Surfing

I spent my 'tween years in Laguna Beach, California. Now, it was bad enough that I was already 5'8" tall, and a C cup in the era of bathing suits made for boards not broads, but - horrors! - I seemed to be the only girl in town who couldn't surf.

Oh, I could body surf (after a fashion - hard to do with two built-in front rudders) and I could mostly mat surf. But put me in a standing position and - boom! - I was flailing at waves and choking up salt water.

I think I need to take lessons, because the markets have that same kind of "bitchin' dude" hang-ten feel about them lately.

Yesterday was the biggest single-day point loss in history. Today was the third biggest point gain. I wish I would have bought Wachovia at 39 cents (or whatever it was) a share, I can tell you that, but would it have done much, really?

Don't know. Maybe. Probably not. I told you before I won't take advantage of another's distress - I won't buy a foreclosed house, I won't buy at a fire sale, and I won't pay so much under value just because someone is desparate. I thought about making the exception, since I still think banks got themselves into this, but there's a person at the other end of that share. I can't help but think about that, and I feel ... weird.

Then again, maybe it's not guilt that drives me. Maybe all this up and down, up and down, up and down doesn't make me want to yell "kawabunga" after all.

Maybe I'm just seasick.

Solution Pending

When I was in high school, I used to play air guitar. (Yes, I know this is usually the bailiwick of teenaged boys - I was ahead of my time.) Anyway, I was really good at playing, as long as I didn't have to actually touch an instrument.

I suspect Congress would be very good at air guitar, too - as long as they don't actually get to touch anything. Anyone who can glibly suggest spending $700 bil - the only thing they seem to agree on - without a visible means of support, gets my vote for best fake lead, of any air music.

I told you I grew up with a politician, right? He was (and is) terrible with money. I spent my entire life in cycles of poverty and plenty. My entire life. The act of handing our current elected officials my tax money every month makes me break out in a rash; $700 bil just staggers me, especially since no one has told me where it's coming from.

It won't be a tax hike - they think that cutting taxes we can't afford to cut and still pay the bills, or rebating money they don't even have in the first place, is the best solution for every ill (probably because it will buy our vote). It could be a loan, I suppose, but since no American in his right mind will buy a Savings Bond (even if he could) much less $700 bil worth of them, I doubt it will come from local sources - especially since the banks have frozen, or at least strangled, the credit lines to us peons. Likely we'll borrow it from China, the same source we've been tapping to continue the war. (Oh, well, so much for cutting trade with a country that's been poisoning our toys and milk products - but since our wonderful corporations, the ones in trouble right now, moved their factories over there anyway, we're paying our own way, right?)

Confused? Me, too. Here's some simple math - there are 305,261,586 Americans right now, living in approximately 114, 384,000 households. $700,000,000,000 (that's the billions) divvied up works out to $2293.12 for every man, woman and child, or about $6119.74 per household. (That's more than the average American household carries on a credit card.) But don't worry - since we'll be borrowing it instead of taxing it to each of us, we won't feel the effects until much later, probably just in time to deepen the next economic downturn to monumental proportions.

And this in an era when fewer of us are carrying balances on our credit cards (though, admittedly, more on our mortgages). This, in an era when people are required - not optional - to carry insurance on our home loans until they drop below 80% (or is it 70%?) of the home's value. This in an era when we know credit has gotten us in trouble, yet we keep running to the well.

I don't know the solution for the country. Maybe this really is the most dangerous fiscal situation we've ever been in, as the more inflammatory rhetoric is telling us. (I guess I've heard the Weather Channel telling me about death and destruction - and "dodging the bullet" - so many times I don't listen to overblown projections any more.) Maybe the solution is making the banks go back to the teaser rates, at least for people whose primary residence is on the line. Or maybe it's just let everyone fall down and go boom. There are just too many variables to understand this on a national level. But I know what I'm going to propose for myself.

A money fast.

