But He's Twelve......?

Patrick working at Le Garage in Baltimore, MD

There is something wrong with the way I see my nieces and nephews.  I look at them and they're twelve.  I mean it.  This is Patrick working as a bar manager at Le Garage in Baltimore MD.  I know, he doesn't look twelve, he's actually more than twice that.  But I see the curly haired, blue-eyed boy that had green hair to celebrate getting his black belt.  Not the adult man concocting his own cocktails and providing the unholy spirits to their customers.  However, he did mix something up with me in mind.  It's called Temperance.  He told me what's in it, and it sounds interesting.  When I get enough money together (and the weather isn't too extreme I'm gonna go and try it, or make him fix it for me the next time he's in town.)

Maybe I miss them, the kids they used to be.  One nephew, though has grow to over 6'5", hasn't really changed much still the quick wit and smarty-pants he always was, only now he supervises other technical people.  I look at him and think, "Why are they minding him?  He's twelve?"  His brother has a daughter who is only 5 and she's absolutely adorable and beautiful.  He works at a hospital as a Sr. Tech in the endoscopy department.   Now my niece has a baby boy who will be turning 1 next month while working full time in a Fortune 200 company.  Her brother is working as an audio/visual expert for a large retailer.  They are all accomplished, some even more than myself, and yet, I see them as twelve.

Luckily have have a new crop of kids to spoil and get stuck like amber in my brain as twelve year olds.  Since those kids are having kids, and a nephew that I didn't get to participate in his life until he was old enough to get married are having kids, I get to be Granty (Great Aunty).  I get to spoil them, let them watch all the cool nerdy stuff, hype them up on sugar and caffeine and send them home.  Exactly what a great aunt should do.

 I realize it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm reaching one of those undeniable, unavoidable milestones one has to face in ones life.  It could be that I only feel like I'm holding fine at 25 so they have to be 12 then I can hide safely from reality.  Well, when I say holding fine I mean that my brain is still very alert, my creativity is s flowing again, but the body....well, lets just say the body misses the naps she took in kindergarten.  I don't know why we EVER had to give those up.  So, in about 2 months I will be celebrating my Jubilee.  I just can't say the number aloud, yet.  Give me time, I should come to terms with it.  But honestly, I don't think they will ever be anything but 12 years old in my mind.

Addicted to Addictions

Someone stop me before I go broke(er)!!!

I've known about eBay, I mean seriously, who hasn't heard about eBay?, for a while now.  I have a friend that works there and she does a great job finding tech deals which I check daily, but what really, truly draws me in are the BEADS.  I found this necklace to the left and instantly fell in love with it.  I won't pay the price for it, not when I can make it myself.  (it probably won't be this nice, but it will be me).  So, I set off looking for a labradorite pendant that flashes the blues and greens like this one does.  Labradorite can range from a dirty gray crystal with flecks of color to something this sumptuous and ethereal.  What I truly love about this stone is that it looks like a drop of water with a world frozen inside.  The wire is oxidized sterling silver, which I learned you can put shiny sterling silver in a bag with a hard boiled egg and it will oxidize it for you, they caution you not to eat the egg afterwards.  The smaller beads are 4 or 6mm faceted garnet.  The other findings I can make up as I go along, which is exactly me.

Here's the rub.  Do you know how many beads, pendants, crystals, necklaces and other doo-dads that are on eBay for a remarkable price?  I could die a happy little addict if I hadn't tallied up my costs of what I've paid for so far....$107!!!!  I could have bought the necklace for that price!  Now, don't get me wrong, most of the money is coming out of my allowance, which I can spend anyway I see fit, but still that's a lot of money for four or five labradorite pendants that I purchased and then found what I thought was the perfect one on a Buy-It-Now vendor.....and then I found the ultimate bead for my necklace, and it isn't labradorite at all....It's amethyst.  I don't think it shows well here, but if it has everything I see in it, it should suit me just fine, and amethyst has an innate power of, get this, self-control.  Boy do I need that.  I plan on putting the other pendants to use too, who know, I might inspire someone's addiction in the future with eBay being the dealer of all addictions. After all, a good addiction is a shared addiction.

If I just bought labradorite it would be one thing, but I bought more amethyst, ruby, emerald, ruby in fluorite, druzy, sea settlement jasper, jasper, and peridot and so much more....the only thing bad for the addict is the waiting for it to ship from all over the freaking world!  What addict has that kind of patience, I ask you?  I have to keep my ruler handy too, because it looks HUGE on the screen and it arrives in a flat parcel and you realize it would best fit Barbie and her skinny little friends. Grrrr.

(For those of you wondering why I've been so quiet it's because I've been so internally dead from a tsunami of emotions I was barely keeping my head above water to do my jobs.  My mom is still alive and just turned 85, my parrot is doing fine, and I am getting my creativity on.  I'm even writing again.  I'm stockpiling all these elements for when my mom goes on vacation with my sister in June and I can take over the kitchen table so I can luxuriate in the creative juices.  I'm hoping this won't be the end of the imagination train.)