Ok, time for some insane serendipity.
Our jeweler in town died of a very sudden heart attack. I was sad, because I liked him quite a lot. All of the stuff in his shop was being sold because none of his heirs are jewelers. One of the jewelers who worked with him is responsible for liquidating the stuff. He's not getting paid nearly as much as he would "at the bench" but he's raising the money for the dead jeweler's mother.
I went down to the shop, which is open from 10 to 2, except when it isn't. We talked about the jeweler for a while. I nosed about. Most of the jewelry he made had been sold. The furniture, however, was still there. His jeweler's desk was there, made by his father, and quite beat up from decades of use. I bought it, a pendant, an opal and a gigantic old case for displaying dolls. The doll case has wiring to light the shelves but I was strictly warned against plugging it in, since the wiring is from the 1920s or so.
Why the opal? Well, there is another jeweler in town, a brazilian. I know him because his daughter was in synchronized swimming with my daughter two years ago. He makes gorgeous stuff. I had bought a pendant from him that had an opal in it, but the opal had fallen out. He had promised to replace it.
When I first saw that the opal had fallen out, I thought, "It's a loss." Then I thought, "It's a birth," because I bought the pendant because I saw two snakes when I looked at it, a caduceus, and my sister saw a pregnant woman. Then I thought, "Maybe it's both a birth and a loss."
Then I got fired by my hospital district. I am working on opening my own family practice clinic and continuing to do obstetrics and everything else. I want a logo. I want the pendant design for the logo.
I went to see the Brazilian jeweler and took him the pendant and the opal and said that he should go look at the deceased jeweler's stuff. I asked about the logo. He was pleased and needed to think about it.
Yesterday I went back to get the pendant, which is now pregnant again. The Brazilian jeweler has not been to the deceased jeweler's shop yet. However, he said what he needed most: a jeweler's desk. "Oh," I said, "It just so happens that I bought it already."
He thought it was very likely that between the jeweler's desk and the logo, we could work something out. He even said I could come see the desk sometimes and use it.
I knew I wanted it for something, even though I wasn't sure exactly what.
(for my mother)