Yep, coming on the heels of the successful jewelry fast, Bunny is going to go cold turkey on spending. Okay, more like warm turkey - I'm going to talk to the Big Lug about cutting our cable, our cell phones, and various other cutting places, and live on his salary while we use mine to pay off ALL our debts, as fast as we can. In a single year, despite the fact that I don't make nearly as much as he does, we will not only finish paying off the cards but also the kids' college loans, our last home improvement thing, and even start working our way through our mortgage. In one year.

See, I know that no matter how much congress spends to "bail" me out, I'm the only one who can make it stick. And I know that the only way to have $5 mil in my hands by 2014 is to wipe the slate clean, get off the economic grid as much as possible. I don't want to be beholden - or vulnerable - to anyone, and especially not to the people who make laws the same way they make salad dressing (a little of this, a little of that, what do you think, hon, too much garlic?). I want economic independence, from all of them.

But until that day, I can at least thumb my nose (and my imaginary strings) at anyone who wants to scare me here. Because if Congress can make a case for pulling $700 bil out of thin air, and get so many to go along with the scam, then anything is possible.

Even this crazy, wild scheme of mine.

5 by 55!

In B-sharp!

Eat your heart out, John Entwistle!

Back-fire

Fall arrived yesterday, and, right on schedule, everything is falling, falling, falling; the markets are reaching down to touch their toes, housing is scraping bottom, and the dollar is looking up from beneath the earth's crust.

I've been here before. More than once.

I'm not even talking about the historical "heres" - though I do remember one, vividly: gas lines around the block, everyone (including my dad) out of work for years, fear crawling into every corner of every household, at least the ones I knew. It was the '70's, and everyone proclaimed it, as today, "the worst financial crisis since The Great Depression." The entire country was hurting, and for far too long all of us simply did the best we could.

That one was personal for me. I was getting ready to go to college - had the scholarship, the job, even the car. Four days before I was due to leave for my small, private college, and the wonderful experience I knew was around the corner, my father called me in to tell me he and my mom wouldn't be able to cover even small percentage of the expenses that I hadn't already earned with work and awards. Four days before I was due to drive off - not four months or even four weeks, but four days.

Yet I left that Saturday anyway. How? My best friend talked me into trying to snag a spot at the state school she was going to. And, after many phone calls (the grades and SAT scores helped), I did. My parents could afford that tuition (in-state was then under $200, twice yearly) and the room and board (under $500) for at least a semester as long as I paid for books. I then pushed for (and won) a scholarship that covered my tuition (as long as I had a 3.9 average), tutored math to cover my books and incidentals, and even discovered a test (CLEP) that, when I took it, got me out of most of the basic degree requirements (so I finished in three years). I worked my ass off, and I won.

So why did I forget the lessons of those years? How did we all forget?

Fear feeds fear. When we hear the reasons for recessions and depressions, few "experts" think about the fear factor. Oh, we hear about "spirals" and "runs" and "panic" on the way down, but have we really thought it through? If we did, we might understand the entire cycle.

I see it this way: fear leads to free-falls which lead to more fear about the falls which leads to average people hitting the bottoms of their respective wells.

... which leads to either complete depression and giving up, or the back-against-the-wall "screw this!"

... which leads to the lowering of the head and the lunge for the enemy's throat.

... which, after some wrangling, frequently leads to success, which leads to more success (because we did what we didn't think we could do).

... which leads to "I deserve this success" and the gorging on that conquest and the next (which will follow because determination frequently leads to more) until we get drowsy in the sun and lazy when we take our hard-won abundance for granted.

... which leads to slippage and the first trickle of fear, especially when we find we can't quite grab it, not with the same ease, because it's easier to hold onto a leash than it is to catch one once we've let it go.

... which leads to fear which leads to more fear ...

Am I wrong? I'm no expert on money - we all know that, right? - but I understand fear, especially about cash flow. I've had it many times before. We all have. The college year just depressed and disillusioned me, but there was one day in 1992 or 1993 (the height - or depth - of the last "recession"). We had just moved to this very expensive area (without the army housing that we'd been in for more than a decade), we were maxed out across the board (rent, credit cards, etc.) with three small kids in the house, and, while I was choosing which bills to pay and which to blow off, I suddenly realized that, thanks to my life insurance policy, I was worth more dead than alive. Luckily that horrible thought immediately created an explosive "oh-God" back-fire that turned on the orginal problem and blew it out like giant Roman candle.

