Hope Emerald, Etc.

I prized two pendants for sentimental reasons -- one emerald, not a crown jewel, cloudy but green enough to remind me of nature, and one handsome oval smoky quartz, in superstitious terms a highly protective stone, market value five dollars. Wore them joyfully. Last January, hid them and forgot where, so for weeks and months I have torn closets apart, dumped out winter boots, stood on stepstools, searched the garage, and clawed from the cupboard boxes of Jello, thinking: "Maybe I put them here. Or here. Or here. . ." Maybe I hid them in the bottom of a trash can and they got thrown away, or in the folds of an old sweatshirt I bagged and tossed. Could I have done that? The thought gave me a pang. I'd looked everywhere. They were gone. To get a hold of myself, I recalled the Roman poet Catullus, who chided, "Cease this folly, and what you see is lost, set down as lost."

Even so, in the final week of June before leaving for Washington I sheepishly googled "patron saint of lost items," and murmured this "unfailing" prayer to St. Anthony to find the pendants -- sweetening the deal with an offer, if I found them, of a $20 donation to the nearest church:

"Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints. O Holy St. Anthony, gentlest of Saints, your love for God and charity for His creatures made you worthy, when on earth, to possess miraculous powers. Encouraged by this thought, I implore you to obtain for me (request). O gentle and loving St. Anthony, whose heart was ever full of human sympathy, whisper my petition into the ears of the sweet Infant Jesus, who loved to be folded in your arms; and the gratitude of my heart will ever be yours, plus $20. Amen."

Son of a. . . In the pantry just a half-hour ago behind a stack of canned tomatoes I found a ziplock bag with the green pendant. I stepped back and felt my heartbeat in my throat and was so grateful I collapsed onto the futon.

I said, thank you, St. Anthony. It is half of what I wanted, so you get $10. Returning to the same pantry and shelf, I moved some cans aside and there was the quartz pendant.

Old LaBarque Schoolhouse: Found!

Yes, the LaBarque Schoolhouse is still standing and it's being used as a garden-tool shed for the series of 1990s "I deserve an estate" type houses, on big rolling lawns, built around it. The painted words "LaBarque School" are very faintly visible above the door; so very faintly that the camera eye could not capture them for you, but trust me, in the sunlight, in person, they are there. This building stands near the intersection of Hwy FF and John McKeever Road, behind a fence and some trees which partially obscure it. I have lived here 10 years and never noticed it until someone told me where to look for the old schoolhouse.

A commentator on this blog said he has a 1906 photo of his mother at this school, so the structure must have been built before then, but my guess is that the building was rather new at that time. Also the stucco coating is recent; on a piece of wall where it is chipped away, you can see that the original building, or at least its foundation, is native stone.

Graves

I wouldn't post this unless I was sure that J. William and Margaret had been teased about this in life and woodn't mind being teased about it 100 years down the road. Rest in Peace. Taken near Stotts City, MO.

Learning from Well Water

Before the electric pump draws it up into daylight, the well water here has had a long and mysterious career. Fabulously icy, and stony-sweet, it’s divine -- and as hard as nails. It's taught me this:

1. For calcification around fixtures, spray with 50 percent vinegar, let it sit, wipe like you mean it, and then – wearing eye protection -- use a kitchen knife to chip off what remains.
2. Rinse hair and face with bottled water or rainwater to stave off ratty “stonewashed” hair and ashy skin.
3. A “stonewashed” effect will suffuse all your fabrics eventually. Laundering them inside out will help them last a bit longer.
   
4. Drinking glasses will look like you just drank milk from them unless you use a dishwasher armed with Jet-Dry. Alternately, buy drinking glasses by the case, or explain to your company that the glasses aren’t really dirty, that you honestly did wash them, that the hard water clouds them up. Hard water also wears out glass so that it breaks more easily.
5. Use a filtration pitcher for most of your drinking and cooking. Your coffeepots and pans will last longer. Filter the water you give to pets.
6. In your sink or washtub, detergent will look not sudsy but like scum. The harder the water, the less suds you get. But the detergent is still working. The fact is that sudsing agents are added to detergents and shampoos merely for show. Hard water fights on the side of reality. I find that fantasizing about luxurious lather is almost as good as the real thing.

I Sold A Diamond

I hated to sell, but I sold my diamond today, plus a few rings and things I liked but did not love, or that were broken. In return I received not thirty pieces of silver but $734 for the lot.

I knew this diamond for six years. It was .47 carats, grade SI1, color G, a solitaire set in 14K yellow gold, and my first and only diamond. Geologists say that the youngest diamonds are 20 million years old. So I had a very old and radiant companion. Whether it was wise I don't know. Unlike other gems I have known, this one was deaf and mute. It did not wink at me, or reveal its secret name. It was beauty and constancy incarnate, and absolutely nothing else.

My homework revealed that 24K gold is presently at an insane record-busting price high (this is technically called "price ecstasy") of close to $1000 per ounce. (You will of course get much less for 14K gold, which is 53 percent pure gold, the rest other metals). A diamond of like quality goes for about $850 wholesale, and an honest jeweler who is buying will give you perhaps 60 percent of that. The first jeweler I consulted offered me $250 for the lot. I left him staring at my afterimage, I fled so fast!

Now my stone will bring happiness and beauty to others -- for generations. It will exist until this planet is a cinder. I was a short interlude in its life. And as lovely as it was, it is just a material thing, after all. All is vanity and striving after wind.