Shiny things

I confess, I have a weakness for shiny things. It all began at the tender age of six, when, while vacationing at the Grand Canyon, my eye was taken by a ring that consisted of a steel band and a blue rock with wiggly eyes upon it. That thing was beautiful, no matter what my parents thought, and I wore it with pride for some time.

I like to think my tastes have matured somewhat since then, but like a moth to a bug zapper, I continue to find myself inevitably drawn toward jewelry counters wherever I go. Consequently, I've amassed a collection of accessories of varying quality from choir tour stops across the globe, from a gold and garnet necklace from Prague, to a particularly fetching pair of turquoise earrings with dangling gold feathers from the Little America Motel in Flagstaff, Arizona, to a dolphin-shaped bone pendant bought on the plane between Brisbane and Fiji (just so I'd have a souvenir). With quite a bit of assistance from my parents, I've also managed to pick up strands of black and white pearls, three opal necklaces, diamonds, emeralds, and one of my latest finds, a necklace and earrings in apatite, a blue-green stone usually reserved for industrial purposes.

What? It was fair trade...

While shoe shopping today, I wandered over to the jewelry counter at Gus Mayer - always a dangerous idea - and began idly examining the offerings displayed before me. A few seemed gaudy, and the Star of David necklace didn't seem appropriate, but then my eye lit on a pretty druzy with tourmaline beading, and I continued browsing. That's when I saw it: The Druzy.

For those who've devoted their brain cells to things that actually matter, take a geode, crack it open, and a druzy is the rough crystal-covered bit inside. They can form in any number of minerals, but The Druzy was a thin sliver in the middle of a turquoise-colored boulder opal, which was set with tiny diamonds all around it. In a word, gorgeous.

My mother, being the understanding sort, dutifully came over to look at my find, and the sales lady brought it out for our inspection. As it turns out, the sapphire-studded chain it was on was sold separately, but this was probably for the best, as The Druzy sold for a cool $7,500. It was the most expensive item in the case, she informed us (blame the diamonds), and while the price wasn't going down any time soon (I asked), she was still impressed that I'd known what a druzy was.

Still, damn.

As I've said, my mother is the understanding sort, and so we turned back to the case next to The Druzy, where the other two drusies were being displayed. Long story short, I walked out with the lovely first necklace I'd seen, while Mom got a nice orange druzy of her own. No, my new necklace isn't a $7,500 diamond-circled pendant, but it should look lovely for Mom's award ceremony in two weeks. That's why we were shoe shopping, after all.