A Few Loose Marbles

Day 116: I may have a few loose marbles (3,838 to be precise), but no one can accuse me of having lost them. I keep them safely confined in an enormous jar and a metal tin. The collection weighs close to fifty pounds and includes both modern and vintage varieties. Don't you think this would make a wonderful 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle?

"About A Million Marbles"

Day 93: My cousin Toni surprised me this year with a Christmas gift of a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle entitled "About a Million Marbles." I cringed inwardly at the age of it, fearing missing pieces. "Eh, I'll put it together once anyway," I said to myself, and dragged out the card table and the cookie sheets and proceeded to lay out every piece rightside-up. The edge went together in about an hour, and by bedtime, I had a few pieces added to the next row in. That was my plan of attack: start from the edge and work in, because there was no hope of trying the old "put the blue bits together first" method.

New Year's Day saw me out on the trail, leaving only an hour or so in the evening to resume puzzling, but yesterday, I settled in shortly after breakfast and worked all day...no exaggeration, all frigging day!...and an hour past the time when I usually retire. I was positive I'd found several places where a piece was missing. I cannot abide a missing puzzle piece, but I'd vowed to complete it, and complete it I would. This morning, with about 100 pieces still on the cookie sheets, I began again. The longer I worked, the more convinced I became that some pieces were gone, but because it was marbles...and we all know how much I like marbles...I was thinking that if it was only missing one, perhaps two pieces, I'd keep it anyway and label the box accordingly.

I wasn't counting empty holes (impossible anyway due to the irregularly shaped pieces), and as I got down to the last dozen, I was still convinced some were missing. Ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five...what the hell? I had four pieces left and only three open spots! I ran my hands over the surface and discovered one more open space I hadn't seen. Four...three...two...one...DONE!

I love jigsaw puzzles. I love HARD jigsaw puzzles (complex patterns and "monochrome" color schemes), but not gimmicky ones (same picture printed on both sides, and so on). My usual preference is for 1000-piece or greater, but in this case, I'm quite content with a mere 500 pieces. This one goes on my shelf of favorites, for sure!

Thanks to the addition of the cat's-eyes accenting the puzzle (a gift from my sister-of-the-heart, Patty), my personal collection now holds 3817 marbles and weighs about 50 pounds. While that's not even close to a million marbles, I'm hoping to bring the total to 5000 some day.

Putting The Cat To Watch The Canary

Day 81: As part of our "Twelve Days of Christmas," my sister-of-the-heart Alison nearly always includes a few marbles for me, knowing how I love to add to my collection. This year, she sent them under heavy guard in person of Little Baby Raven. Oh, dear! Isn't that kinda like putting the cat to watch the canary? With the penchant corvids have for collecting shiny things, I wonder if the present inventory truly reflects the number originally mailed. Look at the gleam in that beady little eye!

Not So Lost

Day 260: As a youngster, I had what I thought was quite a substantial collection of marbles. I think the tally was one side or the other of 350 by a small margin, certainly more than any of my schoolmates had, but then, I didn't wager them in the ring at recess, and only occasionally traded two-for-one if I could get a rarity like a white cat's-eye in exchange. Shooting marbles was unthinkable. Marbles got dinged or broken in games, and I wanted my shiny things to be pretty. Instead, I entertained myself with arranging the collection in various manners: sorting by color or by type, ranking them smallest to largest, creating patterns and so on. Another favorite occupation drove my mother to distraction: setting a line of marbles in the groove of the lid of a metal fruitcake tin, swirling them around and around and around, captivated by the coruscations of color and the hypnotic sound. New acquisitions were made largely with bits of pure luck and the occasional patrol of the playground after the other children had gone home. Only once or twice did I reject a find by virtue of it being wounded beyond all hope.

As I grew up, I lost my marbles. I don't know where they went after I left home, and my mother had no recollection of disposing of them. Perhaps they went forgotten in an outbuilding when she moved, or perhaps they were boxed up and taken away with so many other things she had to sacrifice when moving to a smaller space. In any event, as an adult, I found myself without any marbles at all, and that's a sad state of affairs for anyone to bear.

I don't remember how or when I came by the first ones, but my collection now numbers 3788, thanks to the addition of these eleven vintage cat's eyes which were sent to me by my sister-of-the-heart, Patty. I wonder if I'll live long enough to see the number reach 5000. Ya think I should write a letter to Santa? "Dear Mr. Claus, I would like everybody to get along, and oh, could you also bring me a bag of marbles? Thank you!"