Melting at the Bead Show

Here’s an idea of how my weekend went. It was eleventy-bazillion degrees outside and I had to visit the deli counter at the grocery store.

It was Not A Good Thing.

At first, I had hopes because there were far more people working back there instead of the usual 1 + ghost (this is how I describe the phenomenon whereby there’s 1 person actually working at the counter and another one hovering around way in the back doing, as far as I can tell, nothing at all).

But my hopes did not last long when the person who waited on me began the usual process of making me repeat my order 17 times. It was so bad that even the man next to me finally leaned over the counter and said “She wants ½ pound of THAT RIGHT THERE and another ½ pound of THAT ONE OVER THERE.” I guess he decided that the technical terms “turkey” and “ham” were just too confusing.

He must’ve been right because the gal finally picked up the right two hunks of meat and headed off to the slicing machines.

Despite the number of bodies – the process still didn’t move any faster. Instead of the normal one “ghost”, there were 4 “ghosts” (i.e. people aimlessly wandering around for no purpose that I could discern).

I had to have another conversation with the gal cutting my meat when she came back and shook a piece of it in my face demanding that I try a sample. I said “no, I don’t need a sample.’’ She continued to shake the meat in my face. I kept saying “no, thank you.” After a full 4 rounds of this conversation she finally stopped and said “Oh, you don’t want a sample. Okay.”

Okay, then. Maybe my words had to bounce up to some transmitter array in deep space and then back down to her brain and the vast interstellar distances involved caused a delay?

Yeah, that’s my explanation.

So, after that and racing home to give the kidlet his lunch which we had a full 20 minutes to do and then dropping him off at the neighbor’s house, I was off to the Costa Mesa Gem Faire to meet a friend and do some bead shopping.

Normally, this is a fun activity and I was really looking forward to it…except did I mention it was REALLY FREAKIN’ HOT around here this weekend?

Ugh. It was awful.

A full half of the show was housed in a pavilion with no A/C and we didn’t even TRY to go in there. I feel so very sorry for the vendors that got stuck in that section. Frankly, if I’d been one of them, I would’ve looked at the weather report and my booth location and just said “nope.”

We did shop in the SUPPOSEDLY air-conditioned building, but by the time you fill that building with a lot of people and the lights on each of the booths, it was pretty bad. I have to say, I’ve never gotten unexcited at a bead show before, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.

I did get a bit of shopping done before we both gave up and sought out a cooler corner away from the lights and sat down with iced sodas and bitched about the heat. I ended up leaving early and left some beads behind that I’ve since been regretting, but this show comes through every 3-4 months so I’ll be able to go back if I still want them.

Like I really need more beads anyway, right? LOL!

Here’s what I did manage to get before I got heat stroke:

More copper from Patricia Healey. I just love this stuff.

Patricia's comment on my choices: "Wow, you have an, um, eclectic selection here. You must be a very free spirit."

My translation: "This weirdo doesn't know thing 1 about design and is going to make some kind of monstrosity out of my beautiful components."

I explained to her that these were not all intended for ONE design LOL! And also that I have more of her stuff at home and was trying to round out my collection and fill in some gaps.

I don't think she believed me.

10mm Swarovski pearls. Not very exciting, but my mom wants a plain, white and silver necklace that she can just wear with everything so I’m working on something for her.



Some pretty and unusual silver pieces from Sadco. The heart with the fleur-de-lys will probably be the centerpiece for my mom’s pearl necklace.




Gold components – also from Sadco.

Boro glass teardrop beads from Unicorne Beads. I’m hoping to match them to the Nevada Lapis I bought a couple of weeks ago. Of course, this plan might’ve worked out better if I’d remembered to take the Lapis WITH ME to the bead store, but the heat had melted my brain so that plan didn't really materialize. I had to just give it my best guess and hope I remembered the colors right. I think the green isn’t going to work, but hopefully, the lavender will.

A boro glass snail – also from Unicorne Beads. I dunno why – I just thought it was interesting.

One of my favorite stone vendors - Royal Quality Gem - is now carrying Lumina Inspirations porcelain pieces so I picked up a few to round out my collection:

These scallops are a new design and I loved the colors. I bought a seahorse, too, but forgot to take a picture of it (heat stroke - I told you!)

Don't adjust your screen, I made this picture blurry on purpose (yeah, right) so you could see how I was feeling shortly before I HAD to leave the show due to the extreme heat. But even with vision blurring from heat and brain melt, I wasn't out of it enough to pass by stick pearls for $8 a strand! And pretty decent quality, too. You can't tell in the picture, but the strand on the left is kind of purple and copper and the strand on the far right is more deep green with touches of blue and purple.

And then it was time for Diet Coke and the drive home back to my A/C.

It was supposed to be a FEW degrees cooler here today, but the weather has just gone quite wacky.

It's still quite hot, but overcast. It's raining, but not enough to do anything to help the fires (most of the rain is evaporating before hitting the ground and dry lightning strikes are supposed to make things worse) and everything smells like smoke even though I am so far away from the blaze. I've lived here for 39 years and this has got to be one of the most bizarre days on record.

Or maybe I still have heat stroke from Saturday and I'm just imagining all this.

KJ

P.S. That weather report was from this morning. As of this afternoon, all the clouds and smoke are gone where I am and it's just BLAZING hot again. Soooo weird. Meanwhile, the A/C in my office is cranked so high I had to wear a sweater all day. Hey, I don't explain the weirdness, I just report it.