If Swearing Offends You, Don't Read

I didn't want to forget these stories and if I don't get them down on my blog, I won't remember them past tomorrow.
This morning, a volunteer fireman and a paramedic were in the store at the same time, and did some story telling.  True stories, which makes them even funnier.
The first involves a house party up west.  The parents were away and the kids decided to have a party, and like unauthorized parties can do, it grew to over 300 kids.  Somebody made a 911 call from the house, stating that one of the kids had shortness of breath and chest pains.  Because of the size of the party and the number of people involved, the obligatory police presence to a 911 call was increased to three squads of mounties, one squad car from the town's police station, and, of course, the ambulance.  They met at the end of the laneway of the house and brainstormed the best way to approach, get through the crowd of teenagers and find their patient without trouble starting.  One mountie said, "lets go flying in with sirens blaring and lights flashing, so they know we're coming, and all crouch by our cars with our guns drawn."  The town cop said, "What if you get mobbed by 300 kids?"  The mountie deadpanned, "I can take out the first six."   The paramedics decided that they'd stay behind the ambulance until all of this was over.  The funny thing was, though, that when the cop cars went blasting down the farm laneway with sirens screaming and lights flashing, they just didn't find very many people left in the house.  Nobody that needed medical attention, either.  Lots of empty cars, though.
Yeah, that one was just moderately funny, but I'm still laughing about this one:
A 911 cell call came in from four boaters who had hit a sandbar and were stranded on the Dunk River and suffering from hypothermia.  Night was falling so the call was put out to a few municipalities and 60 mounties and volunteer firemen showed up to search.  The Dunk is a long, wide, shallow river that runs between a lot of woods, causing the men to slog through a lot of underbrush in the dark, shining lights on the water.  A pair of the firemen finally caught sight of the boat, hollered to the occupants and started to wade out in their survival suits, figuring one would have to swim a rope out to the boat.  As they got about halfway out, with the water part way up their boots, one said to the other, "This water had better get deep in a fucking hurry or I'm going to kill these guys."  The water did get deeper - about four inches.  They stood beside the grounded boat and asked the idiots sitting inside,  surrounded by empty beer cans, why they hadn't waded to shore.  Apparently one of them had rolled out of the boat with that intention, and got right back in, saying the water was up to his neck and it was freezing.  The fireman snorted and said, "Yeah, it's up to your neck, all right, when you're lying in it."  The other fireman radioed to the rest of the searchers to call off the search and went up to the road where one of the mounties was waiting.  After he told the mountie the story, the officer  told him to come back down with him, because, "if I go down there myself, I might shoot the fuckers."
I lost some of the humor in these stories, trying to write them down.  You lose the nuances in voices and the expressions on faces.  Our rural firemen are all volunteers and when a call comes in, they leave their nice warm houses or dinners and rush wherever they're needed, even to rescue four drunken fishermen stranded in about a foot and a half of water.   But like policemen and paramedics, they become great storytellers.

News Unfolding

What a wonderful day watching the rescue of the Chilean miners and the joy and high spirits of the people standing around that hole.  The whole world seemed to be holding its breath waiting as each man was shuttled from the bowels of the earth.
The celebration of the miracle began moments ago when the 33rd miner reached the surface.  And all I could think about was the two volunteers that chose to go down to that hell, are still there and how they would decide who would go up first.  Can you imagine being the last man down?  Forty five minutes, all by yourself, thousands of feet under the earth.  That man has my utmost admiration and respect.  

Artfire Studio

I just put immense pressure on myself, and opened an Artfire studio.  This will require having stock.  Which will require certain blocks of time dedicated to making jewelry instead of playing on the computer.  (I'm addicted to Solitaire games).
It would be very kind of people to check it out, "like" it on Facebook, if you're a "friend" or help spread the word in any way possible.  I will do my part by acting in a professional manner and making more stuff.

You can find the shop under susannaoriginals.

It's Thanksgiving here in Canada and if you're north of the border, hope you had a good weekend with family and lots of turkey.  If you're south and celebrating Columbus Day on Monday, I hope you have lots to give thanks for every day.

20 Mule Team Stubborn

The flower in the picture is one of my first efforts at silver clay and definitely not something to write home about.  But my philosophy is that every mistake has the opportunity to become "art" if you make it look like it was intended to be that way.  And I'm stubborn, just ask my mother. 
I also wanted to try riveting.  Never having done it before, I couldn't start with just a simple riveting job, I had to try something different.

 Okay, here's the basic premise.  The flower is sitting inside a hollow white plastic thingy, so that's not part of it. 
Isn't it pretty?  So far so good.  I soldered the metal clay flower to a hammered 12 gauge ring, also soldered.  I had a little trouble here...I have medium and soft solder and for some reason, I can't get the medium solder to melt.  My torch is certainly hot enough, because it was melting the flower.  So I switched to the soft solder and got the job done.  
The centre part is just sitting on the flower.

