Wendy Brandes Jewelry Blog

Never Is the Next New Thing

Adventures in Arizona, Part II

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As I started telling you, I spent last weekend at the Tucson Gem Show before visiting the beauteous sister bloggers Jennifer and Megan in Phoenix.

I bought a few great stones, but I never tell people about the pieces I’m working on until they’re finished, so you’ll have to wait!

My husband came along. He enjoyed seeing the vast quantities of stones, but he’s still having trouble telling cabochons from faceted stones from briolettes from drops/non-faceted briolettes.

Cabochon
Edburga Ring in blue topaz, shown open
Edburga Ring © Wendy Brandes 2007-2008
Photo by John Muggenborg

Faceted
Ring © Wendy Brandes 2007-2008
Photography by SquareMoose

Briolettes
Mignonette Earrings © Wendy Brandes 2007-2008
Photo by John Muggenborg

Drops/Non-Faceted Briolettes
Dewdrop Earrings in rose quartz © Wendy Brandes 2007-2008

At least he appreciated the candy-apple-red vintage Caddy we encountered.

I liked the skull hanging from the rear-view mirror.

Click to enlarge

I really feel like I’m on vacation whenever I see brightly painted buildings.

We suffer from a lack of purple buildings here in NYC. Speaking of purple, I noticed a meeting of the Red Hat Society at our hotel. Check them out on the right side of this photo. The Red Hat Society is a group for ladies 50 and up. They wear purple dresses with their red hats. (Ladies under 50 can join, but they wear pink hats and lavender dresses; you can see one in this picture.)

The society was inspired by a poem called “Warning” by Jenny Joseph which starts, “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple/With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.” I totally get that attitude. A couple of years ago, a much-older male friend annoyed me by asking, “What are you going to do when you can’t be cute anymore?” I privately thought, “WTF? My cuteness is eternal AND rust-proof, bitch.” Out loud, I answered, “Then I’ll be old and crazy.” I don’t plan to wear a red hat with a purple dress though; I’m going to wear rouge in perfectly round circles and apply lipstick to my teeth. Lynn Yeager, the fashion writer for the Village Voice, is my role model for circular rouge application. She’s my new idol for describing the ostentatiously on-time start of the recent Marc Jacobs show as “a childish fuck-you gesture.” Lynn tells it like it is!

Anyway, when I am old(er) and crazy(ier), if a grumpy old man says something rude to me at lunch, I will say, “WTF, bitch?” out loud instead of being polite. Then I will calmly reapply my lipstick to my teeth and stick him with the check in a childish fuck-you gesture. So there.

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Comments

  3. Ooh, Joanne, Anna was my other option. But Lynn really has achieved blush perfection. I kind of forgave my lunch pal because he’s just bitter about his mortality. Seriously, I think I saw the Grim Reaper sitting just a few tables away and he was TOTALLY checking out my friend.

  4. wow love the ring

    and your yellow bag in the photo, i’m addicted to anything yellow

    wendy, i feel totally stupid asking you this now! (considering i’ve known your blog existed for probably 6 months and we both sporadically read each others) but would you like to trade links?

  5. ENC, even though I don’t have butt cleavage like Coco?
    Jayne, sure! I thought I had you already but I guess I don’t!

  6. Wendy

    You know I’m in love with your dew drop earrings, right! Okay, maybe not, but now you do!

    As for the Red Hats, I see them all the time. They’re BIG in the South. But the craziest sighting was at the Ritz in London. Me and the hubby went there for tea and were hoping for a lovely traditional experience. But there was a RHS contingency (I think from your neck of the woods, actually) and they had the piano player doing all kinds of American songs including New York, New York.

    Not quite what we were expecting at the Ritz. But you know those Red Hats. They were probably like “Screw em! We want NY, NY and we want it now!”

    Luv ya,
    Poochie

  7. Speaking of poems, Sylvia Plath wrote “I should wear tiger pants”, so maybe I’ll do this when I’ll be old and crazy… 😉

  8. “a childish fuck-you gesture”?
    How very spot on!

    Oh, how I wish I was on holiday right now!

  9. I feel a pang of existential dread that in 10 years I will be eligible to be a member of the red hat club. The red hats are a better symbol of death and mortality than the skull.

    LOL at “My cuteness is eternal and rust proof”!!!