Oh, yes, I understand much about fear. I've been afraid lately, because my income depends on something that is optional, not necessary. And my quest depends on my house and my other assets NOT selling for half of the assessed worth, as they would right now.

But I realized this morning that right now we are in a panic because of our credit markets. And it isn't the first time. The excesses of the '20's led to the depression of the '30's, which fed the causes of WWII and the deprivations of the '40's (which we all handled with grace and hard work because we became a community), and led to the prosperity of the '50's, which preceded the turmoil of the '60's which caused a variety of new phenomena (stagflation) in the aforementioned '70's, then the ridiculous extremes of the '80's and the tight belts of the '90's, the happier times of the early '00's. Most of our past problems (except for the stuff around 911) are related, in one way or another, to spending as if there's no tomorrow, of pretending we can eat all we want and won't ever get the check.

Oh, I'm not saying there aren't other, insidious elements at work. I know about the greed of the credit companies, the mortgage industries, the sharks that are always waiting to take eat the small fish with no conscience because they can always declare bankruptcy, set up somewhere else, and start over. I know that the governments don't set good examples, either - they spend our tax money then plan this year's budget around last year's income instead of the average of the last 20 years, and they borrow money as if they will always have increased revenues (instead of using surpluses to repay these debts, our wonderful elected officials go into a feeding frenzy). We are the children of profligate parents, emulating their frightening patterns in our own lives.

But "they" are the smallest of the issues. At some point we have to grow up, and away from, toxic people. At some point we have to realize that we hired these people, or at least didn't speak up when they took over the company, the state, or the country. Instead of firing them all, we're turning to these same poisonous "role models" to bail us out - even as I write this, I'm listening to lawmakers blaming the lack of regulation in the asset markets (bank, mortgage companies, etc.) for our problems. And who's going to create and enforce these regulations? The same people who contributed to the spiral in the first place.

Enough is enough. I'm not afraid any more. There's got to be a way out of this, but it has to be our way. We have to end this once and for all - go not for the throat but straight for the heart.

We're the heart. And we're stronger than they are.

Collapsing

My body has the strangest habit - when push comes to shove, when my time is not my own and my schedule is slammed to the proverbial wall, it comes through like a trooper - on steroids. When the rush is over it ... falls apart.

I don't mean this in the emotional sense, although this happens, too. Typically, in the days when I wrote novels, I would dump the manuscript with FedEx and while I was there my head would start to throb. By the time I got home, I had a 100-degree fever and the energy of a newborn (less, really, since I had no lung capacity, either). I would stay in bed for about three days and make my family's life a living hell.

Nowadays, it's not usually that dramatic, mainly because I guard my Fridays with a fierce Bunny growl - "mine, mine, MINE!" Unfortunately, this week I have had ten- to twelve-hour days for the past six days straight, and last Friday was a bit ... long ... with hunting and a busy-ness all out of proportion to "rest," which is what I needed. My system is confused. It's reacted as if already in the Killing Time. It's falling apart.

And it's not attractive. I can't think, or write, or do much more than putter around here every hour or so (and no more than twenty feet from the nearest restroom). So, rather than try to tell you stories about the hunting I didn't do or the treasure I didn't find (yet), I'll just see you next week ... assuming I survive my twelve hour Saturday and Sunday and Monday and ...

I just need a very long nap. Really.

Meanings

Get up, write, walk, eat breakfast, shower. Errands and bill-paying, buy some stocks or hit a thrift store, dredge up dinners for a couple of days. Tutorials and classes. Read an hour, sleep, get up and start over again.

