All Beautiful Stars and the Moon

We have this neighbor next door. Most people do. Our neighbor is kind of a crotchety old guy who used to be a sheriff's deputy, likes to tell stories and chat, has a "colorful" vocabulary, a heart of gold, and, most relevant to this post, is an antiques dealer. He and his wife used to own an antique shop down the road. They still go to auctions and estate sales, and their garage is full of all kinds of interesting things, the selection changing as they find new things and sell off others.

Not everything they have is good stuff, some things are kind of junk. When they clean out their garage, they like to pass stuff off to my kids, who of course eat it up. It's become a running joke that when their garage is open, he tries to get the kids to take something. Could be a picnic basket, an old stuffed animal, a little cabinet made in the woodshop of a Japanese relocation camp school (not kidding, it's Ruby's). Just depends on what they have.

Today we cleaned out our garage. This involved taking everything out of the garage and piling it on the driveway and front lawn. Our neighbor, who I will call "Ken", and his wife, who I will call "Lynn", came over with sort of a gleam in their eyes and kind of looked over our junk and said that we'd better watch our stuff or "Ken" would just come over and add to it and that we'd never know the difference. I was pretty sure he wasn't kidding.

He wasn't. While I was gone to take Sam to his piano lesson, "Ken" was chatting with Meghan about Copernicus's work. He was very impressed that she knew about him and with how smart she was and asked John if he could give her something that would help her learn. So Squig got herself an early 13th birthday present:

It's a Sears Discoverer (Model No. 4-6344) Equatorial Refractor Telescope. I have no idea where we're going to put it (it's HUGE), nor how to use it (it doesn't seem to have instructions, just the auction listing page). When "Ken" gave it to her, he asked John if he needed to get out his old bullet-proof vest before I got home. Grr.

She is, of course, thrilled and wants to go camping so she can use it (not so much backcountry backpacking with that thing). And yes, she's only wearing one sock. It's her new thing. I don't get it, so don't ask. I'm pretty sure she's doing it because it annoys me and tugs at the old OCD.