it's not easy being green

[anotheranon]

Went out to my new fave bead shop to get the silver tube beads that make such excellent aiglets when flattened. I meant to get these and nothing else, but gave in and got 3 1 1/2" donut shaped beads - one moss agate, one tree agate, and one that looks like aventurine. I'll find something to do with them, I'm sure.

I can't explain my attraction to green semiprecious. This started with dark green African jade as a teenager, but has since spread to anything resembling this shade and jade of almost any green color (even that sickly-pale yellow-green that doesn't even look good on me). Shiny shiny!

Also hit a very crowded Trader Joe's to pick up goodies for Thanksgiving, including Belgian truffle brownie mix with chocolate chips (!!) Get home to find that my Dad sent me a small chocolate recipe book - must behave, must behave.....

He'd also sent on an old copy of The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation after I expressed an interest. He was trying to unload it, and I was curious to read it after seeing it referenced in "1421".

There's also a kind of sentimental value involved. My dad was a member of a number of book clubs in the past and always had these large coffee table books around - I remember one of the Voyager I and II photos and one on Ancient Egypt most fondly, but "Vinland Map" was always there on the shelf with them. I don't remember looking at it as a child; maybe I did at one point and was put off by the translations from foreign tracts and by the lack of glossy color photos.

Dad always used to date his books so he'd know when he got them - this one is dated 10 days before I was born. I think it's about time I looked at it.

Comments

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Have been browsing through the bead shop site and am most impressed at your restraint ... such lovely, lovely stuff!!!! Your attraction for green semiprecious is likely similar to my love of any opaque semiprecious (such as opal, agate and turquoise; also abalone and paui shell) ... these things are not meant to be explainable or logical, only enjoyed :-))))))

How lovely of your dad to give you that book ... special or old books are treasured in my family and it's a responsibility to be teh custodian of one; I'm looking after a beautifully illustrated copy of "The Princess of Hearts" which was originally owned by my grandfather as a boy (the girly-sounding title is misleading), then my mother and now me. I'm also in possession of two of my great-grandfather's sketchbooks and a book on Celtic design that he purchased in Scotland in the 1930s ... these came to me from a childless great-uncle (now deceased), with the instruction that I was to observe the new generations of the family and pass them on to the most worthy individual. Family books are precious things :-)))))

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

My dad and I have a long history of passing books back and forth, usually history or, lately, science fiction. When we get a particularly good one it tends to make the rounds between my dad, myself, my grandmother, and my aunt. We're all fairly voracious readers, but my mom and sister tend to favor fiction.