Tag: stones are the bones

Firefly’s Fifth Birthday with Rock Show side

Saturday

Opening Ceremonies for Firefly’s fifth birthday consisted of me, and my trusty meter stick, retrieving five springs from beneath the bed!

The Birthday Cat assisted by trying to wrestle the meter stick out of my hands while retrievals were underway.

It was very exciting. So exciting that Birthday Cat and spectators are now having a wee dram of cat food to recruit their strength.

Birthday Cat demonstrating singleton hall blocking technique.

So the rock show is a roaring success and I hope the vendors have a profitable weekend. When I arrived at the site, a little after 10:30 (show opened at 10), the lower parking lot was already full, so I parked up top, which was, eh, about a third full.

The room was very crowded, and I had a good time talking rocks, asking questions, getting confusing answers, and all such things that we do at shows of this nature. In fact, it was a lot of fun right up until the point when I should’ve met up with Steve at our prearranged point, so I could show him all the Very Cool Things I’d seen, and he could ditto, which I guess is never going to stop being A Thing.

I will say that things have gotten much more expensive than the last time I was at that rock show, which will have been a year or two before Steve died.

I did manage to buy a pair of hammered silver earrings, which I guess now that I have holes in my ears again, with be A Thing, and some tiger eye marbles and a piece of rutilated quart, because of course I did.

At this show people were differentiating their rutilated quartz — this piece had tourmaline inclusions, this had gold — which was instructive. There’s also a new way of cutting and polishing fragments of geodes, so that the rock the crystals live in is smooth and shaped to be a kind of holder, like an art piece. Very pretty. No, I did not buy one.

I am … very tired, despite having slept a long time last night, with the window open so I could hear the rain. I’m cooking macaroni and steaming some frozen peas, and that’s looking like lunch. Then I’ll see what else is on the schedule.

Here’s a picture of the astronomically correct moon necklace Steve gave me for my 60th birthday, and the earrings I bought today. I think they’ll make a nice set. Note: the earrings are silver. The gold glow is light from the windows.

 

It gives a lovely light

Wednesday. Sunny, slightly breezy, warm, but not too warm. The windows in my office, the bathroom, and bedroom are all open.

My watch has been very upset with me — I’ve been burning the candle at both ends to hear it tell the tale — stressful days followed by nonrestorative sleep. It’s busted me back to 8.30 hours a night, and last night I tried to oblige it, ending up with 8.10 hours of — you guessed this already, right? — nonrestorative sleep. It wants me to rest and recruit myself today, but since it seems to think that sitting and reading is “stressful,” I’m not really sure what will make it happy.

That being the case, I’ve been sitting and reading the WIP. I’m taking a break right now to give the cats their late morning treats and to eat one of the cookies I bought yesterday — apricot/pistachio. Very good.

I’ll be going back to the manuscript in a bit and work until lunch, which will be — soup and a salad.

Yesterday, as I was out and about, I heard a woman ask a clerk in one of the stores if they had any “green amethyst” jewelry. Since I thought I knew that there was no such thing as “green amethyst,” I drifted over and added my plea to hers. We were presented with several sets of earrings set with a extremely pale green stones — so pale that you had to stare at them to convince your eyes that, yes, they are green. Or maybe yellow.

The clerk having been called down-counter to answer someone else (leaving us along with (if the price tags were to be believed) a cool two grand in earrings), the woman who had first called for them confided that she had bought a “green amethyst” bracelet from this very story, but had lost it when it slipped of her wrist. She also allowed as how hers had been “bolder.”

We both declined to buy; I packed up the earrings, put them back into their box, gave them to the clerk (Virgo, here; sorry), and continued my perambulations.

So, here’s the thing: amethyst is quartz. Purple quartz, because of the inclusion of iron in the crystals. The thing that’s being called “green amethyst” is green quartz, made green by the inclusion of chlorite in its crystals. So! Purple quartz = amethyst; green quartz = prasiolite. Not “green amethyst.”

I won’t add “fight me,” because I’m sure someone will.

