2024, Family, Health, Medicine, Uncategorized, work

I Got a Few Thoughts

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Today’s post comes from Ben.

Our scale is broken. It doesn’t show the weight we want it to show. Especially after a day of wandering around the shop trying to find my tools. And swearing. Evidently swearing isn’t an aerobic activity no matter how loud or flowery I get with it. Humph. Who knew?

How many rings have you got? They weren’t always a big deal. 1886 is when Tiffany and Co introduced the popular diamond setting, then after WWII, De Beers created the ‘Diamonds are Forever’ slogan and now I have 4 silicone rings. My everyday ring, two middle ground rings, and the dress ring that Kelly gave me which says “Adventure is Out There”. Sometimes I wear it so you can read it, sometimes so I can read it. Depends how I’m feeling. When we got married in 1990, we had the real gold bands with diamonds. Kelly had the engagement ring plus wedding band. I have a silver band with tiny diamonds in it, but I wouldn’t wear it farming. So, then I got a plain silver band. And I wore it for a lot of years, and I put it in my pocket one day while working on some machinery and trying to fit my hand up in a tight spot and I didn’t want to get my hand stuck up in there by my ring. And then I forgot about it for a few days and then it wasn’t in my pocket anymore.

I’m still hoping to find it someday.

My brother-in -law wore his ring on his pinky, snagged it on a railing when jumping off something, ‘degloved’ his pinky (peeled the skin off, right down to the bone) and then had to get his pinky amputated. And that’s why we wear silicon rings now. Plus, they’re cheap and come in fun designs. Kelly has several as well.

HOW MANY TIMES DOES / DID YOUR PHONE RING BEFORE THE MACHINE ANSWERED? DID YOU DO FUNNY MESSAGES?

or TALK ABOUT YOUR RINGS.

35 thoughts on “I Got a Few Thoughts”

  1. We went with the typical engagement diamond propaganda. She subsequently lost it but we never replaced it after gaining valuable insights into the diamond trade and DeBeers in particular. That company’s history is reprehensible. Exploration of native populations, supplying industrial diamonds to the Nazis, threatening supply to the Allies and then convincing returning soldiers to buy their product…pure greed. The 1994 Frontline documentary is still available online.

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  2. We had to change phone service, and my new voicemail entity has it set on 6 rings – I prefer 4, but don’t know how to change it. Oh well, don’t get that many calls anyway.
    Our message says “You have almost reached the Hassings…”

    My favorite ring I’ve ever had was a cheapie thing from some store in San Francisco, circa 1970. I lost it a couple of years later, but still keep my eye open for something like it.

    Husband hates to wear rings, so I got two – non matching. One got lost, and the other got very thin and finally broke – I still have it.
    The ring I wear now is the 25th anniversary ring Husband surprised me with, but it’s lost the opal for a second time. Since the opal wasn’t the main event, I wear it anyway – it’s still a beautiful ring, and now I don’t have to worry about losing the stone.

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  3. After my mother died I took her 25th anniversary ring with an almost 1 CT diamond in it, the wedding ring with the tiny diamond my father bought her in 1942, and my wedding ring that belonged to Husband’s deceased mother. And melted them all down and made a new ring for myself.

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  4. Wow! … about your b-i-l’s finger! And OW!

    I’ve heard of rings getting caught in mechanical equipment and causing serious injury. Jewelry (and acrylic fake fingernails) can cause harm to a bedridden patient when a caregiver is wearing them while providing care.

    I think my phone rings four times before going to voicemail, but I’m not sure. Half the time I don’t even hear it.

    I have quite a lot of rings. Some of them are inherited. I have my grandma’s engagement ring. It has a small diamond, nothing too fancy, but I love it. I also have a cameo ring my semi-estranged brother gave me years ago. I have a couple of really old rings that my other grandma gave me when I was young. One is gold with four opals. The other is gold with a garnet. I have several genuine turquoise rings. Most of the rings I have are sterling silver with various semi-precious stones. I have a couple of gold, artisan-crafted rings that I bought at the Renaissance Festival. I don’t usually work around machines so I feel pretty safe wearing rings. I had a “mood” ring at one time. I don’t know what happened to it.

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  5. Rise and Ring-a-Ding-Ding, Baboons,

    Regarding answering machines: many years ago I had a phone number which was one number different than the old Golden Steer motel in Inver Grove Heights,MN. My prefix was 445 and that motel’s prefix was 455. A particular female who was apparently having relationship problems got the number wrong and kept leaving messages on my machine (set to 4 rings) believing that somebody was having an affair. With me. Like I needed that! I stopped answering the phone–this was before caller ID–because she would not believe that she had the phone number wrong. She was in a state of terrible distress and left frequent messages containing really inappropriate stuff. Delete/Erase!

