Every day, for the last week or so, I’ve getting in the mail small yellow or brownish envelopes with Hong Kong return addresses. They are padded and only as long as my hand. It’s not mystery (to me and to you) as to what’s inside: beads, pendants or some other jewelry-making-thing. 90% of the cheap stuff sold on e-bay comes, of course, from China (though yesterday I got a package from Singapore).
But I wonder – what does the mail carrier think about those little, strange, brown envelopes from China? Do they seem suspicious? Do they wonder what’s inside? Could it be something criminal? (even I have trouble figuring out what).
Given just how much stuff I’ve bought on e-bay, I should be getting those little packages regularly for the next couple of weeks. Let’s see if the mail carrier ever asks 🙂
Category: My World (Page 3 of 15)
As anyone who has kept up with my crafting blogs knows, I obsess. It doesn’t matter really what I obsess about, I’ll find something on which to focus all my free-moment-energies and there it is. After crafts in general, and then craft books, the newest thing has been beads. I started with the jewelry set I got at the flea market, I went on to looking for beads on Amazon (but not buying any), and about 2 weeks ago I moved to ebay. The problem with e-bay is that the sellers make it too easy for you, many of them include free shipping, and some auctions start quite low (as in one cent). Indeed, it was one of those one-cent auctions which got me. It was for a single Murano Glass Bead. What do I want with one bead? Who knows! But it was one cent, free shipping, and it was just too easy to buy it. I’m sad to say that there were dozens of more bids following that first one, and I’ve actually bought 32 (yes, that’s not a misprint) items. I don’t even know what those items are (beads and pendants, I assume), but I know that I have to quit! Now, someone take me to e-bay (or is it beadaholics?) anonymous.
Well, my first purchase came today. It’s a strand of 8mm white freshwater pearls, 55 in all. I’ve never had “real” pearls before, so I can’t really evaluate how good they are. They are definitely not all perfectly round, many seem more oval-shaped than round, and many of them have markings or some imperfection or another, but I guess it’s a way of telling that they are “real” instead of just “plastic”. In any case, I paid $5 for the strand (including shipping), so I wasn’t expecting museum quality. It took the pearls 10 days to arrive from Hong Kong, which really isn’t bad.
For the last couple of weeks, we’ve had a pigeon nesting on one of the pipes coming down from our roof. She sits there for most of the day, so I assume she’s incubating some eggs. Once in a while she flies away and we see her with another pigeon (her mate?). The kids are enthralled, we can’t wait for the baby birds to be born – I hope we see them.
We’ve had Indy, our new gatito, for a week now, and I have to say that we lucked out. No, he isn’t the cutest gatito in the world, and actually he looks more like a very small cat than a kitten (perhaps that’s why I call him gatito, but I called Syria and Jordan that when they were small as well). But he has the best personality.
First, he’s very affectionate. He loves to cuddle and be petted. As I write, he’s lying on my arm, watching my computer screen. He doesn’t mind lying in my arms with his belly up, which I very much enjoy. If what you want is a gatito to cuddle with, Indy is as good as they come.
Second, he’s very gentle and tolerant. The kids can be less than careful with him, often holding him when he doesn’t want to be held, in ways he doesn’t want to be held – but he just stays there or gently tries to get away. He hasn’t at any point shown any aggression towards us (or towards Syria or anyone else). Yeah, we’ve all gotten a couple of scratches here and there – and yesterday he bit my boob (I think he was trying to nurse!), but many less that we probably deserved. Even when you drop him or he jumps on top of someone else, he doesn’t put his claws out.
Third, he’s very playful and curious. Yes, that’s what you would expect with a kitten – but I’d forgotten just how playful and curious kittens are. He has figured out how to get everywhere, and I’ve found him in the drier, in the fireplace, inside the cabinet where I keep the pots, etc. etc. Of course, that’s annoying because I don’t want him in those places, but it’s cool that he wants to explore.
Fourth, he has finally won Syria over. It took almost a week, but he succeeded. At first, Syria would growl and hiss at him, sometimes for minutes at the time. But he kept pursing her, approaching her and making it clear that he wanted to play with her. Syria is beyond the age where she wants to play, but she figured out that the gatito wasn’t any threat, and now the two seem to get along. What’s funny is that the gatito seems dominant over the food. Of course, Syria wants to eat from the gatito’s dish because kitten food is probably tastier – but she won’t force him out.
Fifth, he doesn’t pee or poop outside the litter box 🙂
I’m sure that he has a lot of other good qualities, but his gentleness and affectionate nature are probably the most important ones 🙂
Update. Here are a couple of pictures I took today (8/17) of Indy:
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