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Dear Nicalai,

Do you know that soy sauce comes in different kinds? Nona and Papa thought soy sauce was soy sauce. Not so.  A friend of ours told us, but we’re getting ahead of our story. We still have to find Solbit.

We paid our bill for lunch at the restaurant where Solbit went missing. We remembered that the Samurai asked Solbit to come back soon. We thought maybe she left without telling us to go back to see her fierce friend.

We walked several blocks back in the hot and humid air to where the Samurai Warrior stood guard. He looked so fierce that we hesitated to bother him, but we did anyway.

“Did Solbit come back to see you?” we asked. “No,” he growled, “Where is she?”  Nona said, “I’m afraid she’s lost.”  The fierce Samurai’s face softened.  He actually showed concern.  “No, you have to find her,” the Samurai declared. “I would help you look for her, but I’m not allowed to leave my guard post.  I have to stay here.  Go, hurry, find her, please!”

“We’ll try,” said Papa, “but I doubt we’ll ever see her again.”  The Samurai didn’t accept that from Papa.  He told Papa, “I said find her, and I mean find my little dinosaur friend now! She’s irreplaceable.”

Papa thought, yeah, she can easily be replaced.  We just have to contact Photojojo for another one, but he didn’t say that to the Samuarai.  Why start a confrontation with a guy who has a sword in his hand? Right?

Still, Nona and Papa searched the streets. No Solbit. They decide to go to see the Imperial Castle and gardens. They walked back on the same route they had taken to the restaurant, always looking down at the sidewalk for Solbit.  No Solbit. They passed their lunch restaurant on the way. Papa said, “I’m going in to ask them to keep an eye out for Solbit.”

Papa went back into the restaurant and said to the nice young man, “We’ve lost our traveling companion. Have you seen her?”  No he had not. An older man who worked there asked, “What does she look like?”  Papa showed him a photo of Solbit.

The man looked at the photo, and his face lit up with a smile. He took Nona and Papa to a shelf by the kitchen. Solbit was on the shelf overlooking the cook at work! “She saw how much you liked our food. She came over to ask to learn about Japanese cooking. She’s been here the whole time watching and learning,” the old man said.

Nona exclaimed, “Solbit, we found you! You gave us such a scare. We worried that we’d never see you again. Please don’t disappear on us ever again.  You have to tell us when you’re going away somewhere.”

Solbit said, “I’m sorry, Nona, but I was so excited to see the chef at work that I didn’t think.  I won’t do that again.  I promise.”  Then Solbit hopped into Nona’s purse. Nona zipped it closed. Solbit wouldn’t get lost again, if Nona had control of her.

Papa knew that he should have kept his pocket zipped closed with Solbit inside.  Then she wouldn’t have gotten away.  Nona gave that look at Papa that said, “You know it was your fault don’t you.”  Papa gave back a neutral look.  He was neither confirming nor denying.

Although Solbit shouldn’t have left without telling them where she was going, in fact, Solbit had learned a lot about Japanese food. The next day at another lunch  place called Ootoya, Solbit told Nona and Papa which of these soy sauces

to use for homemade tofu and which to use for steamed scallops on rice with seaweed. Who knew that soy sauce comes in different types?

So, our good news is that Solbit is back!

Happily,

Nona & Papa

September 2013

• You may be asking yourself, “Who is Solbit?” Solbit is a fictional character, but she is a real plastic dinosaur, sent to us unsolicited in a package we ordered from Photojojo. So, she’s a plastic jurassic. Solbit is short for the four names given her by our grandchildren: Sparkle, Orangie, Lulu, Breakit. We tend to use her given names for when she’s been naughty. Thank you for visiting Tales of a Plastic Jurassic. Solbit likes company and hopes you’ll come back.

• You can learn more about Solbit at her About page and in the earlier posts, “Solbit: How I Got My Name” and “Solbit: How I Got to Travel.”