Sunday, April 27, 2014

Sea Glass and the Mysterious Vortex

Active PCAGOE Forum members have already heard (and given me their thoughts on) this tale, so they can basically skip over this post.

Right off, I'll state the qualifier that I'm not on any meds (prescription or otherwise) that would readily account for this odd occurrence, and that I wait until dinner to enjoy my glass of red wine ... (Actually, that only makes this weirder!)

Earlier this month, I was working on my challenge piece, which involved embedded chunks of sea glass into a layered polymer bowl.

 Sea Glass Bowl No. 144


I knew that one piece was loose - simply embedding in raw polymer didn't suffice for this little guy, and I'd have to either try some liquid polymer or glue. It was loose in the bowl. While sitting at my main work area, I tilted the entire bowl and this chunk of green glass (a rough triangle about 3/4" x 3/8") fell onto my lap, then to the floor. I heard it land!

Scooting back my chair, I began to search. My chair sits partly on a dark, multi-colored carpet and partly on oak hardwood. Do you think that I could find that piece???

I crawled around, my nose almost literally touching the floor, since I'm pretty near-sighted. I patted the floor, inch by inch. I got a flashlight and looked under adjacent shelving units. I looked into containers on the first couple of shelves, thinking that it might have bounced. Then, I pulled the units out, just to make sure.

I shook out my sweat pants (hey - I started running again, so no cracks about the "work-at-home wardrobe"!). I took off my (running!) shoes, looked in the tops of my socks.

Soon, I felt like laughing, then I started to get annoyed 'cause I was basically finished and now I realized that I had to fill the empty hole left by a very distinctive shape! I found a similar shape and after some carving, trenching and filling, I made the new piece fit.

But, the original piece of sea glass is still missing... I have concluded that there is a multi-dimensional vortex in the knee space under my work surface and that it sucked in a bit of green sea glass. My counterpart in this parallel dimension happened to find the perfect bit for her challenge piece lying on the floor.