Let's Fling Bling!

I do not wear much of anything that qualifies as 'adornment.'  Sure, there are people who dislike jewelry - but I just forget that I own jewelry until I'm at least 30 minutes away from home.  I do remember my favorite bracelet each morning if I leave it on the handle of my toothbrush at bedtime.

When I got my first bra in fifth grade I kept forgetting to wear it.  Maybe because I needed one about as much as Orphan Annie did, but - hey!  Totally beside the point.

I'd get to school and be so mad at myself when I woke all the way up and found I was wearing NOTHING.  (Just my giant shoes with some thick, pilly tights under a bunched-up skirt - clingy in spite of a full slip - and an undershirt under my sweater.)

Nothing!

(And a headband.)

I wrote cryptic messages on my palm: "Find b _ _ and put next to toothbrush tonight."

At this writing, I still forget my deodorant at least every other day.

The main reason I signed up for this class was to see what the heck organic jewelry meant.  After many years as a nurse, I thought I'd already been intimately acquainted with most forms of organic material.  It often presented itself as "jewelry" from trauma patients - draped around my neck, clinging to my wrists, and/or hanging from my ears.

Rose, our instructor, was so nice!  Only in her early twenties - she started making jewelry ten years ago because she hates shopping.

She sported a myriad of tattoos, several interesting piercings, an asymmetrical haircut, magenta fingernail polish that was seriously chipped from playing the ukulele, and wore a moonstone pendant she'd made hours earlier in the bathtub.

I wanted to be her.

On display were large containers divided into compartments, each brimming with brightly colored treasure.  Rose encouraged the class to take whatever "spoke" to us.

I prayed the worst things in those boxes might be large teeth from, say, an extra-old elk.  Perhaps some tiny bones from an animal that had gone on to its reward organically, and maybe a few long hairs generously donated by a horse looking to manage an unruly mane. 

My relief was palpable when I discovered that 'organic' also means 'rocks' - which had been polished, drilled, and turned into beautiful little beads!  I'd avoid the embarrassment that Wilma Flintstone surely felt whenever she stepped out of that pedal car wearing her chunky statement necklace long before statements were even invented.

I stared at the beads, unable to imagine how they would look as jewelry, even when lined up end-to-end on the table.  I am beyond 'literal.'  I need to have string through each bead and clasps on each end before I can possibly fathom a final result.

Suddenly, I envied Wilma Flintstone.  My own embarrassment would be the result of Flagrant Sub-par Imagination!  When I stepped out of my car, total strangers would chase me down to save the world from the thing around my neck.

I would definitely point out to those strangers that my feet don't get dirty from driving my car.  Then I'd answer their other questions.  Yes, I need this bra.  No, I'm not sure if that body odor is coming from me.

Two little girls in class didn't like any of the approximately four hundred thousand beads, so Rose dug through a magic bag and found several earring-wire-ready guitar picks.  These picks were not locally grown.  They may have been harvested near the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, because the girls went a little crazy when they appeared.

If only my problems could be solved so easily!  Perhaps Rose had something in that magic bag for my lack of creativity?  No.

First, I made a necklace for my mother, Pearl.  It had exactly five ingredients.  There were three long flat pieces of Mother of Pearl.  Yup.  (You want irony?  I have got it in spades.)

That little bit-o-loveliness was threaded on a piece of safety pin (metal + organic = who knew?) and strung on waxed black string.  Please.  Hold your applause!

I messed up the black string measurements, though, so the "jewels" hung down slightly off - an effect remedied by a very tiny tilt of the head.  Problem solved.  The Leaning Tower of Pearl was complete.

If you squint, those things become ACTUAL ELK TEETH!

One young man made a bracelet for his mother.  She promised not to ruin the surprise by peeking, but every time her son lost his grip on the pliers, she was smacked by a flying cross.

Surprise!

I chose some very safe organic material and made a very neutral bracelet for my girlfriend, Joan.  She loved it.  A major problem arose, however, when she put it on her wrist and discovered it was almost long enough to be a choker.  But not quite.

I had just felt so creative adding beads to that string that I could not stop!

Something tells me this is not my retirement hobby.  For starters, I don't know many people willing to pretend to love these creations enough to actually wear them.

The decorative end thingies on Joan's bracelet had already been crimped (by Rose - it was the most technical part of the project) so I had no way to take out a couple of the stones.

Instead, I showed Joan how to hold her arm up, fingers splayed, so the bracelet wouldn't slip all the way off.  I reminded her about the hundreds of Saturday mornings she surely spent the same way I did in the 1960s - sharpening pre-adult skills by practicing whatever happened on television.

I told her to close her eyes and think about Wilma exiting that pedal car, chunky-braceleted arm always in the air - checking her hair, hailing a taxisaurus, waving excitedly at her very best friend.

(What's up next Friday?  Oh, just a little class you probably already knew I was going to report on:  PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT.)