Kitty Steps

We moved into our house in 1993 - our first-ever, actually owned house.  Within a month, we adopted two furry girls into our family, dogs whom my husband christened "Rocky" and "Bullwinkle" (seriously, Rocks looked like a terrier-squirrel, and BJ had the brains of a ... well, a certain moose).  We thought it would be enough, but one day, at Little League, someone found a litter of kittens under a bush, and, of course, we claimed one as our own.

We called it Natasha (of course) but a few days later we noticed a slight ... discrepancy, and so we renamed him "Boris."

The day we brought him home, he went under our bed and we didn't see him again for two weeks (though we know he left it because the food was eaten and the litter box in the bathroom was used).  One day, out of nowhere, this little black (with exactly three white hairs) furball leapt up on the bed and stared at us.  We tried to pet him, but he would have none of that, and just curled up at my feet - which became his place of choice to sleep ever since, sucking his tail like a baby sucks his thumb for three years, a process which left him with a red tip to his black tail for several months after he finally outgrew it.

About six months later, he let us touch him on the head.  About six years later (after much patience) he not only let us pet him, he frequently leapt up into my lap (and my newspaper) to demand it.  And, at some point, though he slept at my feet his entire life, he somehow became the Big Lug's cat.

Bo weighed 18 pounds at his biggest, but after he was diagnosed with thyroid and kidney issues, he went down to a sleek 11 pounds, then, after we knew he had cancer, to 6.  He was loud, demanding, boistrous, the bane of the dogs' existences, the cause of most of Head Trip's allergy attacks, and surprisingly camera-shy (probably because we "trained" him with a squirt gun).  But he was also trusting, hilarious, affectionate, and, unlike any other cat I've ever known, worshipped us as often as he demanded it for himself.

In the end, our Boris was also brave and uncomplaining as he simply ... slipped away Saturday morning.  We will miss him.

Targetless

I'm exhausted.  Too many things on my plate.  I sold my first pieces on eBay (really, they all sold) and I'm packing things up even as I type (well, it feels that way, anyway).  I drove and drove and drove on Saturday, and though I found a second bomber jacket (for a buck!), a couple of stray gold earrings (singles - one with a heart-shaped garnet that is to die for), and a truly fun Mr. Bill stickpin ("oh no!") mostly I picked up a whole lot of nothing.  Since I spent the rest of the day tutoring, babysitting Princess, prepering for and going to a friend's birthday party, and trying to figure out how to get a postage gizmo on my eBay listing (they don't do it any more), then followed up with a 15-hour work day on Sunday ... yeah, it's no wonder I curled up with a bag of Oreos, pizza Goldfish, and 6 hours of recorded (in April) TV yesterday.

I need to prioritize - things are sliding left and right.  I have a hole in my bathroom wall and a garden made of weeds.  I haven't walked more than twice a week in months.  And the Big Lug is looking frayed around the edges because of my ... I don't even know what this is.  ToDo needs to go bye-bye while I need to simply focus on what I can do for the next week or so, one thing at a time, as I need to  instead of want to.  Yes, I'll hit a thrift shop or two, but mostly I'll deal with my responsibilities - and only my responsibilities - to my job(s), my house, my husband, and my health.

Treasure be damned.  For the next month or so, there are more important things than filthy lucre.

There has to be.

Target Rich Environments

On the 8th, we had some sprinkly kinds of rain (slim pickin's).  But on the 15th, the sun and light breeze sent the neighborhoods gaga.  I put only 20 miles or so on my car last Saturday, in 50-footbursts, because I couldn't have swung a cat without hitting a yard sale.

The entire extended weekend was beautiful.  On Friday, the Big Lug and I had gone to our watch guy (to pick up, not drop off) and stopped at a favorite (of mine) consignment store and two antique places we haven't been to in years, and even there I found some great pieces so I was starting my hunt with a dent in my allowance.  Then I shopped until almost noon Saturday (when I had to stop for a tutorial).  It was one of those days when I found something fun, or useful, or pretty no matter where I stopped. Look!

Yeah, I know - you don't see any gold!  I spend so much time in my posts with the jewelry I realized that I hardly ever talk about all the other amazing things I find.  So here they are - minus a case of stemware, by the way, since I haven't unpacked it yet (and, in fact, it's still in my trunk).

