Tearing It Up

I spent the past few days cleaning up the weeds that took over my yard in my absence. I have to get a system, because this pulling and whacking crap can't continue. I'm beat. And yet I'm seeing some real progress, and now that I have the rototiller (and now about 600 pounds of soil conditioner) I'm ready to get some real work done.

When, though, is the question. Rain tomorrow and Wednesday, class tomorrow and Thursday. My schedule will ramp up soon (I hope) and while my checkbook will be pleased, my yard could suffer again. I will dig.

In the meantime, I need to dig elsewhere. It's time to "inherit it" forward - not only do I want to go through all of my "what was I thinking" jewelry, it's time to let go of some of my more interesting items. Plus, I finally have the Big Lug ready to cull his herd of clutter, too! Fourth of July weekend is going to be Independence Day on so many levels.

Okay, in part it's because I truly believe I can't find more great things without making room for them. In part, also, because I believe I'm heading for a sea change - the thrift shop run last week yielded the most random thing: a side trip for spoons (which, in my house, are like socks - they just disappear) gave me forks instead. Not just any forks, though. Specifically, I picked up, without knowing why, 21 stainless steel, modern-style, very heavy forks, and six silver-plated, sort of ugly but intriguing (hollow-handled) ones. The former were labelled "Villeroy and Boch," which, as I found out, are selling for a pretty penny on Replacements.com. The latter were Rogers 1847. That meant little to me until I found the pattern (Columbia) and looked them up, too.

Time to have an internet yard sale.

This fall, though - aim for the Christmas crowd since most of what I'm selling is tailor-made for gifts and entertainment, not for everyday. I have some sterling sets, too, bracelets and earrings, mostly, that I might wear but are better as fodder for my range hood (goes to PayPal, after all).

However, the bulk of what I own will go to my favorite thrift shop, because the greater part of why I'll tear up the house for this is that I have so much. It's time to share the wealth.

I love that part best.

Moments

I had class today, and made a second-in-a-row trip to my thrift shop (more on that soon), so it's very, very late. Luckily, I already know the moments from this trip that will stick in my mind forever. Some I've already told you about, and some I haven't.

A glimpse of chain. Oh, shut up - it wasn't the greed (though, yes, it reared its ugly head). Something about that instant, the fact that I sensed the muted (tarnished) item in the costume jewelry was gold, told me my study and my practice with the element were starting to pay off. I felt the pride in accomplishment of a Rhodes scholar.

Tiffany for the sister-in-law. I didn't know why I handed her those earrings, why I didn't put them on eBay once I had confirmation of their maker, but that impulsive gesture, the look on her face when she realized I was serious, gave me a Fourth-of-July cascade of joy and pleasure I don't get very often. And I want more.

Privacy and luxury after none. Did I mention my sister's lake house had no doors on the bedrooms? And that the hotel that first night afterward was a suite?

Complimented on my brain, not my brawn. I kibbitzed with a Poly-Sci grad student who manned one of the front desks during the night shift - I saw him at 6a, so we were both a bit punchy. We got into a discussion (politics and the economy - shock of shocks, right?) after I snorted, then debunked something on TV with evidence I'd actually looked up (rather than falling in with the misleading, inflammatory, and gossip-inducing story travelling around), and he was amazed by the fact that I actually did research instead of just blowing off at the mouth. I think I should be insulted by that level of astonishment. But instead I'm pretty psyched.

Understanding. The Big Lug telling me I astound him - after thirty years together, he's still learning things ... and he now understands where my need for finding the order in chaos comes from (my wonderful, loud, crazy family).

Hairy poppies. The man I love insisted we were seeing Queen Anne's lace by the side of the road. I told him they looked like poppies (white, weird, fuzzy poppies). I doubted my story because the stems weren't right. We stopped at an information center for antique store brochures, and lo and behold there the silly things were in a pamphlet on Texas Wildflowers. Only in Texas would you find a prickly poppy, right? (The Big Lug admitted defeat gracefully.)

Mama's mouth. I get impatient with my mother sometimes - her choices in life, to me, have caused most of her problems, but she doesn't always see it that way ... and though in most of my life I know I could be wrong (like with the poppies) I guess I have a blind spot in that department with my parents (and my kids). There was one day when the kaleidescope shifted, however. We were getting ready to leave for the lake the next day, and Mama was supposed to call the oxygen company to get more tanks for the trip (she has a concentrator for inside the house, but needs them for the car). My sister reminded her several times, rather than doing it herself, because Mama needs the practice remembering. She didn't. When she realized she had nothing for the trip, she was upset - some of our party would have to leave without her, with the Big Lug and I driving her in the next day. She decided to try the company that delivered the stuff, without much hope but just in case. As she was looking for the phone number, she said she hated this forgetting. Inside I ramped up the frustration ... until I took another look. Her hand was over her eyes, but it was her mouth, turned down at the corners as if she was having trouble with tears, that did me in. I have never seen such a poignant (and evocative) expression of grief before. Something seriously changed inside in that moment, and I will never see my mother, or her illness, in the same way again.

