Tourist alert

When it comes to buying souvenirs, I am usually all for the tacky. My dad and mom went to London right after the Diana/Charles marriage, and I asked them to bring me back the tackiest thing they could find - and they complied with some sort of metal commemorative tray.

I just ask that it has something to do with the place and time.

So today at Mt. Etna, the first souvenirs were jackets, for which I had planned. I did not pack jackets for this trip despite the fact that I hoped we would make it to Mt. Etna and I knew it would be chilly, simply because I thought I would just buy some jackets or sweatshirts for everyone when we arrived. Done.

But of course, that is really not a "souvenir," so after we finished the ascent, we returned to the shop area. Joseph picked out a dragon holding a globe, carved, I am assuming, from some sort of Etna rock. Michael spied these cheap little fake cameras - sort of ViewMasters, with scenes of Mt. Etna within, and would not be dissuaded. He wanted one of these so badly, wanted nothing else, and since they only cost 3 E, why not? He loved it, played with it the entire way home and cut a fashionable look while he was still there, to boot.

And, oh, I wish I'd had the courage to take out my camera in the souvenir shop. It's taken me this long to build up the courage to take photos of food in restaurants, I don't know how long it will be 'til I can just start whipping out the camera and shooting the goods on store shelves. But I wish...

For featured in the souvenir shops were religious objects, fashioned out of the black rock (I am assuming, I keep saying - for all I know they were made in China...) - which is fine. But added to many of them...was glitter. Blue and gold, mostly.

So you had a Padre Pio statue on the which his robe had been coated with blue glitter.

A crucifix in which Jesus' loincloth had been coated with the same and much of the rest of it was outlined in gold.

The oddest things move me to miss my husband. Terribly.