Day 7: Leapin' Lizards

Poor Sandy! My coworker is deathly afraid of lizards in any form--live, knitted, or bejeweled. She'll hate this one!

I have (I think) five gecko or lizard pins, ranging from the tiniest silver and marcasite to a big brass stylized Gila Monster. My favoite is a silver and turquoise pin that I bought in Sedona one year that's signed by the artist.

I don't remember where this one came from but I love it! It's copper with slivers of abalone shell that shimmer when the light hits them.

Sorry, Sandy.

Day 6: Spirit Bears

This one's way too small for me to photograph in situ. It's only about an inch and a half wide by five-eighths of an inch tall. It's another pin/pendant and it's probably better suited to wearing on a thin chain.

The artist is Roderick Tenorio and I have a couple of his pieces, though I think this is the only pin.

Day 5: Something Fishy

First, a clarification. I re-examined yesterday's parrot and he's made of thin pieces of acrylic, not ceramic. Might explain how he survived all those yars of parrot abuse.

Here's another critter pin, this one mixed media. The top piece, which says "Fresh Fish" is pottery, then there are some beads, then a brass fish. Add that to the wooden beads on my blouse, and you have a fashion catastrophe.

Finally, an update on the closet disaster of yesterday morning. I've recovered most, but not all, of the contents of the upturned jewelry hanger. Still missing: a couple of earrings. No, not a pair or earrings ... two singles.

Oh, well.

Day 4: Bad Day in Margaritaville

This morning some fool knocked one of the two multi-pocket jewelry holders off the closet door, with ... disastrous consequences.

Not to assign blame, but it was me.

And really it's not my fault--it's a major design flaw.

The holder is double-sided, meaning there are 40 pockets on each side, each one closed on three sides and open on the top. The whole thing hangs on the closet door with a hook. So to see the other side, one must pick it up gingerly and rotate it horizontally while holding the whole thing steady.

This morning somehow I turned it upside down, resulting in multitudes of pins and earrings flying out of their pockets into the depths of the closet.

Now I spent part of this weekend cleaning this closet but ... not that much, I guess ... because I'll be picking earrings out of shoes for the next forseeable future. And I was so frazzled by the whole event that I managed to leave home with no earrings, which feels as odd (I can imagine) as  going to work without basic underwear.

Damn! This thing has hung on that closet door for four years and has never been a problem--now I've apparently disturbed the delicate balance of the ecology and it'll never be the same.

Anyway, today's pin is a ceramic parrot that I probably bought at a craft show 15 years or so ago. It's a freaking miracle that it hasn't lost a tail feather or an eyeball in the interim, but it hasn't.

And I thought of titling this posting something pirate-ish like "Avast ye mateys!" but it really isn't a Long John Silver type of pirate, but more of a "let's have another drink in the tropical rain forest" type. Really it should be called "Wadrobe Malfunction."

Day 3: Up, Up, and Away

Ha! Fooled you! This one IS a pin; it's a pin-pendant. It can be worn either way.

I'm also wearing the matching earrings but they aren't visible. Hey, it's hard enough for someone who's always been non-photogenic to show off my lumps and bumps and wrinkles by showing my neck--you're definitely not going to get a full frontal view of the face!

Anyway, the set is a souvenir of one of our trips to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, probably ten or twelve years ago. I do remember that we took the motor home and the pugs (at least Lightning and Bert and maybe Bluto, too) and spent three days at the Fiesta in Balloon-Awe. We've been twice and this reminds me it's probably time to go again.

That's the most amazing event, held each year in the first weekend of October. Hundreds of hot air balloons are brought to the Albuquerque fair grounds by both private individuals and corporate entities. It's amazing to see them all tethered to the ground early in the morning, straining at their ropes as the winds pick up.

It was several years later that we finally got our first (and hopefully not our last) hot air balloon ride, that one over Phoenix, but this pin always makes me think of that amazing feeling of floating high above the ground in the equivalent of a wicker napkin basket.

By the way, it's sterling silver with turquoise, malachite and lapis and is signed but I can't read the signature, of course.

Day 2: Bear With Me

Today it's the bear pin. The bear with a directional arrow pointing west is a common Navajo icon and symbolizes (roughly) leadership or strength.

I have quite a few Southwest or Native American pieces of jewelry and three or four bears. It's a symbol I like and it gives me a feeling of being able to take on the day.

Today I'm attending a United Way luncheon representing my company so ... leadership. And it's a rubber chicken event so ... strength.

Pin For a Day

Madeleine Albright's book, Read My Pins, has gotten me thinking about all my pins and why I don't wear any of them. I mean, if I'm not wearing them and they're just sitting around, that makes a hoarder, doesn't it?

That's not a question I'm willing to answer so I'm taking the easy way out--I'm going to start wearing my pins.


Where did all of this start? How does one woman amass over a hundred different pins? Seriously, I think I could wear a different one to work every day for six months before I had to start over.

 Interestingly, Albright's obsession with pins began with a pin from her parents and reflects her Czechoslovakian background. As for me, I still have my first two pins--amazingly, they've survived the ups and downs of my rather irregular life.

Both came from my aunt and uncle, who lived in Annapolis and provided some stability during some of the more irregular years. I can't positively date either of them but maybe my cousin can. The wooden pin is attached in my mind to a YWCA day camp I attended in Annapolis and I think my cousin was a counselor that year. Did the pin come from the camp? Why do I associate it with the camp? No clue!  (Can you see my name carved into the wooden pin? Believe me, in those days you didn't wander into the local dollar store to find a pin with your child's name on it like you do today!)



The little bird was brought back from a trip to Copenhagen by my uncle. It's a Georg Jensen and is probably the only piece of Jensen silver I'll ever own. But it's nice to have that little piece of love left over from 50 years ago.


Anyway, back to today. This is the Sterling cascading hearts pin that reminded me of Albright's cascading stars pin. The top four hearts are stable and the lower three swing loose from the fourth, giving it a little movement. Well, there would be movement if there wasn't a rather substantial bulk to hold it up at that point, but let's not go there.

Footnote: Yesterday I was talking to my coworkers David and Sandy about the whole pins thing. We all worked together at The Big Corporation before we were made redundant (to give the whole layoff thing a British spin), so we've known each other a long time.

Anyway, I said that I used to wear pins all the time, both in Virginia and once I moved to Atlanta to work for TBC. Sandy said, with her usual directness, "Oh, yeah, back in the day you looked nice every day."

Hmmm, Sandy. What'cha trying to say? Never mind, I get it.