I have not been as faithful in my blog-reading as I ought to be in the course of vacation--I'm sure you'll all note why. Nor have I written as much as I could have written either about the vacation nor about other matters. That is partially because I spend so much time in conversation with my excellent host that all things I have to say are said before they make it to ether.
However, Father Jim has passed a meme that ask what is atop my nightstand. That is a tough question in a couple of ways because my nighstand amounts to a multi-shelf bookshelf. However sticking to the absolute letter of the law, I will detail what is on the uppermost shelf: a lamp, three piece of fossilized coral from a reef on San Salvador Island, Bahamas; a basalt hand carved Tiki; a Queen Conch also taken from the rubble pile outside the cracked conch shack near the ex-naval station, now research station on San Salvador Bahamas; a polished nautilus (to reveal the mother-of=pearl layer beneath the brown and white exterior; and finally a lump of amethyst. This peculiar array is in deference to my wife's decorator sensibility. Obviously there are other more practical things on the other shelves )among them, books) but, this is the topmost shelf.
As a meme requires a vector and a host, I operating as vector, pass this on to bill (Summa Minutiae), TSO, MamaT, Julie, and Dan (Lofted Nest) unless they should prove to be resistant to its charms.