The milk glass plates are (top to bottom) "Chrysanthemum" and "The Serenade."  Neither are particularly rare, but I never find them for just a couple of dollars each (in antique stores, yet!).  That sheep bank is just cute, and though there's a name inscribed lightly in the base I can't read it so I'm treating it like folk art.  Most of the clothes are for Princess (I find more girl's than boy's - probably because the latter are much harder on fabric things at this young age), but the purses are mostly for me.  Two of them are Vera Bradley, a designer I'd never heard of until I fell in love with one when someone at my thrift shop was in line ahead of me (she is an eBay vendor).  Maybe bright colors are the next step in my "coming out," huh?  The purple faux-alligator is for Head Trip (if she wants it), and the non-Vera bright thing in back (as well as the little jewelry holder purse) is for Princess.

The bomber jacket has one tiny ink stain on the leather (which I can get out) and the pots are Revere (I love the copper bottoms) so I really do shop for practical stuff, honest!  On the impractical side, though ... if you look closely you'll see a bottle and a weird-shaped thing.  The bottle I'm still researching - lavender in color, perfect condition, I can't tell if it's old or new (yard sale find) - but the other thing is just, plain cool.  It's from a loom.  What you see in the middle is the thread spool (with thick, maybe rug, thread still on it) and the outer part is wooden, polished by use, beautiful, and the spool holder.  I just thought is was fascinating, and really, really pretty.

Okay, and there was jewelry, too.  Duh.  Some great service pins (left two are plated, the other four are 14K - one has diamonds!), the things on the left are silver (necklace for my mom-in-law, bracelet to put the charms on, a service pendant with red glass), the ankle bracelet on top is probably tin (for my future belly dancing career), and the pin on the right is English and made of china.  The rest is gold (except maybe the ring - still trying to puzzle that one out).  That chain was marked "10K and SS" on the sales tag (it had been there for two months) but the chain itself said "Italy" and, simply, "10K".  Since I've never seen an Italy sterling chain (even vermeiled) that didn't say 925, I figured it was really white and yellow gold.  It is.  Yay!

Missing, by the way, are the two things I bought for the Lug - an old but beautiful Elgin pocket watch (with chain and fob) and a Gerard Perregaux (plated) wristwatch.  I love buying him presents (even when it takes a chunk from my budget).
I'm not the only one who enjoyed the good weather and full pickings of the weekend (or past one, depending on your coast).  Check out Artsy-Fartsy for a real stunner, and - in what is quickly becoming my favorite laugh for just about any day - the hijinks of a pair of yard sale addicts and closet philosophers (with lots of pictures!) at Yard Sale Bloodbath.

Yeah, my allowance is gone. My back and feet are sore. My car sucked gas like a newborn kitten at its mama's ... you know.  And I haven't even had time to put away (or research) half of what I found.

Sigh.  It was a fabulous weekend.

ToDo

I have a love/hate relationship with lists - I need them but I can't stand that I need them.  Today is the manic day, the I-must-get-everything-wiped-from-the-list day.  (Did I mention the list covers the back of a #10 envelope?)

Done today are phone calls, one of which led to a bigger project (50-year-old plumbing replacement on Thursday morning), one of which led to a new client (six tutorial hours in two week, yay!), and one of which involved the permits that will enable me to dig up my yard for both landscaping (help, Acid Trip!) and my metal-detector obstacle course (big YAY!).  Unfortunately, it's just noon as I'm writing this ... not many strike-throughs for an energetic, flea-brained Bunny, huh?

So back into the fray I go.  Maybe I'll get back to this to tell you about the $20 of gold I found for $.75 ... or the bigger piece that I'm hoping will be another Lady Hamilton boost ... or the bad news that my 16-year-old cat is not going to make it to summer ... or the trips I've booked that I've been saying I'd book forever (clearing yet another thing from my resolution list) ... or the 5 pounds I've lost that I haven't put up on the board ...

Then again, maybe I just told you.

Back to work.

Odds and ... Ends, Actually

Just got back from the appraiser's. This is the same guy I went to for my jewelry tutorial last year, the one who helped me understand and be more discriminating in my buys. It was kind of ... weird.