My cookie is gone. O! Woe! And also? Time to go back to work.

What’s happening with you on Anything Can Happen Day?

Today’s blog post title brought to you by Edna St. Vincent Millay, “First Fig”

Cat census:

Stones are the bones of the earth

What went before ONE: Making dhal for (my) lunch.

Trooper resting comfortably in the copilot’s chair. Firefly in the box on the desk. Rookie stretched out on my papers on the desk. Tali resting in Steve’s office.

Apparently, we’ve all had a rough morning and are seeking comfort.

What went before TWO: +/-970 new words today, which means! The WIP has broken 60,000. We may actually be able to do this thing.

Everybody stay safe; I’ll see you tomorrow.

Tuesday. Sunny, cool, and pleasant. Trash and recycling are at the curb.

The rose continues to survive in the front garden. I continue to apply chili powder around the base.

Trooper ate a pouch of gravy with meds included, and half of a three ounce can of Fancy Feast Grilled Tuna and Cheddar in gravy. Which is to say! He licked up all of the gravy, but then he actually did eat some of the food.

Trooper is on-deck to get his claws trimmed today, because he scratched my face this morning as he was pounding on me to get up, get up, GET UP AND FEED ME, WOMAN!

I? am very tired.

This morning, I would like to talk about rocks. Rocks have been a lifelong passion. When I was a kid, I read everything I could about rocks. I took a summer class in rocks in elementary school. I picked up rocks to take home and study. I could tell a igneous rock from a sedimentary rock, from a metamorphic rock. I loved agates, and my bucket list included finding garnets in the wild. I kept a Rock Notebook. I would talk for hours about rocks to anybody who made the mistake of asking me what I liked.

I just Loved Me some rocks, OK?

In adulthood, I kept with the picking up of Cool Stones. I would talk to Steve about rocks, mostly because he never learned not to say, “So, tell me about this one. What made you pick it up?”

And for one birthday, he surprised me with a trip into the Maine mountains to a “played out” quarry, where you could fill up a bucket with the broken stones from the discard heaps, then go sit under a tent and sift them, looking for tourmalines.

Best. Birthday. Present. Ever. And I was over 50 at the time.

I still have a lot of the rocks from that trip, even after having given away a box or two. A week or so ago, I decided to put some of the more interesting ones out on the deck on the table and let the rains cleanse them. Many of these rocks have inclusions; many have pits, where iron crystals had formed and then rusted away. A couple are just big chunks of black tourmaline. Some have quartz crystal inclusions, some, I think are garnets, but they might just as well be pink tourmaline. Some of the rocks are slabbed with mica, and, yes, there are tourmaline inclusions in almost every one. Very small tourmalines, mostly black. Black tourmaline is not as valued as the other colors.

[Taking a break to see what Trooper has made of the second half of the can of tuna and cheddar, and? The plate was clean (I put a closed door between him and the kids for this, so he dines in seclusion sometimes; other times, I butle for him.).]

OK, back to rocks. I’ve been checking the rocks on the outside table every morning, turning them and oohing and aahing over each new reveal. This morning, as I was performing this ritual, I noticed that the rains had really cleaned up a rock I particularly liked, and I could see crystals in its pebbly surface. And several of those crystals were green.

This is very exciting. Moreover, the rain has revealed in addition to white quartz crystals, and the green, many, many orange-ish crystals, which had given the piece its “pebbly” affect. This is basically a crystal farm, growing on a granite base.

Happy sigh

Thank you for listening to me talk about rocks.

Today at 11 I’m expecting an arborist, who will tell me now much it’s going to cost to take the scary pine trees at the head of the drive down before the winds knock them down and they hit the house, taking a swath of wires with them. Tonight is needlework. Between now and then, I have my duty to the cats, and I wish to write. And, yes, trim Trooper’s claws — that smack was way too close to my eye.

So! What childhood passion still makes you happy as an adult?

Have some pictures. On the table of rocks, those two black chunks? Those are black tourmaline.