I haven’t had Kathleen on the scale recently. Maybe next time she has a bath. She’s very fat!
And no, I’ve never talked about duende with any of the Spanish-speaking people I know. We generally talk about daily-life stuff ;-). At a Spanish church retreat I attended, one of the speakers talked about widely-held superstitions among Latin Americans, and how they were generally contraindicated by the Catholic Faith.
I have a few pieces of alebrije in my office (along with Millard Fillmore memorabilia, a check for Texas bar dues from 1884, too much Scouting stuff to count, a barber's clock that runs backwards - you know, the usual stuff). One of the pieces is a duende. It looks somewhat like this, but red:
Anyhoo, about ten years ago I notice that my office hadn't been cleaned or vacuumed in a couple of days. After a few more, I commented on it to the floor supervisor.
Turns out there had been a change in the cleaning crew and the lady who was cleaning my side of the floor was Haitian and believed in Santería. She saw the duende in my office and thought I was into some bad juju. She wouldn't enter my office.
They switched her to a different floor and everything was fine.
True story. The end.