Collecting collections

I have a thing for picking up rocks. It's something I've always done, perhaps fostered by growing up on the shore gathering shells and beach glass. I've never sought an explanation, really. It's a thing I do.

My fiancé, though, finds it a little odd. Perhaps a further example of my "touched" nature. He doesn't really discourage me from it, just teases me when he sees evidence of what I've gathered. like lately, when I emptied out my on-loan laptop bag for my swag new one: I had a number of plastic figures, some animal, some not. I had a couple of rocks. And I had a little "medicine bag", given to me by a coworker who's recently left. He looked at my gatherings, examined the medicine bag, and (quite diplomatically, I think) said that I should take up leatherworking, so I can make my own medicine bags to put these batches of things in. My own "big medicine."

(Disclaimer: I am not Native American in any way, and these comments are not made in a denigrating or derogatory manner. It's just that, if there is medicine, personal is better.)

I've got a couple of completely round rocks that I've found. Round and flat.

I've got a piece of beach glass that's almost the entire bottom of a light blue bottle. Finding beach glass nowadays is rare, what with things like recycling instead of ocean dumping. Finding blue glass (even though this was light blue) is even more of a rarity. Though according to the article I linked, orange is the most rare. And, thinking on it, I can say that I don't think I've ever seen a single piece of beach glass that was orange; of course, orange also one of my least favorite colors, so I didn't really miss it.

I had a dream the other night wherein I just had to go fishing. I'm not sure what I was after, but I was using one of my dad's saltwater poles (Rhino brand, I believe it was). I happened to idly look through the little canvas fishing backpack he sometimes used; in one of the inner pockets was a collection of several rocks he had to have found, of varying sizes and shapes, a piece of beach glass that was part of the vertical tube of a bottle neck (brown), and some beads that looked like the king faces from a suit of cards. Later in the dream, I was at my grandparents' house, and realized my grandfather had secreted the fortunes from every fortune cookie he'd ever eaten in a side compartment on the couch (this one was rather odd, as I don't think they have Chinese food very often, nor have they had the same couches for, y'know, 80 years).

I guess it's a point of interest to disclose that my "senior quote" in my high school yearbook (they let us pick a quote to put under our senior picture, which were all uniformly taken at the school in the summer, with black shoulder wrap things provided for the girls and suit things provided for the guys) was "It is perhaps a better destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire", attributed (that I know of) to Robert Louis Stevenson.

A lesson in reading labels

So, I've given up soda, yet again. But I'd been reading some on artificial sweeteners, and was becoming increasingly alarmed. And drinking diet soda had clearly not been doing me any favors on the weight front. So. Cold turkey, no soda, diet or otherwise. I've done this a few times now (and even talked about it here at least once); maybe this time it'll stick. I've been drinking coffee (with milk and cocoa in it) and tea and lots and lots of water.

So. We have an iced tea maker I got at Wal-Mart for like ten bucks, which is a quick and fabulous way to have readily drinkable tea in the house. Typically we go for green tea, and then I'll use like, three bags of green tea and one of chai, or two green two Earl Grey, that kind of thing. We ran out of our regular green (though there is some in a multipack we have, now that I think about it) and so I got a new box (also at Wal-Mart, ugh) the other night. I guess I didn't really read the box (mostly because my misanthropy is such that by the time I make it to the tea in Wal-Mart, it is only through sheer strength of will that I don't lose my shit). I was doing some dishes, and making a cup of coffee, and I turned around when I heard the tea maker stop dripping because I was going to unplug it and was like "OH MY GOD, BLOOD TEA!"

Only the dog was awake to share my dismay. She was more concerned with her rhino. I would be too; I just spent some time down the rabbit hole of international rhino horn sales. But that is a post for another day.

As it turns out, the tea is strawberry orange green tea, not just green tea. Red antioxidant green tea, which is made with hibiscus and rooibos and stuff. So, all right. But that was kind of a bad surprise. Read the labels, kids, or else you too might end up with blood tea.