Bits And Pieces

When German girl moved in in 2006, she brought a 1993 black Toyota pickup named Sam, books, clothes and carved wooden jewelry boxes. These turned out to contain rocks. Favorite rocks from her travels. Also some shells, feathers and assorted nature minutia. The Lab came later. When the two of them are taking a walk on Roosevelt Island, here in Arlington, on the Potomac, they return with much more than an appetite. Old bottles (intact or in pieces) fossils, an arrowhead, rocks, hunks of coal, bone shards come too. And then I try to find a place to put them, this is a small house. Just when I fill a jar, a bowl or a shelf, they go on another walk and I rethink my strategy. Oh, and she collects old swords, too. She's a fencer. We need an addition.