I Got A Little Umbrella!

I got one of these little umbrellas yesterday when I bought a sugary, fruity drink (cherry shaved ice). Of course I love it. I don't know anyone who doesn't love them. If you had a political party whose symbol was the little umbrella on drinks, they'd get 100% of the vote.

The way they served the shaved ice at this place was different from anything I've seen before. They had a styrofoam glass, that's common enough. But then, up near the lip of the cup, the umbrella, with the toothpick handle, was stabbed through the styrofoam.

Then they had the most worthless little spoon/straw that came with it. Not to put too big a damper here on our happy proceedings, the straw wasn't big enough -- its scoop basin -- to really be of much help in the eating of the ice. I was pretty much reduced to jiggling the cup and from time to time extracting chunks of the ice into my mouth with my mouth. Of course you're going to have a lot of falling pieces doing it that way.

Along the way, I put the worthless straw in my pocket and only periodically brought it out to try to break up the harder pieces and make the ice more of a slush, particularly as I got about halfway done. That's when you need a utensil like that, then it's not any big deal to put it back in your pocket, jiggle it, and get the meat of the goodie out of the drink proper.

As for the umbrella, I kept it on the cup for quite a while, since it gave me quite a bit of panache as I roamed the festival grounds. I thought I noticed more than a few potential admirers giving my cup the eye. With it then being only a hop, skip, and jump up my arm, past my shoulder, to my reddened lips. I could pucker up and you'd be smitten.

Then, however, to free up the cup for more persistent jiggling as the drink wore on, I removed the umbrella and tucked it carefully in my shirt pocket, along with my iPod and phone. I was a little nervous because there was some stickiness on the toothpick from the drink. This showed itself later when I took out my iPod (the iPod Touch) and saw a cherry smear on its glass surface. But no big deal, I just breathed some hot breath on it and wiped it on my shirttail. I checked the toothpick and most of its stickiness was dried up, thanks to the drainage just mentioned plus whatever absorbency my shirt was able to provide.

So I've got the little umbrella! And it's really quite sweet, I love it. I was just admiring the workmanship and craft that has to go into one of these things. Because it has actual moving parts! It seems like it'd take some effort to mass produce them, at least in the initial design of the means of production. Look at all the parts! The printed umbrella surface, the circular thing that has the struts, then bends and forms the piece that surrounds the toothpick, the crown that holds it all together from the top, and a lengthier toothpick down the middle. It's a bunch of stuff!

My only complaint is they didn't put a clasp in there somewhere to keep it open. It tends to close itself. And to get it to stay open I might need to mess around with some fast-drying glue and a paperclip, which of course will mean I can't close it back up. But ... no matter ... getting it permanently open will make a cute decoration on one of my curtains, while providing me an excellent souvenir of one great shaved ice!

In addition to a clasp on the umbrella, my only other desire, to say it again, would have been a better spoon, perhaps a plastic spoon in addition to a nice straw.

A Hiatus Keepsake

Going along with "Hiatus on Parade" from a couple days ago could've been and should've been some reference to a keepsake to wear or proudly display. My own preference would be a keepsake to display.

It's long been one of the themes of my life that there ought to be a keepsake for it. Even if it's just a bug in a jar to commemorate the picnic you went on, you need something to show it happened. It could be something as simple as a jar of rainwater, which would be more humane when it comes to bugs. Then if the jar is labeled and put on a shelf, you will know what it means. Somewhere around here -- maybe in the cellar -- there's my first jar of rainwater from over 40 years ago, unless someone threw it out.

Anyway, whose spirit doesn't thrill to the idea of a keepsake, a souvenir, a memento of some historic occasion? When the new president was about to come to office, souvenir dealers were having a field day trying to mark the significance of the event. And while I didn't get any of those souvenirs, I did keep some of the literature, including a rather handsome laminated bookmark (still unused) as a reminder that I alone am not the crazy one.

When I see one of these mementos, like when they're advertised on TV, it gives me a profound chill to see the glint of light off the edges as they're being rotated on display. You see the front and the reverse, the head and the tail, and you know it's necessary to have both. When the artist or sculptor conceives the one, perhaps he or she has conceived all that is possible at that moment. That can be a wrenching experience, not to be able to conceive the reverse (since usually the front is the first to be conceived.) With hard work, diligence, sweating it out, maybe in a sweat lodge, maybe a lot of late nights pacing the floor, drinking coffee way after hours, he or she will conceive of the B side.

Let's say I were to march in a parade. That is, I'm not the Grand Marshall. And I have one of these souvenirs or mementos. I would love to march with it so that it could be displayed to the folks gathered on both sides of the road. They could see it and know it was there. And any who happened to bring a magnifying glass or a jeweler's loupe magnifier, could stop the parade long enough to run up to examine the object. If there happened to be an actual souvenir official there, he or she could also examine my certificate of authenticity and attest to the genuineness of the object, or, in case I didn't have the certificate, could pronounce its authenticity in lieu of more formal certification.

Now, my thought here is of a keepsake to recognize, honor, and commemorate my current hiatus. At this point we don't know how long it will be till it's over, so there can be no finality in dating. But that only makes the preliminary object, struck in the flow of the hiatus, more likely to achieve a high value over time, because it clearly was from the time of the event, with all the aura of the first flush of those days. These are always rarer, especially if they seem to be more or less unconscious of their eventual collectibility, which is very hard to fake, these days especially.

The design of the front I can conceive in my mind's eye. A guy seated, his back to the viewer, and a computer monitor in front of him. Around the top, if it's circular like a coin, the name of the blog. Around the bottom a reference to my hiatus. I might have to go somewhere, to one of those heat hutches, and really sweat it out what the reverse would show. Those are always harder.