I punched out a copper circle, stamped and dapped it, and set a flat peridot crystal on top of it.  Now here's the part that should have been a wonderful example of ingenuity.  I balled three pieces of 24 gauge wire and threaded them through the peridot and copper.  Then I twisted them together tightly and cut them off about a quarter inch below the flower.

I blame this next part on Janice from The Jewelry Artists Network.  She had a wonderful tutorial on her blog "A Metalsmith's Journey" about creating a ball on the opposite side of a ring.  It involves soaking manila file folders and wrapping the bead and bottom of the item in the soaked card stock.  Well, Janice must use better quality manila folders than me, or she isn't dumb enough to twist three wires and expect them to ball up.  I set off the fire alarm but the wires were not going to ball up, uh uh, no way.   And yes, wet card stock does catch on fire. 
Okay, plan B.  I cut the twisted wire off a few mm from the end and decided to rivet.  Twisted wire does not rivet any better than it balls up.  It separated as it was hammered, and although it was flat against the back of the flower, it didn't look strong enough to hold the balled pins in place if it had any stress at all.  So what to do?  By this time, I was out of plans, but not out of stubborn.

 Something had to hold the "riveted" wires on the flower and keep them still.  So I took about an inch of 12 gauge wire and balled it on my fire brick.  Then I soldered it on top of the flattened wires with soft solder.  It looks pretty good in the picture, but by this time the front of the flower and the copper was heat patinaed and looked like heck.  Luckily, the peridot didn't crack or discolor.  It took a lot of sanding and tumbling to get it halfway looking decent, but I figured the copper would eventually darken anyway, so I just hurried the process. 

So here's the end result.  Definitely "art" because the imperfections were intended, of course.  Yeah, right.  By this time, the sun had left, so the picture isn't as good as the first and the darkness at the bottom of the ring is shadow, not firescale.  But the darned thing is finished and this is what I learned: 
Having a teacher or taking classes would be a lot easier on the nerves.  But anything can be fixed if you're stubborn enough.  And I should never do tutorials.

Anticipating the inevitable

Miss Twice, boss of the house, guardian of the world, camera poseur extraordinaire and blanket lover.  The body might be small but the heart is monstrous, taking on Irish Wolfhounds and raccoons with equal ferocity.  Unfortunately, the heart has been slowly self-destructing, no longer thumping in anticipation but softly swooshing with less and less effect.  She's coughing now, so the heart isn't able to keep the lungs working properly and the other day she fainted on our walk.  THAT was scary.  I thought she had died, but she came to in my arms and went home and bossed Dewey around for the rest of the day. 
Boy, it's hard knowing one of your best friends is dying.  And the thoughts that run through your head!  Stupid things that should be embarrassing, but are probably very normal.  Like the four-day trip I'm taking the end of the month.  Go or not?  I pretty well have to go, because it's to see my new grandson and my parents and my parents won't be around forever either.  Like hoping that she dies before the ground freezes, because I want to bury her and don't know what I'd do with her body in the winter.  
Having a pet die suddenly is a shock and horribly sad, like any death of part of your family.  Watching a dog like Blackwatch Twice, proud and independent, carrying on like there's nothing wrong and still ruling the roost, when she's awake, is a lesson in dying.  Don't baby her, let her keep her dignity, but make sure you don't forget when it's treat time.  Sigh.....

Movie Ratings

I heard the kids in the store yesterday talking about how movie ratings have changed, and how PG is now much more graphic and violent.  This was a 14 and a 19-year-old talking and I found it interesting that they found it disturbing.
I don't watch many adult movies.  If I give up a couple of hours of my precious time, I want to be entertained, not upset, scared or provoked.  So when something by Disney or Dreamworks comes into the store, I nab it before anybody else can get it, because we get the movies three days before they can be released to the public.  Prince Of Persia just arrived, a Disney movie, and I glommed onto it before the afternoon shift saw it and set myself up in my recliner with chips and sparkling water, a real movie night with the dogs.   It was a little disappointing.  The whole movie seemed to be men fighting and grunting - a Pirates of the Caribbean wanna-be without Johnny Depp's talent.  And what's with the hero and heroine stopping and gazing longingly into each other's eyes in the middle of a frantic escape from certain death?  Are they stupid, or what?  Run, dummies!   Along with the rating system, movies like that should carry a disclaimer:  "Warning - May Contain Snakes."  I may have trouble getting to sleep tonight.

Pendant?

I've been having great fun with all my scrap silver and the tiny crucible from Lacy Tools in Toronto.  Each melt turns out so differently and this one has kind of an organic look.  In "person" you can look at it and see a dolphin, flowers, leaves... one of these days I'll learn how to take a good picture of silver.
I put a 4 mm rhodolite garnet in the centre and a 2 mm lab-grown ruby on one side.  
Putting the stones in the bezels, I learned something important.  I either have to get a third hand and a magnifying glass or never, ever use 2 mm stones again!  I still don't know if it's right-side up or upside-down. 
Not sure what I'm going to use this piece for.  The fun was in the making.