Valentine and I were at the Emmaus today. It's sort of the French equivalent of the Goodwill or Salvation Army in the USA. It's a Catholic charity where people donate unwanted stuff that is sold to finance good works.

But I ask you- who wouldn't want THIS?

When I saw it I immediately said to Valentine "Blue Haired Sparkle Jesus is SO going on my blog!!" And I whipped out my handy little red cellphone. My daughter was somewhat mortified, but is pretty used to my strange quirks. I think she was just grateful that I didn't insist on buying the thing.

I LOVE the Emmaus! I'm an archaeologist by training and we are all scavangers at heart. Some may call it digging through junk, but I call it a treasure hunt.
And even when I don't find any treasure, I often find things that are entertainingly strange and/or ugly. Today, besides the BHSJ , other things of note I saw were:
1. a stuffed wild boar's head.
2. a cookie tin showing Santa chatting with two naked women with wings as an obviously traumatised child cowers in the background. Very...um...festive.
3. an eye-searing mustard colored sofa, SO stained and ratty and diseased-looking that I remarked to Valentine: "That's the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life. And I've SEEN stuff!". One minute later, a guy bought it and carried it off as we stood there.
Valentine said "That guy's wife is going to KILL him if he goes home with that!"

We plan to comb through the local paper with particular attention tomorrow morning, looking for an article in the police blotter about some incident of severe wife on husband domestic violence triggered in the night by a household furnishing.