I've crossed another milestone on my path to senescence. Last night I went to bed to read, and I was still wearing my earrings. These silver earrings are from Scottsdale, and I love them. Each one has a shamanic hand imprinted on it. When I'm wearing both earrings, I tell myself the hands ward off evil spirits.
So there I was in bed, reading Book #1 of Harry Potter, and I felt one earring fall off. I reached up, and sure enough, the right earring was lying on my shoulder. The back, however, was gone from behind my ear. It couldn't have gone far, right? I'm checking the bedding, no back, and then I checked through the various layers of items I wear to bed in lieu of a pajama top: tshirt, cashmere sweater, hooded sweatshirt--and I saw the back under my sweatshirt, but in my excitement, I bumped it, and it disappeared again.
I got up, put the backless earring in a safe place, shook out my sweatshirt, and searched through the blankets a little more with no results. So I went back to bed, finished last Sunday's NYT Xword puzzle, and fell asleep. This morning when I woke up, I could not find the backless earring!
Please be assured that I do not lose my earrings often. In fact, I can't remember the last pair of which one went missing. It was years ago, back in my working days when I wore earrings daily in an effort to be, as Emma Donoghue's character in Landing" said, "tediously well groomed." When I retired, I installed a set of pearl earrings and have pretty much left them in until last month, when I got my hair cut very short. In the past, store clerks here have tended to call me "sir," even with the pearl earrings and a modish (often curled) bob. So now I've taken to wearing bigger earrings and even a bit of makeup to counteract the skinhead look. Now they don't say anything. Good.
Anyway, I have never before lost a whole earring while I was in bed reading. But the lost is found. I'm reminded that today is when Mercury turns retrograde until March 17, and during that time, the best laid plans of mice & men gang aft agley. It'll all straighten out next month, though. Maybe this is the universe reminding me to just take a deep breath and not panic, no matter what happens with the sequester, et al. The Pope, too. This wasn't a good for him to retire--schedules can go awry--but maybe it was best he did it before the planet began its retrograde pattern.
XE--When, in my early 50s, I deigned to have my ears peirced, I thought that it would solve the problem of my losing ear ornaments, one at a time. It didn't work out that way. I don't know how many earrings I've lost; but, the expense of replacing just one (lost while I was working in the woods - wasn't that a neat trick?) caused me much chagrin. Fortunately, my friend-the-jeweler whose shop is a short walk from our house, talked his supplier into selling me just one earring. Don't even talk to me about earring backs. Just a few weeks ago I dropped a white-gold earring back down the drain as I was trying to get it to go onto the post for the very first time in its short life. My friend-the-jeweler had a good chuckle over that one and was quite willing to sell me yet another earring back.
ReplyDeleteBetter luck to us both. I'll bet you looked fetching, reading in bed with your one earring on.
Cop Car
CC: Know what you mean about pierced ears not solving the problem of missing earrings! I rarely lost the old kind of earring (mostly because they did not belong to me but to my mother), but I do lose those blasted little backs. It sounds as if you're keeping your jeweler-neighbor's shop afloat if you're buying gold replacements!
ReplyDeleteI seriously doubt I looked fetching reading in bed with one earring. I don't even look fetching with TWO.
Besides, I could care less what I look like, although this "excuse me, sir" stuff is getting a little old. Happened again yesterday. Cathy says it's my baseball cap that throws them off. But with pearl earrings?? Boyz who wear earrings around here go for the big Carmen Miranda kind. Think I'll go with my "Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party" t-shirt.
Doesn't everyone have a little container of earrings that we keep just in case the universe decides to give back their mates that we lost back in high school? The D.N.
ReplyDeletesmile....yep. but i never wore earrings in high school. The one piece of jewelry I had from those days was my h.s. graduation ring, which a friend wore and lost. And my first post-convent piece of jewelry, which another friend broke accidentally (the gold and jade nest is still there, but the little netsuke-type bird has flown). I'm not much good at jewelry, I'm afraid. After my divorce, when things were tight, I pawned my wedding-engagement ring combo and sold my mom's diamond ring to a family member.
ReplyDeleteMaybe 10 years ago, I bought a simple silver ring on the street in Greenwich Village, thinking "I'LL marry you!" (meaning myself). still have it, too.
My therapist used to say, "we have to get you over the vow of poverty." haha..
XE--Yes, I contribute to supporting my friend (friends, really, it's a mom and pop operation). I met the couple AFTER moving into this house in late 1999, and have had Paul "re-do" many earrings, pendants, rings so that they are just to my liking - or for gifts to others. There hasn't been much jewelry in their showcase for the past few years. Business is lousy. But...they hang in there...and I enjoy discussing politics, family, or whatever with Paul and Jill.
ReplyDeleteCC
CC: You're a dream neighbor! And a role model! Where do you live again???
DeleteShammy: You have admirable detachment. It's certainly easier on the nerves to just let things go when they do. But when I lose something significant, I like to picture how happy I will be when it comes back to my hands. As a finding technique, that works as well as or better than any other. When I moved the last time, I lost my PASSPORT, $2000 bond (a payoff from retirement), and one other thing that I felt I couldn't live without. I just kept picturing the stuff coming back, and guess what? it all did! I was just looking in the wrong place. It has not worked on my b-loved high school graduation ring, though. I'm still pissed about that. Maybe I need to lighten up. I've tried seeing if Jostens has replacements for their (very) old rings.....It had my initials engraved in it, too. snif!!
the first dangly earrings I ever bought when I had the ears done at age 50ish were my very favourites in the whole wide world..... I lost one, came home and there is was on the mat just inside the door..., put it in, promptly lost it again the next day! And now it's gone forever! Just shows you that if you lose an earring it's meant to be lost, so don't bother to look for it, it will only bring heartbreak..... sob!
ReplyDeleteXE--You are so sweet. I live in a suburb of Wichita KS.
ReplyDeleteShammickite--I have only purchased one pair of dangly earrings since having my ears pierced - turquoise set in gold. As I never felt right wearing them, I had Paul convert them into a couple of lavaliers (from the dangled parts) and a pair of earrings (from the parts that attached to the studs).
CC
CC: if you will tell me what a lavalier is, my day will be complete. oh....never mind. I just looked it up. This clearly belongs to fraternity and sorority culture. nice idea, though, to make turquoise-gold lavaliers out of the earring parts. Just no letters.
ReplyDeletedo you ever think of making jewelry your own self? I do. I've done beads, but never figured out how I could buy gold, silver, & gemstones.......
Glad you found your earrings. I lost a backing a few years ago I never could find and am still perturbed by that fact after all this time. I only buy one-piece type that lock in now but regrettably even lost one earring of two sets and still haven't figured out how they could have come off when I was out in the community, so didn't even know where to look. Then the price of gold went out of sight, so no hope anyone would return them if found. Am thinking I might wear this mismatched pair together, just for fun, since I like them so much. Or...maybe I'll just wear one at a time and if anyone says anything, I'll just say, "Oh dear, I guess I must have lost one." Gold is too expensive to try to replace the missing earrings now even if the jewelry store where I got them years ago could do so.
ReplyDeleteXE--No, I don't make jewelry. I'm not really an artsy craftsy type. My head works better than my hands do - and the head and hands don't coordinate all that well.
ReplyDeleteJoared--I have, unintentionally, worn miss-matched earrings several times (that I know of!) and no one has ever said a word. As a test, in the 1960s, I wore one black shoe and one white shoe to a party at my own house. No one peeped. We are all too afraid of hurting one another's feelings, sometimes.
Cop Car
CC--U R a RIOT!! hahaha....can just imagine you in those shoes....
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