totally pointless and incredibly cute...

i was in the midst of chopping veggies to start supper, when i asked him to pop in to the little Asian grocery store to grab a few things that i forgot we needed. he returned a short while later with the required items... plus a two-layer bamboo steamer... and this thing.

it is a plastic owl...
 

and when you remove his/her head...

it is full of those little jelly cups that he knows i absolutely love.

no joke, i buy a large container of these about once every-other year, and i proceed to forego all my meals for the next several days while i gorge on little globs of fruit-flavored agar jelly. [full disclosure: i do the same thing when pomegranates and concord grapes are in season.]

the fruit flavored cups were sadly disappointing in their lack of fruitiness, but the plastic owl is a definite keeper.

as an added bonus, the container has a piggy-bank-type slot at the back of the head...

and a handy string for hanging.

which got me wondering if i could use this to scare the squirrels away from my balcony garden come Summer. be honest... if you were a squirrel, and you saw this hanging on a balcony, would you be terrified?

or would you just have a good laugh before destroying my precious tomato plants?

knowing the squirrels we have around here, i would probably wake up the next morning to find the plastic owl hanging from the highest branch of the old maple tree, with a squirrel standing next to it... openly mocking me.

he says there is also a panda bear version, so i will have to keep an eye out for that next time i am in that grocery store. why? because it is totally pointless and incredibly cute, which is the very best kind of absurdity to be had.

then there was the bamboo steamer.

me: you were supposed to get mushrooms and ginger. how did you end up with a bamboo steamer?
him: i got it so you can make me dumplings and steamed buns.
me: good luck with that.

not gonna lie... the next day i was using leftover roasted duck to make steamed buns. pretty much.