Dichroic Reflections

feeling shafted

As weekends go, this one went all right, but it definitely had a couple of down spots. When we got married, Rudder said he wanted a ring with diamonds, since he didn't get an engagement ring. (My wedding ring is plain gold because I wanted one in the Jewish tradition, but my engagement ring does have diamonds, and is so pretty I still get occasional comments on it.) The one we got him has 5 small stones set in a horizontal row. When we lived in Houston, he hardly ever wore his ring because he worked with a lot of chemical and with electricity - gold conducts extremely well. When we moved here, he began wearing it all the time, because his job didn't entail electrical or chemical hazards. He keeps it on all the time, even at the gym or in the boat (I take mine off to sleep (the diamond on the engagement ring kind of sticks out) and to row, erg and lift because it hurts me to keep them on). As a result his ring has gotten scratched and a little beat up, and two of the stones are now missing.

Our anniversary is July 4, so as a gift I decided to get the missing stones replaced. I went to a jeweler recommended by a recently-engaged friend, but the price to do the work was a bit more than I expected. So I decided to shop around a bit; I went next to a store where we'd bought stuff before, which is part of a big chain. They quoted me $50 less, but before taking the ring, had to check that the diamonds were real, presumably so I couldn't claim they'd stolen and replaced them. As it turns out, they weren't. (If you wondered why I kept saying "stones" instead of diamonds above, now you know.)

That was a bit of a shock, thirteen years down the road. We'd bought the ring from a small custom store in Houston, where we'd also gotten mine. The jeweler there was a joy to work with and I hate to think she defrauded us. I don't think this ring has ever been left in a shop to be worked on, though. The other possibilities are that she didn't know (seems unlikely) or that she told us and we missed it (ditto, though she did have a heavy accent). We do know that mine is real, because it has been in the shop having the center stone replaced when it fell out, and I think they'd have noticed them then.

The store used a probe to test them and also looked under a loupe. Tthe stones were fairly scratched up; cubic zirconia is apparently much softer than diamond. I asked if they could just leave the CZs in place for now and just replace the missing ones with diamonds, but the jewelry store refused to work on them at all, due to a silly rigid corporate policy. I believed them about the CZs, but figured I should doublecheck anyway so I went to another, much ritzier jewelry store in the same shopping center. (I must be getting old. I wasn't wearing a bit of jewelry and no fancy clothes but all three stores treated me extremely well.) The jewelers at this fancy store confirmed the diagnosis, this time handing me a loupe so I could see the scratches for myself. They agreed to work on it, though; I decided to replace the missing CZs with diamonds and leave the others alone. Sometime when I'm at a loss for a gift idea, maybe I'll replace the other three.

Also, after I explained that my philosophy is not to get a better quality diamond than can be seen, they quoted me the same price as the big chain store. The stones in this ring are small and are channel-set in yellow gold, so there's very little point in getting a perfect white diamond. I like that I had a choice, and will be going back to this place again.

The only good part of it is, since Mer has said she doesn't mind my stealing her idea, while the ring is in the shop, I've asked the jeweler to see if they could engrave "Well worth the hassle" inside it. I need to come up with another shorter phrase in case that's too long; so far the best I have is "Even worth 4AM", the early wakings being my most common complaint.

The other bad thing that happened was that I got dumped again for this weekend's race in the double. She-Hulk, who has just been back to her hometown for two weeks, told me that a friend's husband there was dying and that if he did, she'd be flying back to the funeral even if it was race day, so I shouldn't depend on her and might want to row Old Salt's open water single (a Maas Aero) instead. I am not being properly sympathetic. In fact, I'm downright annoyed. She didn't tell me until late Saturday and then only because I'd called her about some other thing. (By then we'd had dinner and a whole bottle of wine so I decided not to think of it until the next day. We and she were supposed to meet the Old Salt, to give him the rack he'd need to carry a double, and she wouldn't have told me until then. Problem was, as I realized around 5:30 AM Sunday, I didn't know what time Old Salt was leaving for the boatyard, didn't want to wake his wife and didn't know if he'd have loaded his boats the night before. (He cartops his boat to the lake every time he rows, instead of storing it there.) So basically she told me too late for me to actually get to row the boat before we get to Tahoe. I will get to row it Friday, before Saturday's race, but if I hate it then, it's a bit late to do anything about it. I have rowed this boat once before, and liked it - but that was summer of 1999. Not only have I not rowed this particular boat, I haven't rowed a recreational or open water single for years and years.

So while I know that life happens and that some things come before rowing and that I should honor She-Hulk for wanting to be there for her friend, mostly I'm just feeling a little shafted right now. No oar-related puns intended. At least when Dr. Bosun asked if I'd mind if she rowed with the Old Salt instead she gave me plenty of time to get used to the alternative.

Posted by dichroic at June 12, 2006 12:59 PM