With this ring . . . .

The Husband made our rings when we got married and this is him holding mine. It was quite a process. We started by taking a class in jewelry making using the lost cast wax method. Then we went around to pawn shops and bought broken chains and rings to use the gold in them to melt down to make the rings. Then he sat at the kitchen table and carved the forms for the rings out of a special kind of wax. He wore these big, funny magnifying glasses so he could really see what he was doing. Then he would hang the wax rings upside down in a square form and pour a special plaster into the form around the wax rings. Then he would heat the resulting block of plaster so the wax rings would melt and drip out. This would leave a hole in the plaster that was the same shape as the original wax rings.Then he would melt down the gold in a ceramic dish with the blow torch and pour the molten metal into the plaster form. After everything cooled down, the molten metal became solid again, he would wash away the plaster, leaving the rings, now made of gold.

He wasn’t happy with results the first few times he made them, so he would make some more wax rings, another form, melt down the gold, and pour the rings again. This went on for weeks before the wedding, and I was just about convinced that we would have to go buy some rings. Then just three days before the wedding, he got the results he wanted.

To me, the making of these rings is kind of symbolic of marriage in general. It takes some preparation, some practice, a lot of patience, a little bit of cussing, and a lot of perserverance to get the results you want.

Blue Bell

This picture is of a foam-rubber blue VW Bug. I believe I got it from a convention somewhere, from an insurance company or something. I always kept this blue bug on my desk as a reminder of some of the hardest times and some of the best times of my life. I was married for a short time during my Naval career, and when I moved back to my hometown, it was me and the Daughter. During most of the time she was growing up, I was working, working, working. I worked in a law office for a few years, in the insurance industry for a while, as an accountant for a while. I went back to school at night, then went back to school full-time and lived on student loans. During all of this craziness, I was driving a blue VW Bug. We referred to her lovingly as Blue Bell. She cost $400, which I could afford. She got good gas mileage. She was cheap to fix when she broke down, which was not very often. So, when I eventually went to work where all of my unrelated career paths merged into a dream job, good hours, good pay, and a great organization, the blue bug on my desk was a reminder of what I had come through. It was indeed the hardest part of my life, but I always remember those as some of the best and most rewarding times. And all because I could type.

Stuff, stories, and memories

The theme of my life right now is cleaning out stuff as we are preparing to take the longest way possible to Kansas. I first noticed this theme when I was slowly going through my desk while getting ready to retire. I was passing important working-stuff along to co-workers, taking other important non-working-stuff home, and throwing other junkie-stuff out (why had I saved that stuff, anyway?). I also had a lot of pictures and toys around my desk that had been in my space for many years, and were, in a sense, old frinds of mine.

At the same time, I was approached to give a little ice-breaker speech about myself, and I realized that the stuff on my desk could help me tell my story. Well, the ice-breaker speech went pretty well, so I think I will take the same approach in the blog as I clean out the stuff that has accumulated over the past few decades. You can learn a lot about someone from their stuff and the stories that are attached.

I had a picture of my mom pinned to the wall of my cubicle. It was taken when she was about 17 or 18 years old. She was really beautiful. Our relationship when I was a teenager was pretty typical. I didn’t think she knew anything, and she didn’t think I knew anything, and we pretty much disagreed about almost every topic. However, as we all know, moms are really pretty smart. When I think about what some of the best guidance or advice I ever got from my mom, one of the many things that sticks out in my mind was when I was in the eighth grade and she made me take typing in school. I had already filled out the forms to take homemaking. "No," she said, "take typing. When you can type, you can always get a job. Then, you won’t be trapped in a situation only because you can’t take care of yourself."

So I took typing.

Our family moved around a lot when I was little, and I believe that’s why I have the wonder lust now. However, by the time I was in high school, we had pretty much settled down to where we live now, and adventure was everywhere except where I was. So, as soon as I was old enough, I joined the Navy, and saw a small bit of the world. I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan for a few years. It’s really hot and humid there. Really hot and humid. I worked outside as an electrician for fighter jets. It sounds really fun and exciting, right? No. It was really hot. Really, really hot. And humid. And, being a fair-haired girl, I was pretty sunburned all the time. So, one day, I just happened to mention that I knew how to type. Most of the fellows, probably all of the fellows at that time long ago, did not know how to type. So, I was miraculously whisked inside (into the air conditioning) to keep track of all things that needed to be typed.

Thanks, mom.