Thursday, April 7, 2011

Day 74 Met the Jewelry Master

I am assuming I'm starting to get arthritis in my knuckles.  One will get achy and swell for a few days and then it will go back to normal and another will take a turn.   This week my ring finger was the offending finger and soon my rings were stuck on so tight it was beginning to worry me.  I'm not sure if my finger was really starting to hurt or if it was all in my head, but I began to have visions of the finger getting gangrene or something in the middle of the night.  This morning I went into the fancy jewelry store around the corner where they sell Cartier and other fancy stuff and asked for help.  The young woman in the shop directed me to the jewelry master down at the traffic circle.  I went into the building and entered a large room where there were several small windows.  A person sat behind each window.  I stopped at the first window and gestured to my finger, my rings and made a cutting gesture.  The man pointed me to another window.  I told my story again and the woman asked me to wait a few minutes.  Soon , she beckoned to me and when I walked up, she pointed to a door over in the corner of the room.  As I walked over, I heard a key turn, and a man let me in.  He led me back  past several work benches to his own bench, took my hand and began to  examine my finger.  He looked at it from every angle, tried to push the rings up and down and press on my finger to see how much room was available and looked at all his various clippers.  He tried several, but was unable to get them between my finger and the ring.  I began to get a little nervous when he picked up a small hack saw, but figured it had to be done.  He managed to work a thin strip of flexible metal between my finger and the rings and used a small plier to pull it up as far as he could.  Then he went to work.  He cut through it in just a short time.  I was relieved, because I had also noticed something that looked like a dremel, and I had been afraid that would be his next step.  After he got the first ring cut off, he played with the other two and gestured that I should try to get them off.  Ever the lady, I waited until he turned his head, spit delicately on  my finger and was able to get the engagement and wedding band off, so only the anniversary band with the little diamonds had to be cut off.  I asked how much I owed him and he said "ne" which means "no" but I insisted he take 10 lita.  It was worth more than $4 US to get my finger out of that ring without a trip to the emergency room.  I asked if he could repair it, but he indicated through gestrues and words that I should come back in 2 or 3 days because my finger was too swollen.  People really are nice.  He had to know I would have paid just about anything to get that ring off.

I spent the rest of the day washing and rewashing a load of clothes.  I had washed one single sour dish towel all by itself and noticed that it still smelled, but did not realize that the washer also smelled.  When I took out the load of clothes, they also smelled.  I rewashed them with baking soda.  Then I rewashed them with red wine vinegar, which was all I had.   Next I combined the vinegar and baking soda, which Del thought would neutralize each other. Then I walked over to the little Iki and bought a bottle of white vinegar and ran an empty wash.    After that, I ran the load again with the other half of the large bottle of vinegar.  I still think they have a slight smell, but I put them on a drying rack to see how they seem in the morning.  I hope I didn't wash holes in them.  We have half our stay left to go.
I'm not sure how I feel about front loader washers.  For one thing, I can't open it to put the item I found on the floor 1 second after I started the machine.  It also seems to only hold a quart or so of water.  I'm used to seeing clothes really drowning in water, so I can't see how they get really clean.  I guess you can't teach an old dog new laundry tricks.

Love to hear how you guys are doing, and what you've been up to,

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