The Haul

Did you ever play that game when you were a kid in which each person recites "my grandmother went to London and she brought me back a..." and then the next person goes and adds to the list and so on and so forth until suddenly it's your turn and you have to remember a litany of hats and books and a block of hashish? Or maybe your grandmother went to the market, or it wasn't your grandmother at all, but the game wherein you have to remember a list of seemingly nonsensical things from a time before the internet when we kids would sit on the stoop under the plum tree and play a memory game that I'm not even sure even had a name? Yeah, that. Well, this weekend Zoey's Grandma Glitter a.k.a. my mom took us shopping and we brought back a:

• Turtle. Or a tortoise, not sure. It's taxidermied and very dead, about 10" long and now resides on a side table in the living room. Zoey picked this out, fell in love with it really, and before I knew it Grandma Glitter had added it to the pile on the counter. (It's a good thing Zoey did not take a liking to the petrified cat corpse in the glass case. Or the mermaid about which I could only identify that it was dead, whatever it was.)
• Strange children. I have no idea what these were once for (they each have a perforation at the top) but they remind me of a Diane Arbus photo or at the very least those twins in The Shining, i.e. they are awesome.
• Formal kitten portrait, certainly a Victorian ancestor of our very own Nacho Borracho.
• Owl ring. Craptastic pic of a fabulous gold number for only 20 bucks. Makes me look like I could knock a bitch out, or wise, or both.
• Antique baby head vase currently housing a gerbera daisy. On Zoey's nightstand as we speak--sweet dreams!
• One fox. Life-sized, not taxidermied, already loved.

Not pictured: rhinestone hummingbird pin, tacky heart necklace, 2 Ramona Quimby books, pink nail polish, gold headband and one hair comb. In other words, Zoey's Grandma Glitter went to Haight Street and brought us back a dead turtle, strange children, formal Victorian cat portrait, one owl ring, antique baby head vase, a fox, rhinestone hummingbird pin, a tacky heart necklace, 2 Ramona Quimby books, pink nail polish, a gold headband and one hair comb. Got that?

And for the record--the only item technically for me was the owl ring. But I went home feeling as if I'd been given so much--too much--anyway.

love,
S