1) Oooooh, y’all. I messed up.
Here is the thing: I like rocks. I like rocks and crystals and gems, and the gem and mineral show came to Huntsville. Anthony and I decided to go because he, too, likes rocks and stuff. I am a budding, late-in-life collector, and I knew I'd want to get some things, so I put aside some money to do just that. The first booth we saw had hundreds, and I mean hundreds, of strands of beads out on the table. Out where you could pick them up and touch them. There were pearls and colored gemstone beads; pretty much anything you could imagine. I wanted to get some pearls, because I recently learned how to properly knot a pearl necklace (which, if Bruce Wayne’s mother had been wearing, her necklace wouldn’t have broken and spilled her pearls all over the street. That is a pet peeve of mine, but I digress) and I've always wanted a string of real pearls but can't afford a nice one. I looked at the prices, and they weren’t bad, but I decided I’d wait until I’d gone to all the vendors before I got the pearls in case I changed my mind or spent all my money. Whichever came first.
I grabbed a few things I wanted on my way around the room and came back to the bead table. I perused the cultured pearls.
-TANGENT- I have only recently done some rabbit holing about pearls, because I received a string of pearls from a great aunt that I needed to clean and re-string and had to learn how to do it properly. We always thought they were real, but they turned out to be costume jewelry. Also, they were in terrible condition, so I had to strip off the outside layer and was left with antique milk glass beads. Still pretty, but not pearls. At any rate, I learned a LOT about pearls in a short amount of time. - END TANGENT-
I found the exact ones I wanted. They were not the best, most ideal pearls, of course. They were not perfectly round, being slightly flattened, but still all matching in shape and the same size. They were the most delicious, delicate shades of subtle lavender, peach, gold, and white, too, so not just white pearls. I looked at the price tag and saw $54.00, and thought WOW, that's a steal. They must have imperfections that I can't see in this light. So I got that strand, a small carved bone pendant, and a strand of polished pink opal beads and handed them over to the guy behind the counter. He was THRILLED that I was buying these beads, and as he began to ring them up, I saw that I had misread the price tag on the pearls. They were not $54 dollars a strand, they were $540 dollars a strand. I almost swallowed my tongue. I did stop him and asked him to take off the opal beads, and thankfully the pearls were on sale for a hefty discount, but I still ended up paying almost $300. Thankfully, that was just about what I'd scraped together for my shopping trip.
I knew I could have told him I didn't want them after all, but he was an older man who was genuinely ecstatic that he'd made a sale, and I legit didn't want to disappoint him. Plus, the price I paid was still well below retail for that number of size-and-shape matched pearls. So now I'm the proud owner of these pears that I will need to make into something beautiful that one of my nieces will inherit and probably sell someday. Either that, or I will be handing out single pearls for every birthday, holiday, wedding, and funeral until they're all gone.
Moral of this story is: Read and re-read the price tags, friends!
2) After the Gem Show debacle, Anthony and I went to the Huntsville Museum of Art to see the Andy Warhol exhibit. It was a lot of fun, even if I have strong opinions about Andy Warhol, but I did see some stuff I had never seen before and didn't hate! We also wondered through some of the permanent exhibits, which I'd never done before. I think I'm going to get a membership, because it is reciprocal at a lot of other museums across the country. I do love a good museum, so I'm sure it'll be worth it!
3) You all know I'm a very vivid dreamer, and one of the best/worst things is when someone who is gone comes back in your dreams. I dreamed about my dad a while ago, and I was so excited to see him, but waking up from that was hard. I dreamed about Sara, and I can't prove it, but when she comes back into my dreams, it's less about visiting, and more like she's haunting me. I still love her, though. But one of the hardest things is when you dream about someone that is dead, or even just not around anymore, and they don't have their normal face. I don't know if, subconsciously, it hurts too much to see that person as they really are, or if it's just one of those weird quirks of the brain, but that happened recently. I had this elaborate, long, adventure-time dream about a friend I haven't seen in years, but he didn't look like himself, I just knew it was him. I was like "Dude, I know your family is Scotch-Irish and you were born and raised in Alabama...why are you Korean?" He didn't have a good answer for that. I guess it was still good to see him, though.
4) I have had the most irritating situation with my doctor's office for the past few years. Don't get me wrong, I really like my actual GP. She's nice, and she listens, and she's very personable, but I'm starting to take umbrage with the rest of the place. I go once a year to do my yearly blood work and oil change, or whatever you want to call it. I get my levels and my prescriptions, and we call it good. Usually. However, there have been times that I needed to be referred to a specialist for tests. They did not refer me. I assumed that maybe they decided later that I didn't need the tests, but when my appointment came up the next year, I was asked if I'd seen the specialist. I said "No, because I didn't get referred." They said that they would refer me. They did not! This went on for about three years before I told them that I STILL hadn't been referred, and again they said they'd refer me, which they did, ONLY after they saw my chart and noticed I'd had a surgery related to the tests that they kept telling me I needed. They also won't allow the pharmacy to call them if a prescription has ended, so I have had to suss out on my own that the reason my prescriptions aren't getting filled is because the two places will not communicate! THEN, this past visit, I had four prescriptions that I needed filled. Two are not that important, but good to have on hand, one hadn't been refilled for almost a year (I had an extra bottle and kept forgetting to take it, so I still had some of those) and one is EXTREMELY important. None of them were sent for refills, I checked with the pharmacy. So I waited a week to give them some grace, and then called and requested the refills on the recorded "Refill" line. No joy. I waited another week, and then physically had to drive down to the doctor's office and look someone in the eyeballs and request the refills, which actually worked, although they still haven't refilled the very important one, but I'll cross that bridge when I'm almost out of those. All of those things are annoying, yes, but the thing that ticks me off the most is that I know other people (men people) who go to this same office and even have the same GP I do, and this has never once happened to them. They need meds? Always refilled. They need referrals? Always referred. Not once have they fallen through the cracks, but I am continually being forgotten about.
I'm beginning to wonder if they know I'm real.
5) I don't have a number five, but I hated to leave things on that note. Hope you're having your best day so far! READ THE PRICE TAGS TWICE!
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