Not exciting, this life right now. I thought I'd have adventures when I began this quest. I thought I'd get my own little Antiques Roadshow Classic moment - the pretty but dull-looking wall hanging that turns out to be a $100k Navajo chief's blanket, or the $5 yard sale chair that's a two-hundred-year-old Hepplewhite worth a thousand times what I paid for it. Or maybe I'd dig up a 1870-S half-dime in my back yard - not in perfect condition, you understand, but able to be cleaned up and sold for about half its "mint" value (not enough on which to retire, maybe, but enough to become the fund in six years). Or maybe the stock I buy at $2 a share doubles and triples and suddenly it's worth two hundred times what I paid for it. I'd even settle for making it to one of the local mineral club's digs and find a nice chunk of grossular garnet! But no! I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, cleaning up my kitchen and my finances, clearing out my house and my predilections.

Boring, boring, boring - this first year is Boring with a capital "B!" And I'm tempted - practically salivating! - to skip this groundwork-laying year and go straight to diving for gold in the Bahamas and digging for diamonds in South Africa. But ain't gonna happen. It can't. Yes, I have years behind me, years in which I learned how to handle credit better and invest automatically and use my job skills for maximum value. Yet I still haven't paid off those credit cards, have I? I haven't funnelled all of the excess into the proper places. I haven't gotten mature enough about spending to even handle the kind of money I want to find, steal, or win.

Funny that we ooh! and ahh! over a fabulous meal, or a bumper crop of artichokes or corn, or a beautiful paint color on our walls. We adore (even expect!) to drive long stretches of pothole-free road, watch a flawless performance ... even make that perfect love with our partner. But none of these things, as a rule, happen by accident but by effort - lots and lots and lots of effort. Background. Preliminaries. All those things that never get the praise. When was the last time we applauded the foundation of a home, right?

I'm still growing. That's the reason for the lack of excitement and the surplus of philosophy, I think. No matter how I try to avoid it, the truth is that this blog doesn't just chronicle my (seemingly) fantastical odyssey but actually changes the way my mind works. Helps me focus on what's important. Makes me think before I act. Because if I screw up, I tell you about it, and that makes it more ... real somehow.

Oh, I know it's all real, whether I write about it or not. I do. Life is not a dress rehearsal. Everything done can never really be undone no matter how hard we try. Blah, blah, blah. I get it. But I also know that what is done can be ... shifted. The script of my life is continuously rewritten. Every day, every hour, every moment, revised and updated and changed, by "fate," by God, or by me, until the day I die. And though I cannot control what happens to me, I damned well can control my reaction to whatever "it" is, and, more importantly, where I go from that moment on. That's the purpose. That's the meaning. That's the reality.

And right now, though I want to grab my loupe, it's time to lift another cinderblock instead.

Sigh.

And yay.

Fasting Part II

I spent $9 today, at three different places (yard sale, rummage sale, estate sale). I bought a pair of sterling turtles (earrings, enameled green), a silver charm (bucking bronco), and two necklaces (one, a mixture of rocks-as-jewelry for Head Trip, the other for me - rhodonite beads strung with a 14k gold clasp). I bought four pairs of earrings in a major discount store this week, too, for about $12 a pair - all 14k studs in (each) citrine, amethyst (it does fluoresce blue!), garnet, and blue topaz. I found a beautiful Irish sterling charm (with actual hallmarks!) at a Salvation Army (about $2.25 - customer appreciation day, 25% off its $2.99 price). On the way back from the conference, I bought three pairs of earrings for myself (14k studs with carnelian, jasper, and seed pearls, respectively), a Taxco silver bracelet for Hippie Chick that Acid Trip said was actually a little "clunky" for her taste - probably not for Head Trip, though. Also that day, a silver and amethyst pendant, two (I think) synthetic pink sapphire rings (sterling), and another with blue enamel (or really squishy indigolite), as well as a turquoise stickpin (minus the cap - they called it a "hat pin") and a handful of other small, interesting pieces.

Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Yet I passed over pieces that would have made me drool even just a couple of weeks ago: the solid silver pin (hideous but heavy) that was $13 at a thrift store (and the silver and "what-was-that?" ring for $6 sitting next to it), or the $90 gold ring set maybe-with-rubies-but-I-don't-know at the estate sale today, as well as a half-dozen others - the other rock-necklace that was twice the price of the one I bought; the ring at the discount store beside the studs - you know, the one I really didn't like but it was a real ruby; as well as the gold-filled but hideous pin (not like that gorgeous bee!). And though I bought two pieces of milk glass (that same appreciation day), they were in Panelled Grape, the pattern I actually collect (and have vowed to use for Thanksgiving this year!). I resisted other pieces, including a pretty piece of what looked like the cactus pattern but matches one I saw marked "P.V. France" on the trip (it's blue - I only do white, now, unless it's very rare), and a hobnail crescent boat at the rummage sale. Trust me, I spent three times this in a week in early August, and I'm not getting a tenth of the wear from that stuff.

Fasting works. It reminded me that this is not about filling up the house that the yard sale all but emptied, but to create a new environment, one I can shape myself, can afford, and can love. In the case of jewelry, specifically, it's about sources of pleasure now and sources of profit in the future (without the paranoia of loss I have when I wear my rubies). With my carnival and milk glass ... well, I need to invest in display shelves this fall, and then use them. And not just shelves. I have more than one project to finish, more than one grouping of items that will decorate or rebuilt something else in my possession already, and these I will do before I make any more big purchases.

Some day it will be about recognizing jaw-dropping bargains, or beginning the month-long weekend warrior project in the kitchen (cabinets). But I'm a novice, a small fry - I know exactly enough about this stuff to focus on things I will actually use, hang, or wear, and to pay no more than a few dollars to buy them, just in case. Fasting reminded me of both my ignorance and of my already overflowing basket of blessings. I'm a little Bunny in a really big field right now - I not only admit it, I embrace it.

Now if it will just stop raining long enough for me to dig up the treasures I just know are in my yard!

Convention-al Knowledge

Want to find some real treasures? Stuff you probably don't believe will actually sell for as much as the antique dealer has it priced? Conventions are the best places to watch, and to learn.

I had a total blast at this year's National Milk Glass Collector's Society convention. I met a whole lot of very smart, very fun people. I found out that while the price of most milk glass is down across the board (gone are the Martha-Stewart-induced decorating crazes) the rarer pieces are still selling well. And I had an enlightening conversation, when a new friend told me she'd bought a "Dewey bone dish" and found out that one of our oldest members knew of one other, which she herself owned. (I have a third, hah!)

Made me happy, especially when I found out how much it's worth these days. But more than that, it reminded me that frequently the best price you can get for any item is in a room full of dedicated collectors.

The auction, as usual, was the high point of the weekend. Yes, there were wonderful lectures, informative speeches, great finds in dealer rooms, and seriously fun networking - it's easy to remember why you began to collect things when you surround yourself with other maniacs who share your passion. But the rubber hits the road when you hand them bidding cards. (I wasn't immune. I paid $57.50 for a plate that I saw the next day in the sales room for $35.00 - but, dammit, the most luscious items went far above my budget, and I was determined to get something I'd never seen before!) There's something about that numbered piece of cardboard that makes you forget your checkbook balance.

Two moments stand out for me, personally - one is that when the ninth item (Pig on Drum) started to head past my limit (yet I still kept going) it took me a few moments to realize the woman I was sitting with was the other bidder ("there's no friends at an auction," she said as I gave in to economic rationality); and two is when I was bidding on a Crouching Rabbit (French, wonderful, it was love) but as the auctioneer was urging me onward and upward (past my limit) I had a massive hot flash, for which I flushed red and started fanning myself. I took it as a sign, the audience took it as a hilarious reaction, and I became the center of attention every time I raised my number. (No problem for little Exhibitionist Bunny!)

So what went for the really big bucks? Well, a McKee pig on a split-rib base (signed) sold for $900 despite a chip on his ears. And this duck (excellent condition) sold for $525.

I suppose the one that shocked me the most (since I didn't think it would sell for that much) was a Poodle bottle (or a candy container, no one's sure) that sold for $1,000! A "Walking" Bear covered dish (black milk glass) sold for $1025. But that was chicken feed compared to the take for a German-made hen (extremely rare), which sold for $1900!

