I saw on the news the other day that scientists have found that many of us have Neanderthal DNA as part of our genetic code. I have a feeling that if they ever sequence my DNA there's going to be a lot of magpie in the mix.

Oh, man, but I love me the shiny.

A few years ago I went back to my home town for my stepmother's 80th birthday. I stayed with my sister, who lives in a smallish town. You can count on there being endless yard sales in this small town during summer weekends. We both love yard sales. Need I say more?

We agreed to only hit yard sales within walking distance of her home. This would prevent me us from buying something stupidly heavy. After all, anything I bought would have to travel 700 miles by train and then another 70 or miles by car to get back home with me. If I couldn't carry it by hand back to my sister's, there was no way I would be able to carry it back home.

Oh yes, occasionally I can be sensible.

Some people skim yard sales. I am not a skimmer. I will paw through boxes, look under piles. While rummaging through a box, I found these odd glass thingies. They were rectangular with six big dimples in them. Very heavy. The glass was that pale green that coke bottles used to come in. I asked the woman what they were.

She said they were hand blown glass candy dishes which had been center pieces at her wedding. She had eight of them. I asked her how much they were. She told me I could have them for a nickle each.

Five cents! Five Cents!. Sold.

My sister rolled her eyes. "What the heck are you going to do with those?" she asked. I told her I planned to have the spousal unit build a frame around them and that I would hang them as a sort of architectural detail on the left side of our porch.

More eye rolling.

It's not easy being semi-magpie.

Like I said, these things were stupidly heavy. And they were glass. So it was a major pain in the butt to schlep them home by train, but schlep I did. The spousal unit noticed the bulge in my backpack.

I told him I had bought some fabulous glass for a nickle a piece. At a yard sale! Oddly enough, he did not share my exhultation. There was more eye rolling. "What the heck are you going to do with those?" he asked. I told him I planned to have him build a frame around them and that I would hang them as a sort of architectural detail on the left side of our porch.

After more than 35 years of marriage, the spousal unit has learned that head on confrontations are a waste of energy. So, he dekes around me.

He solemnly told me it would take planning, lots and lots of planning, to build a frame for these bits of glass. Being hand blown and all, they were very irregular. He said he would take the glass to his workshop for the time being and mull over the project.

This is spousal unit speak for, "I really think your idea is stupid and maybe if I squirrel this useless glass away in a building you seldom enter you will forget about it."

Which is basically what happened.

Well, last week as he was cleaning up his workshop the spousal unit came upon those glass bits. And since it was shortly before my birthday and he likes to make me a small something for my birthday, he made me a frame for the glass.

To his amazement, he actually likes how it looks. He's temporarily hung it at waist height so I could stain the frame red. The red stain makes the pale green of the glass just pop, much to my delight.

Tonight we're going to haul it up to just under the eves and hang it there. Sadly, the black of the logs behind it basically sucks the colour out of it when you look at it head on from outside the house. However, the dimples in the glass are so pronounced that it's still kind of cool to look at.

Where it really shines is when you look through it from inside our porch.

It's shiny! How can someone not love shiny?

My thoughts, exactly.

--Marn