Class Ring Bling

This morning, I find my head spinning with all sorts of things from our visit to the suburbs. It was a busy few days--we were out of town not on vacation with Donny and Marie but rather with the wife's thousands of P.E. friends at a state conference--and, thus there is so much I could talk about. (The vacation is on hold for the moment. I spent my vacation money on new clothes. I'm tired of being in pain when I wear my pants. Two days off and new pants are well worth the spent money. We can keep looking for the perfect vacation while I enjoy my new pants and save up some money.) The past 48 hours have brought me much to contemplate:

***Oprah's pending retirement (the poor wife!);

***my sister's dog peeing on my new gym shoes (while I was wearing them, of course);

***Lucy puking in the car while we were driving down the tollway last night (that's always fun);

***Eldest niece locking her keys in her running car last night while we were out to eat (we tried to re-assure her we both have done that more than we care to admit--here's a photo of her leaning on the poor car while she waited for her sisters to go get the extra set of keys);

***MJagger's ankle injury prohibiting us from looking like Jillian Michaels and Fergie--MJagger is on the disabled list and can't walk/run/work out;

***P.E. professionals wearing swishy-sounding sweat-pant outfits (don't even get me started on views from the parking lot!);

***that I really am going to wear my high school class ring until my reunion this summer (as illustrated in the photo--POW POW!);

***how surprisingly fun it turned out to be meeting with people I haven't seen in 30 years (with many of whom I didn't know when I was 30 years younger).

I'll focus on my pending high school class ring. Side note: I get confused--I've been talking about this ring bling non-stop on Book de la Face but not in the blog. It took me til this morning to realize that--in fact, I was really surprised I hadn't been blogging about this. So, if you read both this blog and my Book de la Face comments (god love you for reading both), humor me. If you are not my friend on Book de la Face, learn of the ring bling here. Then, ask yourself why you are not my friend on Book de la Face. What's up with that?

In honor of this summer's 30 year high school class reunion, I have decided to wear my class ring from now until then. There is something quite humorous seeing a 47 year old lady sporting class ring bling. Isn't it funny--you pay all sorts of money for the ring, you can't live without having a class ring when you are in high school, you wear the ring through college....and, then all of a sudden one day you no longer wear it, your friends aren't wearing theirs and you put it in some box, never to be seen again.

Well, I am here to change that.

I dug that puppy out of the dark, dusty corner of the jewelry box, stuffed it on my finger and have proudly displayed it for the past week. I have no intention of taking it off until July 12, 2010 (and, even then I might not take it off because that thing is on their snug as a bug in a rug--I'm not sure I'll be able to pry it off). I haven't really had any comments to my face about it. Every time I look at my hand, it makes me laugh--I mean, come on! I'm wearing my high school class ring!

I love my class ring. Always have. I wonder why we stop wearing them?

I was surprised to see that I had a softball player on my ring, not a band symbol of sorts. While I loved softball, I loved band much more--I spent most of my free time in the band room, I was better at band than sports, the majority 0f my friends were in the band, I was a band officer and the head of the goon squad (don't ask), I ate lunch in the band room every day, the only bathroom I ever peed in during high school was in the band room....band was incredibly important to me; so, why the softball player instead of a band geek? If I remember correctly, I chose the softball lady because it looked a lot better than the band thing for the ring. It's about aesthetics, people!

My ring is made of ultrium. I have no idea what ultrium is but I know it's much cheaper than gold and it's held up very well over the years. I am really, really hard on jewelry and I am here to tell you that this stuff has held up to the challenge. I believe my ring cost $79.00, which was hundreds of dollars cheaper than the gold version. Again, this was the right decision. I'm sure I would have ruined or lost the ring had it been made of actual gold.

A bunch of high school alums--via Book de la Face--decided to meet at a sports bar & grill in the suburbs. (This reunion thing has us all sentimental, I guess.) Since we were already going to be in town for the wife's convention and since I am already wearing my high school class ring, this seemed to be the perfect thing to do. The wife and I went to the bar, only to be the first ones to arrive--well, we weren't sure if we were first or not, as I hadn't seen these people in 30 years and wasn't sure who I was looking for. Because I am terminally punctual, we were there at exactly the time specified; this means we got to stand around and look stupid for 20 or more minutes until someone else showed up. Thankfully, I recognized them and we were able to start our evening.

About 20 people showed up for the event, half of whom I had never spoke to during high school, which is fine because now that we are not in high school, we are nice to each other. It was a fun evening, showing off the ring, talking about this or that, having a few good laughs. Here is a photo of someone trying to steal my class ring right off my hand....of course, he couldn't get it off because it is stuck on that finger, but it was fun seeing him try.....thank you to Clara Net for taking this (and other) photos of the event....

There was only one guy who "acted" in a way I was afraid many might act. He was an athlete who never once uttered a word to me during my entire tenure during high school. Mr. Jock would not be the type to know any band geeks and I certainly wasn't cute/pretty/cheerleaderish, so there was no need for him to waste his time talking to me--or, even knowing someone like me might exist. At the end of the night, he walked up to me & the wife.....he said, "I thought this was for (insert name of high school here) alums." I think he was trying to be funny, but he had this weird look on his face and he wasn't very funny to me. I assured him I was from our class. He asked, "Do you know who I am?" I wanted to say, "of course I know who you are--you were a basketball star who had no time for band geeks and persons who graduated in the top two percent of the class!" but, instead acknowledged knowing who he was, politely assuring him that he would not have known me. I grabbed my year book, opened the page to him, pointed him out. A few of us milling about had a laugh about this (he had a good photo, lucky dog). As he still looked confused, I opened the page to my picture and pointed myself out. He had a blank look on his face, then muttered, "Nope. I don't know who you are." Mr. Jock looked at the wife, looked at me, looked at the wife and looked very, very confused. He thankfully walked away at this point, uttering not another word.

I should have punched him with my class ring bling.

This 30-second event in no way tarnished a very fun evening. I am happy to report that 30 years has a happy way of addressing the stupidity of youth--everyone is normal and nice and no longer cliquish. It's okay for the cheerleaders to talk to the band people who are talking to the athletes who are talking to nerds...because we are no longer these things in real life. We are people that have one thing in common: we are alums of our beloved high school.

Well.....we have TWO things in common: we are alums AND we we have class rings.

May I suggest we all wear our class rings and be proud. POW POW! Go ahead, dig your class ring out and wear it for a week. See what happens......
************************************************************************