Mostly, the weirdness was because my main purpose was to have the inherited pieces evaluated (for insurance). As you can see, much of it's either personal or (look far right) junky. Yep, I took all the stray earrings - hey, I have a metal-detector obstacle course to set up! But most are simply nostalgic - the pins on the left mostly belonged to my grandfather, and are plated, not gold. (The Delta Chi pin is the exception - but the 10K gold beauty is either my uncle's or one of my mother's conquests from his fraternity.) The watch was my grandmother's, and is also plated (with glass insets).

I didn't take the pins, the scrap, the XO earrings, or that pretty chain with me today simply because the price of gold will determine their eBay value, which I'll just double for insurance (I think that's what I read to do). But the rings, and the other earrings ... now they're actually pretty awesome.

First the cluster. It was a gift from Mama years ago - about a carat TW of diamonds, 14K, pretty earrings (there's a picture in one of my past posts). The others (emerald cut diamond in the middle) belonged to, I believe, my grandmother; I need to check with my uncle to be sure, but it was in a box with those pins, most of the rings, and the watch so it's a safe guess. Plus, I vaguely remember playing with them as a child, and I even had one of those "relive the moment" dreams in which I did some damage to one (see later).

The engagement ring (the one without the main stone) was also in my grandmother's jewelry box. Kind of eerie when I found it because it's an exact match to the fused set I bought in Ohio (minus the stone ... and the wedding band), but I'm not sure to whom it belonged. The big, fat ring was a gift from my stepfather to my mother so nobody wanted it (he was a snake). I'm going to sell it for the estate. The two solitaires were Mama's, and the band in back was Grandmama's, maybe even Great-Grandmother's. (In case you hadn't noticed, everything I took falls into the "broken," "cursed", or "big, soppy cheesehead" categories. What does that say about me?)

Anyway, I found out a few things. First, the cluster earrings eval'ed out to about what I thought it would. The emerald-cuts have one small stone missing, and three others that are crap so I'm getting them replaced (and my guy'll eval them once after the repair, but I suspect they'll be about the same). I quizzed him on the rest. That white-and-gold band, for example - I believed it's turn of the century, and that the tiny rubies (one missing) are natural. He concurred with a smile (and I felt a mile tall). In fact, they're probably tiny Burmese rubies, which he knew because of a single inclusion. (He marked it with a Sharpie then gave to me as homework - I love that man! He flustered me so much with his tacit praise, however, I forgot to ask him for value.) The white solitaire I knew was a CZ, but the green, I couldn't identify ... and turned out to be glass (French, dense, with no bubbles or pulls - hence my confusion). These two go into the sale pot (we still have to pay the lawyer).

The big ring was fun. Unsurprisingly (if you knew our ex-step) four of the smaller stones were not diamonds. I knew which ones were bad because I checked them all but I wanted to see if my guy could tell (without a tester). Damn he's good. He tagged them all faster than I did - and I had an electronic cheat! Then he told me to sell it as a ring would be problematic, since it was "polluted." I thought he meant the pool of disgust we all feel for our mother's ex, but he meant the bad stones. It's a really heavy ring, though, and (as far as I'm concerned) there's no such thing as a cursed diamond so I'll either sell the gold and stones separately, replace the four and sell it to pay for probate, or maybe ... well, I might have a scathingly brilliant idea for Christmas gifts. We'll see. Basically, I need a rider for more than I thought I would, though.

I also took in the Tiffany pin (which he said is likely sorority or college, glass not enamel - more homework for me to see and ID), the 18K star pin (which he loved), and the platinum watch (three-quarter of a carat of diamonds but heavy, amazing stones; and the watch works). I showed him the necklace from last week, too - I had to know. First thing he asked was "is this South American?" I shrugged and told him where I'd gotten it, but my pulse picked up. He really took his time with it, said it was probably meant to be together when I asked - not a story piece, after all, but very good (if small) stones - but he'd never seen another piece like it. And then he appraised it for almost exactly what the cert said it would. My $390 in thrifts and pawns need to be insured for nearly $4700!

It almost balanced out the choked-up quality of the day.

Going through anyone's estate isn't fun. Going through a parent's stuff is really not fun; I'd rather have my mother and grandmother back, any day. But if I can't have them, I'm glad I have the coolest memories - and now the coolest stories to tell about the jewelry, too. That is, after all, the real value of an inheritance.