I told the Lug about it as we were on our last leg, as we recapped things like this, and he said "that's your favorite?" I said, "yeah ... maybe I get it now, huh?" And he just turned back to the road and squeezed my hand.

Stuff

I bought a rototiller on Saturday, at a yard sale. It's only been used three times (according to my neighbor) and it was $700 new. I paid about a third of that. It's going to get a lot of use in the next weeks, but not today - I have to wait for the utilities to mark the yard, and, besides, I'm still battling the weeds and overgrown everything that overwhelmed my poor house while we were gone.

But that's not vacation stuff. This is.
Yep, that's what I found. All along to Texas and back, we stopped at antique malls, thrift shops, and I even caught the occasional yard sale - and it's not everything, but I didn't put my books or clothes in the picture because they don't sparkle like these things do. I wish I could figure out how to get the Big Lug's pipes in here, too, but he's already put them in their own places.

By the way, the prices I paid range from $2 (the big hoops, the silver treble clef) to $85 (the garnet-and-diamond ring). Everything is either sterling or 14K gold, and I've already worn almost all of it. The hoops (need more cleaning) and the ring were, I think, the best bargains, but the most interesting piece (to me) is that small pin, just in front of the ring. Need a better view?
See it? It's small, marked gold, and says "THS" with "21" in the middle. The back has the 14K mark, and "Folger N.Y." imprinted. It was in a bag (marked "odds and ends" for $7.50) along with a charm (another school - San Gabriel High School, in CA - in brass), a tiger's-eye pendant I couldn't find for the pic (not gold, but cute), and a couple of small, weird pieces I think I left in a motel room in TN. Anyway, I love it because it tells a story - I don't know what the story is, yet, but it could be a "key" (according to the Big Lug) or a "pep pin." There's no Folger, NY, but I found another pin for sale online, dated 1934 (10K) with a different high school but the same maker's mark, so (duh) I'm pretty sure Folger is the company, not the town. Where "THS" is, I have no idea, but gold pins, even that small, couldn't have been common. And why was it in a bag with a charm from California (70's, I figure), in a small antique shop in a little town in Texas? If anyone can help me solve the mystery, please do so!

By the way, the lily (or possibly lady's-slipper) pendant (see the diamond?) is the one I bought in Arkansas, on the chain I found in Tennessee. It makes a stellar necklace, doesn't it? I love, love, love it, and have already worn it a half-dozen times.

Oh, and if you're looking at the charm bracelet, yes, those are all musical instruments. I don't play many of them, but I love music - and this piece just called to me. It's even musical when I wear it!

But I didn't just find jewelry, books, clothes, and pipes - there was this little thing ... That's a fossil. Well, that's the imprint of whatever was the creature that was fossilized and then washed or wore away left, anyway. It's about 2.5 feet in diameter, too. Found on the shore of a river that leads into Lake Medina (by my sister, not me), it's probably only visible during really dry periods, like the one they're having now in Texas. There were also three or four "dinosaur footprints" but my brother (the geologist) says that this was all formed while it was goo on the bottom of the ocean. The big sea thing dying and falling and staying long enough to fossilize makes sense. A T-rex showing up at exactly the right moment, then dying standing up with his foot in the ooze (which couldn't have been there without gallons of salt water on top of it) is pretty much impossible. I believe him. He says it was probably hunks of rock back in the day. That makes more sense, especially since the little fossils (no pics - can't find them!) I collected were all under-the-sea things, and they were on the side of where the river would be (if they had the water to fill the river, that is). Anyway, it was very, very cool to see.

And one more fabulous find - a restaurant. Gotta tell you, until this trip the best beef I'd ever had was a slice prime rib (heaven) at Top of the Tower (Mark? It's gone now) in Omaha, Nebraska, when I went to visit my college roommate one summer. It's been eclipsed. Smokey's Steak & BBQ whipped that memory with a stick with the most tender, smokey, amazing NY strip I've ever eaten. Served up with steamed broccoli and grilled corn, it was even the best dinner I've had in years.

What a trip. What I like about the stuff is that, for the most part, I don't have to only have the memory of it. Yeah, that steak ... ah, that steak ... but between pictures and actual items, I have a really neat little chronicle of my journey, physical evidence that I was there. Which is a good thing, because the memory lately - not so much.