I bought a few items myself - that plate, an Agro Agate Scotty Dog covered dish (good price), a second Atterbury Duck on Rush base (because I really love it), and this tray with match holder:

I love what I bought, and I won't always be on a shoestring. But, overall, I was there to watch, to gain experience, and to learn, and that I did.

What do you love? There's probably a club full of crazy people just like you. If there's nothing, then I highly recommend that you go to our society's web site to see the conference photos, as well as take a look at the permanent photo gallery, full of beautiful, old pieces. Look over the books they recommend, but don't get locked into the price lists. Maybe you'll get hooked, too, and maybe - just maybe - I'll see you at the conference some other year.

Just not with your auction card up, okay?

Tripping Part 2

I know you're all dying to hear about the Milk Glass Convention but I have to take a word about hotel rooms, food, and attitude.

I gained five pounds on this trip, and it all seems to be in my butt. Obviously, the less you walk the wider you get, but five pounds? In a week? Okay, admittedly, most of it has already come off (yay water weight!) but I gotta tell you, I didn't eat that badly. More than usual, of course, because I was on vacation, but not that badly ... until something changed.

What do I mean by "badly?" Weight Watchers has two paths that you can follow to lose - I follow something they call Core. Basically, it's eating whole grains, fruits and vegies, and lean meats, without much measuring and counting. Since my life is hardly quiet, and I love to cook (and I get the most creative when I'm limited in my ingredients), this is the best option for me. I love it, even on the road - most things grilled, raw, or steamed are on the Plan, and I've lost about half of my seventy-some-odd-pounds this way.

Most days I ate grilled beef or chicken (without skin), baked potatoes (with skin), and steamed vegies and/or salads. Two days I ate chili - best I've ever tasted (in a restaurant) was in the Corning Glass Museum's cafe, actually. But that last day I ate a huge roast beef sandwich and curly fries at Arby's. Then I topped it off with a bar of chocolate and compounded it with sugary cereal the next day.

Am I the only one who loses her mind when she's on her way back to the stress of every day? I expected trouble, and I got it, in spades.

Up until then, it was practically a storybook trip - and not the wolf-in-grandma's-nightgown fairy tale, either. When we arrived in Corning, though, I admit I thought I'd be seeing big teeth pretty soon when I found out we were on the second floor in a hotel that had no elevator (and we do not pack light!), and one cart that wasn't useful on stairs. I kept hoping for the best, and the Big Lug never uttered one word of complaint. He also said nothing (louder this time - you know that non-vocal silence I'm talking about) when the room I'd booked didn't have a fridge or microwave (penalizing me, by the way, since I'm the one who needs them). Yet the world I'd left was so jam-packed, so crazed, I was still expecting a great time. Then I sat down on the toilet, and nearly slipped off when it rocked - rocked - up from the floor.

Uh-oh, where's the woodcutter when you need him?

An hour later, and multiple attempts to fix it (stripped bolt), we moved into the only other king room they had - a suite with fridge, microwave, separate sitting room, and whirlpool bath. How awful for us, right? That's when we also found out that the complimentary breakfast had hot eggs (with ham - that's Core) and sausage gravy (his favorite). The bed was softer, the pillows piled higher, the TV clearer ... the Big Lug grinned, said someone was watching out for us, and settled in like a cat in cream. (My dyed-in-the-wool trouble-finder was also the one who told me about the other night clerk, who took her dinner break in the parking lot ... with her husband and her three little kids. He told me this with a soft smile, confessing that some people would say she shirked her duty in leaving the desk, but he found it romantic and common-sensical.)

Later, at the convention, we also had a suite (no whirlpool) and a breakfast every day that included specially-made omelettes. Grilled fish and steak and chicken were within walking distance. Popcorn and diet Coke every evening at the manager's reception. Shredded Wheat in my room, with low-fat milk to go on top. Heaven. And easy. Until the recurring nightmare (that I'd cheated on the Big Lug) hit me and panicked me (this one happened at the only other convention I'd attended). Have you ever had a dream that was so real it haunted you? This was one of those. Four-thirty in the morning, and I'm shaking and nauseated, ready to bolt. But he held me, and told me he knows I'd never cheat, that it was entirely out of character, that one of the reasons he'd fallen in love with me was that I had honor, and, unlike him, even when I'm sniping about people I always see the best in them. I cried, he held me tighter ... then had us both laughing when he reminded me the other reason was my boobs.