    Regarding rings: When my mother died 18 months ago, she left behind her engagement and wedding ring. She loved her diamond and would sit and manipulate her hand so it would catch the light and sparkle. I never realized how much pride she took in her ring until i married Lou, and we had rings made for ourselves. When I showed her my new ring, she withdrew like I had slapped her, saying, “I don’t have the most beautiful ring anymore.” i was shocked. I had no idea that was part of her story of herself. No one wanted her ring after she died, so I took it and had the diamond worked into my ring since she took such pride in it.

    Regarding farmers and their digits: Rings are really dangerous in farming. Many farmers out there are missing fingers due to rings and other accidents. Makes me shudder.

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  8. Neither Robin nor I particularly likes diamonds. Apart from any ethical considerations our aesthetic reaction to diamonds is “meh!”.

    When we were married, an art professor at Carleton, a friend of Robin’s parents, designed and cast our rings, using gold from a couple of undistinguished heirloom rings. Robin’s had an inset opal. Not many years later she lost the ring when her hand got caught in a mail chute in the office where she worked. We replaced it with a simple gold band which she eventually lost as well.

    My original wedding ring was large and rather heavy since my ring size is 11 1/2. In later years, I stopped wearing it as it got a little tight.

    Robin really wanted another ring, so we went to a jewelry maker we knew and commissioned a ring for her, set with a green stone whose name I can’t remember at the moment. The metal of the ring is palladium. I took advantage of the opportunity to commission a matching palladium band for myself, trading in the gold original as partial payment.

    Among our various collections, we have a gold ring with a braided lock of hair encased under filigree. The inscription inside reads: Keokee Gone to Heaven Jan 23, 1866, Aged 17 years.

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    1. A little Christmas miracle:
      It occurred to me after I posted this morning that I had never tried to research this Keokee person. I didn’t have mush to go on: the name Keokee, a death date, and an inferred birth date (1866-17). I put those into the Ancestry search and the first result that came up was Mary Keokee Monroe, died Jan. 23, 1866.
      A little further investigation yielded this:
      https://red00420.wixsite.com/mary-keokee-monroe-

      Robin and I are planning to return the ring to this person after I document it. Given her emotional investment in Mary Keokee, I expect this will be a big surprise.

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        1. We’re trying. I sent emails to her through both Ancestry and her personal site. So far no response. I had hoped I could get the ring to her by Christmas.

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  9. I haven’t worn rings for decades for several reasons. First, my fingers are short/small and most rings look stupid on them. My high school class ring was a size 4.5 – could hardly see the blue stone set in it. Over the years my fingers have become chubbier and now that ring would only fit on my pinky. Second, I couldn’t wear rings while working on the NICU. Rings are germy and neonates have very immature immune systems. Third, wearing rings while playing piano has always bugged me (same with long fingernails – mine are very short).

    My answering machine kicks in on the fourth ring unless there is already an unheard message on it – then it kicks in on the second ring.

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  11. I have a small container with my various rings. These days I usually wear rings when I’m dressing up/going out. Just seems like too much trouble the rest of the time. I have two rings with diamonds that I never wear and have thought many times I should have them made into something I actually like but I’ve never gotten around to it.

    When I first got a cell phone my message said “I only give this number to the babysitter and my mother. If this is anybody else, you’ve probably dialed a wrong number. Better luck next time.” I kept this message for several years.

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  13. I don’t wear rings, including my engagement and wedding rings. I like rings in theory, but not in practice.

    When Husband and I went shopping for an engagement ring, we were determined not to buy a diamond because of all the horrible practices of the diamond trade. I thought of getting an opal or other gemstone. The woman at J.B. Hudson quashed that idea, telling us most stones would not stand up to daily wear. So we got the smallest diamond solitaire we could find. Now it sits in a drawer.

    Husband still wears his wedding ring every day—I don’t think he could get it off without great effort and lots of Vaseline.

    Four rings on the answering machine. Recording a basic, intelligible outgoing message is hard enough for me without trying to be clever about it.

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  14. I have a diamond ring from my grandfather. He was a carpenter and cabinet maker, but near the end of his life his occupation was listed as “gem cutter”, and my sister and I each had rings passed down to us.

    I never thought diamonds were anything special. Having been born in April, diamond was my birthstone, but I would have preferred something like amethyst or emerald. Something more colorful.

    My old answering machine had a maximum four rings, but I wanted it to be a higher number. If it rings longer, the messag will go to my Google Voice number rather than the answeringmachine, and I’d prefer that. I found a cordless phone/answering machine combo at a garage sale that let me set it at six. The cordless receiver has stopped charging, though, so I’m settling for the thing performing one of its two functions.

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  17. More Wise words for yesterday, “Don’t spin your wheels”

    Our wedding bands came from Cecil Jewelers. I don’t recall the price anymore.

    My dad shorted his ring on a wrench and a battery post. The ring got hot before he could realized what was happening and he had a burn all the way round his finger.
    Another reason for silicon rings.

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