An extra masculine moment... Laura explains painting nails.

That is, the nails on your hand, not the wall. Humans are so confusing! There are so many words that are the same, but mean a zillion different things. Us animals just call them claws. Claw on your hand, nail in the wall. That's how it goes.

(Although, we weren't aware of nails in the woods of course... we used to use blue-tac to put our paintings up.)

So yes, nails.
Very peculiar, because Laura tells me that people paint their nails to make them look nice.
We were in town the other day and as I brought a packet of grapes, the cashier handed over my receipt and I just gawped at her hand.

"Why are her fingers blue?", I pondered aloud, and then, looking up at her with concern: "Are you cold? There are blankets on Isle 3."

But no, this is a very regular thing, apparently.

So, when we got home, Laura and her person-friend sat me down and explained.

"You see, it makes hands look nicer."
"But what's the point of that? They're quite nice as it is."
"I guess they're kind of creepy in a way... All spindly and stuff."

This discussion continued for about 20 minutes, on why people started doing this, until it was decided that they'd do a live display.

Laura's person-friend brought out a box of a rainbow of coloured varnishes, and spread out her fingers. Laura sat me on her lap, and gripped my paw with her hand as I held onto a varnish. Then, she guided me along her person-friend's nails, giving them the design of some handsome devil's beautiful chops...

.... ME!

Ironically, this was Laura's first attempt at painting nails too, so it took a very very very very long time for us to keep inside the lines, but eventually we got there.

We sat back and admired our handiwork.

"Well, that was..." I started
"Fun?" Laura asked.
"Uhm..." I thought, "Nope, no, I'm sorry. It's still bizarre."

Unfortunately our first attempt of varnishing ended up about a centimeter thick on Laura's person-friend's poor nails... So we had to resort to a hairdryer to dry them, and then discovered this was a bad idea when they trickled down her fingers in a Hulk kinda fashion.

After a busy hour, I decided to do something a little less feminine, so I headed downstairs and readied the teapot for a good brew and studied my paw, wandering if a nice shade of blue would go with orange fur...