  13. I’ve read a couple of the “Red Hat” society novels and they are FABULOUS! I wanna grow up to wear purple and red and be self confident and have my girlfriends by my side. How awesome is that! 🙂

    p.s. LOVE..LOVE..LOVE the rose quartz dew drop earrings!!!

  14. Wendy, I love your bag! It’s very retro
    And that red car is to die for, I’ve always think on myself in one of those very old but funky cars hahaha

  21. That Red Hat Society is so hilarious. Well, at least they dress up 😉
    Do you know I really get tears in my eyes when I see NYC on the telly? Today I saw Will&Grace, they were picnicking in a park (not Central Park I believe), and on the background there it was again: The beautiful skyline. I really can’t wait moving to New York! It’s the biggest dream I have.

  22. The top cabochon ring – yes, yes, yes I love it, what a gorgeous colour – and I’m loving all things blue today – how appropriate:) I LOVE the Jenny Joseph poem, it’s one of my all time favourites, I’m thinking that I’m going to wear purple and red when I get old, at the very least I shall have a purple rinse in my hair, and I plan to be incredibly rude and bad tempered – but not to small children and animals. Lynne Yeager looks priceless, how outrageous. We have a similar character in SA Gwen Gill, about the same age and the same hairstyle minus the completely OTT make-up, she does the social column in the main Sunday papers and people are forever ripping her off.

  24. There’s no hope for the rest of us if you don’t remain eternally cute! Also, that pic of you with yellow bag is lovely!

  25. Oh i so hope you keep blogging when you start wearing lipstick on your teeth and giving friendly fuck-you gestures…oh reading your blog would be just that more special when i know there’s a crazy lady behind it all lol…

    By the way your yellow bag looks hot with your outfit!

  26. While it’s true you don’t have the butt cleavage Coco has, you’ll do! And anyway, your smile trumps hers!

  27. Wendy, you will still be wearing the perfect red lipstick, even if it is on your teeth, and the perfect Acne jeans, even if your butt gets a little saggy, and it’s too bad you don’t smoke, because I can just see you with a filter-less cig dangling from your mouth and the smoke curling up around your eye as you say, fuck you bitch, I’m perfect the way I am. Because you are and always will be.

    I ran in to Lynn Yaeger at some shopping event on Madison Avenue a couple of years ago, and I was such a sycophant…I told her how much I admired her integrity and commitment to her personal style (she’d just had a great article in Vogue). She was a total class act…humble and sweet and open. I loved her even more after that.

    Thanks for a great post. Loved the drink-inspired dresses.

    Big hug.
    M

  28. ummm…i still can’t believe you were in phoenix (in fact minutes away from me…and didn’t drop a note!) we could have commented on our lipstick teeth application together! next time pack that liquid rouge and sunscreen and send me an email!

  29. Lynn is my new idol also. Not including the granny fro my last post. Maybe if they met they could combine to form the ultimate ”Fuck You I’m Elderly and Fabulous” team. Oooh, that would be so cool.

  30. Poochie, I’m sure that’s how it happened! Good for them.
    AliceP, but what hat will you wear with them? I know! Leopard!
    Disco, that really captured it,right?
    Weasel, I share your age pang. Just remember, cuteness is a state of mind, not a condition of the face!
    Patent, thanks!
    Selina, well, why wait?
    Lynn, I’m sure you will be bold…AND cute.
    PPP, Thanks!
    Aretha, thanks! The bag’s shape sort of reminds me of the car’s shape.
    Shell, thanks!
    Nadine, thanks!
    Cakespy, that means a lot, coming from an artist like you.
    PAD, please! Older does not equal THAT desperate!
    MissJ, thank you…got all kinds of things in the works.
    Kiki, thanks for the tag.
    Renee, you’ll love it here.
    Bronwyn, I think it’s fine to be rude to children as long as you are polite to dogs and cats.
    MissJ2, you are too kind.
    IYF, don’t worry, I’ve made a deal with the devil.
    Shaz, but there already IS a crazy lady behind it.
    ENC, Coco might very well have a dazzling smile…I’ve never been able to drag my eyes away from the rear cleavage long enough to check.
    Melissa, I know, smoking would really add to it. Especially with rollers in my hair. Great Lynn Yaeger story.
    Somlynn, I’m so sorry!
    Belle, that pair would be a menace to society, in a good way.

  31. Those Mignonette Earrings are insanely gorgeous…seriously, beautiful…I need to win the lottery, or stop buying the small things to save up for the big ones.