And you wonder why I'm working so hard.

The last night we were on the road, I (finally) had been hunting - unwilling to charge back to reality, I stopped at a huge antique mall, only sixty miles from Cleveland. Three hours later I wasn't even out of the display shelves - lots of jewelry, plus the convention had fired me up for milk glass, so I was looking at everything. Though I found several unique pieces (as well as four pairs of gold earrings for a good price, and a fabulous silver bracelet for Hippie Chick), the milk glass was severely damaged, repaired, or reproduction. Thanks in large part to my dawdling, we didn't leave Ohio until five that evening. And when we rolled into our last hotel, though the room was lovely (and they had elevators and carts), the breakfast was plain and stale, the air conditioning was uneven and humid, and the room was thirty dollars a night more than the one in Corning - only two dollars less than the posh room at the convention.

Was it really that bad? Did my attitude affect my perception? Or did my attitude shape reality around itself? Can we all bend our reality, just a little, like a magnet does with running water? Or did the luck I don't believe in just run out? Whatever it was, I'm back, I'm here, and I'm billing thirty-eight hours this week.

Maybe all of life is just one ginormous mixed blessing.

Heavy on the blessing ... if we simply let it be so.

Tripping Part 1

We got home late last night. Okay, about six, but it felt later than it was. I don't know why, but the drive home always feels longer than the drive out. (Actually, I do know why. Duh. It didn't help that my boss found me on my cell phone, just as we were hitting the far edge of town, did it?)

Ah, but the trip! My first real adventure since I began this quest. Yes, I have taken risks. Yes, I have had fun. But to take an actual week out of my schedule, to do nothing but play in the world ... for me that is the scariest thing on the planet. I like my rut.

Not any more.

We allowed two days in Corning, NY, on the way to my conference. We stopped nowhere on the way, no antique malls, barely any restaurant time. Why? Paranoia. The Big Lug likes to take back roads, get off the interstate as much as possible. I can't calculate drive time on back roads. For all I knew it would take us ten hours.

It didn't, and it was beautiful. Lesson number one - go back roads. The food availability is iffy so carry lunchmeats and fruits, but it's well worth the inconvenience.

We spent half a day (the next day) at the glass museum, and the other half at the Mark Twain Exhibit (with the actual building/study in which he wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and other masterpieces) at Elmira College. I forgot the camera for the Twain stuff, but I have some doozies from the glass museum.



This boat is one solid piece of glass, made up of several individual pieces surrounded by more glass.
The detail is amazing!

And look at the artistry of this, nearly 300 year old piece.
From the time of the Pharohs, glass makers were considered high-end artisans, and were paid accordingly. Times have changed, haven't they?

This is the stuff I love - milk glass.
"N.E. Glass" is New England Glass, and about 130 years old. I've seen this piece before. I didn't know what the mark meant. How depressing.

Now, just because it's old doesn't mean it's valuable (glass doesn't decompose, remember) but pieces like these are, usually, because - like the above pieces - intricacy of design and execution, and - unlike the above pieces - beautiful mold work instead of handmade quality.


Then there's Tiffany. Even though I love milk glass, I would give my left arm for something like this.

I remember when his lamps were selling for pennies on the dollar of the cost now. And windows were unheard of! Seeing this all lit up was even more amazing.

The museum also has exhibits on the science of glassmaking that were just all-around cool. The special exhibit right now is about alchemists and glass. "Turning lead into gold" has new meaning after realizing that their experiments took us into "lead crystal," which, of course, is the most expensive you can buy. Nicholas Flamel never found the "sorcerer's stone" in our universe, but he probably earned his keep.

The conference was so much fun ... but more on that later.