I know—a strange mix of subjects on this Friday morning.

Finally, my necklace that we bought in Cartagena! It's turquoise and a stone similar to lapis lazuli. The ornament is a replica of a pre-Colombian nose ring worn by the native people. It is removable so I could wear the nose piece with another necklace if I wanted to. The gold beads intermixed with the stones are also indicative of what the natives would have made and worn. We saw examples of these nose rings in the gold museum first, then when walking around the town we saw this in a gallery window. Without our trip to the museum I would never have known what it was.

Funny, I am not a huge fan of turquoise having been around it so much in the west, but this particular piece has extraordinary color. I am used to the more faded-out turquoise. I tried several ways of photographing it but went with flash since it showed the true color. Here's a close-up of the ornament.

What do you think? My feelings won't be hurt if you don't like it. But I LOVE it!!

Our local paper came in the mail yesterday, and on the front cover was something very sad. Do you remember these photos of the wing-walker at the air show last year? On Saturday while performing at an air show in Dayton, Ohio, she and her pilot both died when their plane crashed doing a stunt. So sad. There is a video here of the crash and you can see that thankfully they probably never knew what happened. The video is pretty graphic, so be forewarned. Our local air show in August won't be the same without her daredevil act. 

On a happier note, the paper also contained a surprise for me. If you remember, I told you that the paper published my photo of the cicada two weeks ago. I read the front page stories and the paper about halfway through when it first came and then put the paper aside. When Rick came home I was thumbing through it again and came across another photo of  mine that I had submitted of the cicada in the pool. Take a look! Not only did I get my name as a credit on the photo, but they named me again underneath! I was thrilled and very much surprised. Maybe they just needed fillers! But still …

I'm glad to report that I am feeling much better all of a sudden. I did go to the doctor the other day and my "vague symptoms" were inconclusive. I do think that she figured out my cough problem: post nasal drip. Since I've been shooting steroidal Nasonex up my nose for two days now, I am coughing a lot less. She said it might all have been related to allergies. Who knew? Either way, I am feeling more energetic and more like myself. 

We finally got a good old-fashioned thunderstorm last night. The only bad part was that it messed up our plans to skinny-dip for the first time this year as the pool was up to 82 lovely degrees. Maybe tonight …

So with that mishmash of topics I think I've said enough for today!