Sometime in February, I heard the very dreaded bashing and crashing going on in the basement half of my eight room raised ranch. I had heard it before! We only visit this part of the house to sit in front of the ceiling-to-floor, stone fireplace and watch TV in the winter or take advantage of the air conditioner which cools the two finished-off rooms in the summer. I knew something was up, and I was right. A squirrel had found its way in, either through our sliding glass door when we were not paying attention, or through a not-so-very-well-sealed window which will be repaired in due time. Run and jump the animal circled, energetically threatening to break every treasure on my shelves. Even they survived after the critter flew through the open sliding door, over the hot tub cover, and out onto the apple tree branch in less time than it took me to write the last sentence! OK. Do rhyming words mean double trouble?
The next day, I was on my way to a dental appointment when I decided to make a quick stop at my bank which was nearby. I was wearing a lovely necklace of a single strand of petite rose pearls my husband had given me as a gift years before and a matching three-strand bracelet of even smaller pearls he had found at a business convention. I did my banking business in minutes at the drive-through and drove down the street to park my car to go into the appointment when I noticed that the bracelet was not on my wrist. Panicked, I decided to return to the bank drive-through and survey the area. The bracelet was nowhere around. I returned to the car, drove off, and, for no reason, touched my neck with my free hand. The pearl necklace was hanging in my clothing, the clasp having broken away from the strand. No problem. I was able to retrieve the neckpiece, but where was the bracelet? Figuring it had fallen off of me somewhere I would never guess, I resigned myself to the fact that it was gone forever. Never wanting to give up, when I returned home, I looked around everywhere possible, but had no luck. My husband cursed and blamed me that it was my fault that what he had been fortunate enough to find at a business convention, I had been careless enough to lose. Giving up hope, I carried through the afternoon. It took a bathroom visit to simply look down at the tiled floor to witness the pearl bracelet–its gold clasp crushed and one of the three pearls missing, although not far. There was the lone pearl a few tiles away. Apparently, that morning before I went out, I had not secured the delicate clasp as I should have. What really puzzled me was having both pieces of jewelry break in the same day!
But I was so happy to have these lovely pearls of sentimental value back with me so they could be successfully repaired! But not until I struck back and make sure my husband would be careful enough in the future not to leave that sliding door open!