Every night before BG falls asleep, she asks for ‘special things’ to put on her bedside table. ‘Special things’ is a classification that encompasses a massive variety of objects; the feature in common is that they must be pretty small – about an inch and a half or less in diameter (although sometimes if it is super-special, you can get away with bigger). Finding them becomes a bit of a challenge, as she doesn’t like to repeat too often. Past special things have included: small wooden ‘cake toppers’ and toy accessories, miniature animals, paper clips, crafty decorations, tiny erasers, a small Christmas tree, ornaments, small books, sparkly things, fun pencils, shells, rocks, anything small that belongs to us…you get the drift. It makes you become very creative and aware of small things in our universe.

A few past (and current) special things. Items of note: paperweight (upper right, under fuzzy ball), 'fish' shower-curtain ring (in front of giraffe), sheep key ring (on orange book), and the ones that started it all - the wooden cake 'toppers' with velcro backs (bottom right).

Unexpectedly, we hit the jackpot the other night at Duffy’s Love Shack. This restaurant and bar is permanently in the middle of a parking lot in Red Hook (on the East End of the island), and locals and tourists go alike. Terrific people watching (especially when the dancing starts), great food (conch fritters, fish tacos, Polynesian pu pu platters, among other things) and fun music are what we expected when we went out for a last ‘fun-island-sorta-touristy-but-not’ night with departing family. What we did NOT expect was the big influx of special things into our lives via the kitsch and the drinks. At Duffy’s, you get ‘lei-d’ with a lei and a sticker, and you can get (depending on order and waiter) a plastic flower necklace, a small wooden back-scratcher, and (on the large assortment of fruity drink concoctions) TOYS – little plastic jewel-colored animals: a whole zoo in miniature. Husband and I saw these and were both way too excited. We collected all the ones from our party’s drinks, ordered a few more, and carried the new special things home as though they were the crown jewels. BG was so pleased that the gasps of happiness could probably be heard in St. John.

New, carefully doled out, special things. (Okay, so we don't actually put leis on her bedside table.)

(On a side-note, we made a long-suffering family member order something called a ‘shark tank’ because we wanted to hear the giant shark on the wall make noise, and you get to keep the fishbowl it comes in. She donated it to the children for toys. Good times…)

Shark tank paraphernalia with eye patch.