsed his wares.

"I have one thing here," he said, "that I will give you for free if you can guess what it is." He handed me something that looked like it had been carved from a fish vertebra - which it was - and told me to guess.

"Incense burner?" I asked.

He looked me square in the eye and said, dead serious, "Gnome toilet."

When I was done laughing (that took a WHILE, let me tell you) I told him about the Estonian gnome superstition - shockingly he knew where Estonia was - and we agreed that an angry gnome is a bad thing indeed.



So I bought it, because some stories are better with souvenirs.