Next time, the moments I do - and will always - remember.

Places

I'm still amazed by the power of a long trip away from home, especially when you come home to bosses, clients, kids, and pets, none of whom were on vacation, all of whom seem to expect you to pick up exactly where you left off. But the memory of the places help us through. At least it helped me this week (so far).

Of course, the first place, one of my favorites, is the Crater of Diamonds. I really recommend the trip - as long as you go in with no expectations whatsoever. I performed all three methods for finding diamonds - surface hunting, digging, and sluicing - and found no sparklers (but much calcite). Yet the fun I had, and the people I met (not to mention the tan, even with the overcast sky) were worth the trip.



The first pic is self-explanatory, but the second gives you an idea of how big (37 acres) yet how intimate it really is. Surface hunting reveals diamonds best after rainstorms. I had high hopes that we'd have a really gully-washer, but all the rain was north of the site. Don't be decieved by the empty-looking field - I went back at the end of the day to take the pictures. When I was there, a bus load of kids from a summer camp rolled in, along with couples and families from all over (California and several points in the surrounding Arkansas towns were the bunch I spoke with). By the way - when you go, make sure to talk to the staff, and not just to bug them with questions about hunting; they are some of the nicest people I've ever met.

I wish I knew what I caught there in the corner of that second picture because it almost obscures the sluicing station in the upper left. While I was there, I had some great conversations with some moms - one was just out for a good time, same as me, and the other was ... somewhat intense as she searched the screens for treasure. I met a couple of the year-round hunters, as well. You can't see them, but off to the left are storage enclosures, chain-link fenced-off areas where the regulars can store their stuff. I asked one of them why he does this every day, and he told me, simply, "it passes the time." In this age of the one-thousand channels to surf, I was oddly delighted with his answer.

The third pic, of course, is the trough in which I used the screens to sluice off dirt and filter off the lighter stuff. It's harder than it looks - the rangers give demos every half-hour until noon, and he made it look like a breeze. It's not. It's dirty, difficult, and nail-ripping, and it usually produces only the smallest diamonds, but it was the later part of the day, and hot, so all that water (even mixed with silt) was worth it. Plus, the kids there with the parents who were searching loved playing in the mud (a hoot all on its own).

The day I went to the park, six diamonds were found, from 2 points (one-fiftieth of a carat) to 66 points (about two-thirds of a carat). One man, searching in the draw (gully, dry creek, whatever you call it) found three of those, including the biggest one. I will go back one day, timed, of course, to coincide with a tropical event (the day before), so that some great 2- or 3-carat lump will shine like a beacon from the hillock beside me.

Or maybe I'll just have the staff point out the most skilled regular and shadow him one day then hunt on my own the next.

By the way, this isn't the only place I loved. Close seconds are: the Comfort Suite in which we stayed in Austin (heaven on a stick after living in a three bedroom trailer with nine night people for nearly a week), and Monroe, Louisana (their "Antique Alley" is still a fabulous antiquing place instead of The Land That eBay Forgot, as are so many nowadays). Thirdseys would have to be eastern Tennessee (gorgeous scenery, great hospitality). But the best, still, is the inside of my own car, the Big Lug's hand on my knee.

Next time, what I found.

Deadlines

This is the first time in a long time I've missed my self-imposed deadline. No surprise, perhaps - I'm beat. We arrived home late last night, and I had a migraine when I woke; allergic to the area, or psychological manifestation, I've no idea. We had several messes (cat, daughter, a few of my own) to clean up when we returned in the wee hours, but the big jobs were today. The Big Lug mowed a lawn of monstrous proportions - "high as an elephant's eye" is what he said - and I did my best. I'll tackle the garden tomorrow, though, not today as he did; the cleaning I didn't do before we left came back to bite me in the butt, and the illness plus a tutorial (two hours) early in the afternoon equalled only one room sterilized. Since it was the master bath, and I not only cleaned the floors and fixtures but tore down the hideous blinds (replaced with dotted swiss curtains) and put in a new shelf to keep it all decluttered (I hope), it was time well spent. But I lost track.

Vacations encourage that, don't they? I forgot it was Monday, my blogdate, even my payday. That's not usual for me. And it was nice. Even though the trip back had its own set of deadlines - this many miles per day to get to the pre-booked motel - we still didn't really look at a clock very often. We didn't even turn on the radio. We didn't need to.

Ah well, more stories, hopefully even pictures, next time. For now, my only deadline is the one which will see me cuddled up to my tired, but content-with-his-accomplishments man. And I still won't look too closely at the clock.