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I have a book of alphabetized words and phrases that have to do with getting even. You know—"just deserts," "karma," "machiavellian," "nemesis," "ostracism," "payback." It's called a vindictionary.

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Q: How can you tell if a homeless person is a hoarder? 

A: They have two shopping carts.

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2017 starts off swell

Four pieces off to new homes!

Off to Boise

Off to Hudson, MA

Off to Chicago, IL

  

I’m thrilled because I just found out I could retrieve all of the MySpace blogs that were deleted with no notice when the social-media site, in its death throes, did that major overhaul

Because I thought again of a blog I wrote on MySpace and again wistfully bemoaned its loss. Then I tried once more to google “lost Myspace blogs” and found out they were recoverable.

I feel like I got a part of my life back, an important part, because a lot of those blogs I wrote in the months after I met Mike. Like this one I wrote when he had left Pawleys Island and I was still there, missing him. Note my use of the subject “mooning,” years before we had a Moon of our own:

Subject: mooning
Date created 6/3/2007 6:09:00 PM
Posted date 6/3/2007 6:07:00 PM
Body:

Sleeping close to the waves breaking on the shore. The surf like steel brushes. The tidal sway. I'm remembering your skin against mine, under my hands. The sea oats bend, shadows hatchmarked on the sand, curtains lofted by the wind.

Pawleys Island, front room, surf, new love

Star Herder

The expression on this pup is so intelligent and happy, I just love it.

STAR HERDER

The dog came on the end of a spoon, maybe meant as a souvenir or as an award for a champion at a sheep-dog trial. I gave her a more fitting tail—one that wags a bit—of vintage aluminum and antique coral beads. I couldn’t bring myself to drill holes in those ears, so I backed her with two stars hand cut from a vintage tin container from Hong Kong that held ming kung cake…and, later, cereal, apparently.

Buy my stuff here.

towers in a locket

This lovely gold-filled locket came from an antique store in Aurora, Oregon...such a nice locket. I cleaned it, then wanted to fill it. I thought of the embossed stocknagel* I got from a store in Latvia. So I cut two ovals from two stocknagel--one of Kotnov Tower in Tábor, Czech Repubic, and one of the Mariatrost Basilica in Austria--to fit the locket's two sides. I shaped them to give them a slight dome, backed them with two cut-to-fit pieces of thin brass and put them behind the metal picture frames. The chain is composed of an antique gold-filled watch chain and a gold-filled necklace chain section. I found a cool antique spring clasp to close the necklace. See part of the process in the pics below.

*Stocknagel are small plaques made of brass or sheet metal that would be attached to a walking stick with a few small nails. Collected as souvenirs, the custom began as a European alpine tradition in which the medallions covering the walking stick served as documentation and commemoration of a hiker's travels.

allotment of aluminum

On the epic road trip of the summer of 2014, up the PCH to Canada, across the Cascades, and down through Montana, we stopped at some great antique stores, and my eye was drawn to aluminum containers—a pill box, bobby pin safe, glasses case. The embossed letters, figures, and flowers looked amazing, and I loved the color of the metal. Today I cut up the beat-up glasses case, and I filed, and filed, and filed (Note: Must obtain better files) till my fingers went numb, and then I had a pretty piece.

Mittelstand

A question on Quora asks, "What does Germany do right?" Apparently, a lot. One example is the high quality of German products and the excellent service provided by the makers of those products. Case in point: A watch purchased in Germany in 1937 is taken back to the shop for repair around 1980, and they fix it "under warranty."

Businesses that hold reputability and reliability in such high regard are called Mittelstand, "small and medium-sized enterprises in German-speaking countries," many of which "focus on innovative and high-value manufactured products." 

We here at Millennium General Assembly (and by "we" I mean "I") recognize aspects of my own business plan (and by "business plan" I mean "general policies") in these tenets. I use mostly old, antique and vintage, parts to make my stuff, but I strive to make it as lasting and strong as possible, and I offer free adjustments and repairs for the life of the jewelry.

And now I want to go buy German appliances.

My stuff, you can buy here.