A story with a (mostly) happy ending
Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 5:17 pm
I was brushing all the snow off my car Tuesday night; the big snowstorm was Monday, & I'd left the car parked where it was since then. But you have to get the snow off, so it looks like you intend to move it, even if you don't intend to move it until you can dig it out, & until there's some other space to move it to. You have to do this around here because of those illegal pre-emptive tickets TPTB like to hand out to "people who don't intend to move their cars, which we can tell because they're still covered in snow".
I saw several of those illegal pre-emptive tickets; you have until 48 hours after the snow emergency rules have been lifted to move the cars, but I saw several snow-covered cars with tickets stuck in the doors 3 or 4 hours before the 48 hour period was up. Not mine, though, because although I hadn't moved it, I'd cleaned off the snow. I did rush back to move it before Wednesday night, 6:00pm, 48 hours after the snow-emergency rules were lifted.
At any rate, while I was brushing the snow off the car back on Tuesday night, I lost my bracelet. Its a lovely rhodonite bracelet, but the stones are the loveliest part; it isn't well-made, because, as my sister says, well made jewelry has those links the clasp links to soldered shut, & has knots in the string between each bead, & this has neither. The bracelet keeps getting caught on things, like my sleeve, my back-pack strap, & disconnects itself at either of the 2 weakest unsoldered links. My sister would fix it, but she's in Ohio with her jewelry-fixing equipment, & I'm here. I generally look on the grass or wherever the bracelet goes flying to & can pick it up by its lovely pink color.
I got home from brushing off the car & noticed I didn't have my bracelet any more. I had seen it on my wrist as I took the brush/scraper out of the car, so know I didn't lose it on the walk to the car. I hadn't seen or felt it do its flying act, but I hadn't had my gloves on, & couldn't feel much of anything by the end of the car-brushing/scraping. In fact, I'd opened up the car at one point to lay my backpack inside & get my gloves out of it.
So there were really only 4 places the bracelet could be: In my backpack, falling off when I reached in for the gloves, inside the car, having fallen off when I reached into the backpack on the driver's seat for the gloves, in my apartment hallway, having flown off when I took my coat off, or somewhere on the fairly short route between the parking space & my apartment.
I checked the easy places over & over; not there. What was left was the walk from the car to the apt. White snow, pink bracelet, didn't find it. Many times I retraced this route. I did a fair amount of shoveling around the car, but because the snow was now ice, couldn't get it all up. When I moved the car Wednesday, I of course looked under where it had been; no bracelet.
I figured someone could have found it & was wearing it in good health, I would hope. Didn't leave a note on a local building about "found bracelet", but that's the breaks.
OK, today, just for one last look, since the snow is no longer white, & also mostly not there in the former parking space, I went back to that space.
Lying in the street, looking very unpink & dirty, is my bracelet.
A lot more of the stones are brownish than used to be; my sister says the minerals in the stone are affected by temperature changes, pressure & water, & they sure were subjected to temperature changes (it was 11 degrees F several nights) & lots of water. Pressure would have come too, from being run over there in the street, but it doesn't look like that, at least, happened. (I knew all this stuff, but it helps to be told dispassionately by an expert ceramist). Of course, I protested, these are stones & as such not exactly strangers to temperature, pressure & water. Yeah, but as cut, polished stones, these particular stones are probably from an interior spot on the parent rock, & hadn't been all that exposed until now.
Its not "the same almost all all-pink stones" bracelet I lost, but I'm glad to have it back, newly brown & newly translucent stones & all. The rhodonite web sites specifically say this can happen on exposure, though they don't say "take your bracelet off while shoveling!". I say that, now. I also say "don't wear it until my sister fixes it", but I have not been able to keep that vow, not even for the 1st few hours of having it back. I do keep looking at my wrist for an "its still there check".
I saw several of those illegal pre-emptive tickets; you have until 48 hours after the snow emergency rules have been lifted to move the cars, but I saw several snow-covered cars with tickets stuck in the doors 3 or 4 hours before the 48 hour period was up. Not mine, though, because although I hadn't moved it, I'd cleaned off the snow. I did rush back to move it before Wednesday night, 6:00pm, 48 hours after the snow-emergency rules were lifted.
At any rate, while I was brushing the snow off the car back on Tuesday night, I lost my bracelet. Its a lovely rhodonite bracelet, but the stones are the loveliest part; it isn't well-made, because, as my sister says, well made jewelry has those links the clasp links to soldered shut, & has knots in the string between each bead, & this has neither. The bracelet keeps getting caught on things, like my sleeve, my back-pack strap, & disconnects itself at either of the 2 weakest unsoldered links. My sister would fix it, but she's in Ohio with her jewelry-fixing equipment, & I'm here. I generally look on the grass or wherever the bracelet goes flying to & can pick it up by its lovely pink color.
I got home from brushing off the car & noticed I didn't have my bracelet any more. I had seen it on my wrist as I took the brush/scraper out of the car, so know I didn't lose it on the walk to the car. I hadn't seen or felt it do its flying act, but I hadn't had my gloves on, & couldn't feel much of anything by the end of the car-brushing/scraping. In fact, I'd opened up the car at one point to lay my backpack inside & get my gloves out of it.
So there were really only 4 places the bracelet could be: In my backpack, falling off when I reached in for the gloves, inside the car, having fallen off when I reached into the backpack on the driver's seat for the gloves, in my apartment hallway, having flown off when I took my coat off, or somewhere on the fairly short route between the parking space & my apartment.
I checked the easy places over & over; not there. What was left was the walk from the car to the apt. White snow, pink bracelet, didn't find it. Many times I retraced this route. I did a fair amount of shoveling around the car, but because the snow was now ice, couldn't get it all up. When I moved the car Wednesday, I of course looked under where it had been; no bracelet.
I figured someone could have found it & was wearing it in good health, I would hope. Didn't leave a note on a local building about "found bracelet", but that's the breaks.
OK, today, just for one last look, since the snow is no longer white, & also mostly not there in the former parking space, I went back to that space.
Lying in the street, looking very unpink & dirty, is my bracelet.
A lot more of the stones are brownish than used to be; my sister says the minerals in the stone are affected by temperature changes, pressure & water, & they sure were subjected to temperature changes (it was 11 degrees F several nights) & lots of water. Pressure would have come too, from being run over there in the street, but it doesn't look like that, at least, happened. (I knew all this stuff, but it helps to be told dispassionately by an expert ceramist). Of course, I protested, these are stones & as such not exactly strangers to temperature, pressure & water. Yeah, but as cut, polished stones, these particular stones are probably from an interior spot on the parent rock, & hadn't been all that exposed until now.
Its not "the same almost all all-pink stones" bracelet I lost, but I'm glad to have it back, newly brown & newly translucent stones & all. The rhodonite web sites specifically say this can happen on exposure, though they don't say "take your bracelet off while shoveling!". I say that, now. I also say "don't wear it until my sister fixes it", but I have not been able to keep that vow, not even for the 1st few hours of having it back. I do keep looking at my wrist for an "its still there check".