Back in order

Early this morning, I headed into The City with Barry. While he taught his class and got some work done, I waited for my appointment for my Sandostatin injection at a nearby Starbucks. I had started with a partially filled oxygen cylinder, so had brought along an extra one in a second canvas bag that fits the size tanks I use.

You do not see too many folks out and about with supplemental oxygen. And I sometimes wonder whether people might feel nervous watching me take an oxygen cylinder out of a bag, screw the regulator on top of it, and open the lever to allow the oxygen to flow. I am happy to say that I have never had such reactions, but in these somewhat dark days I found myself pondering whether my behavior might look suspicious, and how I would react if it did.

In general, the only people who routinely stare at me with my oxygen are children, and I often find myself explaining to them before they even ask, because I think it is less frightening to look at this as a more routine part of some people’s lives.

After my Sandostatin injection, we headed down to West 47^th Street, the “jewelry district.”  This is always quite an experience. The long block of 47^th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues is full of jewelry stores, some stand-alone but many places where multiple small jewelers peddle their wares from individual stalls. We had bought the baby shoe charms and necklace after our first two, Joshua and Eliana, were born from one of these vendors our friend Judy had told us about, and we have gone back to the same vendor each time. When Maya was born, we saw that four charms just were not hanging in a very attractive way, and the jeweler suggested we separate the individual shoes with gold balls. When Julia was born, we were fortunate that Judy still had the contact information for the jeweler, so we were able to return to the same place. And they are still right there last saw them 2½ years ago.

As I mentioned before, in the interest of symmetry I had reordered the little shoes to put the boy in the middle flanked by two girls on each side. But now that we have both an oldest and a youngest boy with four girls in between, it was only natural to put the children back together in birth order. The jeweler was busy so he said that if we wanted to get this done today, perhaps we could string the balls and the charms ourselves. He removed the slasp so the balls and charms would easily slip off the chain. Getting the chain through the tiny holes in the balls turned out to be a bit challenging but helped ensure a true 47^th Street experience. So here are our six charms, in birth order, on the necklace.

I can hear you all saying “may you wear them for many years in good health!”

Love,

Rebecca