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| If diamonds really are a girls best friend they'll tell MM she looks better in these. |
Today is my 50th Birthday and this digital age has much that vexes me but there are also enormous benefits I must learn to take greater advantage of. For instance, in a matter of seconds I can listen via youtube to T. S. Eliot reading The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock and hear how "the women come and go talking of Michelangelo" or an interview with the fascinating Orson Welles, and often happen upon new subjects that intrigue and then being quickly able to feed my curiosity. Also the internet has allowed me to connect with kindred spirits from all over the world and share a little bit of ourselves that those closest to us may not even be aware of. The trick of course is to make these internet and other digital age on-demand conveniences enhance our lives and facilitate actually meeting those kindred spirits and getting out and engaging with those interesting people, places, and things we have stumbled across online.
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| Ladies, Vermeer & GSL know a thing or 2 about beauty. |
Oh yes back to pearls, they are my absolute favorite piece of jewelry. They always look good on a woman and tell me she's someone I would find interesting. I can't tell the difference between real or fake pearls and don't care either way. I am not big on jewelry and of course never wear any but the one gift I'd purchase for my Immortal Beloved would be a single strand of pearls.
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| Mum around age 20. |
Well isn't your mum just a beauty! I love a pearl myself. Not picky either - white, grey, pink or black will do. I passed on a string of pearls for a pendant that I thought would get better use. But I am regretting not just getting that full strang although I think one needs a nice neck. Happy birthday GSL - I never would have guessed you were a Libra ;)
ReplyDeleteThank you Naomi and while I don't know much about astrology I am often guessed to be a Libra.
DeleteBut you have opinions that are unequivocal which I like! Librans can rarely make up their minds is all. But of course it's all in good fun.
DeleteWe share the same love hate relationship with the digital age. Mum is beautiful...Happy Birthday!!! Hope you have great one!! xoxo
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday from Alice and Chase!
DeleteWhy thank you my dear Cynthia, Alice, and Chase!
DeleteHappy Birthday GSL! Love the photo of your Mum.
ReplyDeleteI'm the very lucky recipient of a strand of pearls from my husband. Love the way they make my skin look, but alas do not wear them enough. I do wear my pearl stud earrings every day though. I'm boring like that…
Hope you have a wonderful day!
Oh Heidi I'm sure you knock 'em dead with glam braided updo and strand of pearls. Obviously Mr AA is a man of great taste and pearls are never ever boring. Thanks for the well wishes!
Deletehappy birthday! I wear my south sea pearl earrings every day! Lasy year with Heidi I tried on a $88000 pearl necklace, it was very attractive! t
ReplyDeleteFF, I am sure Vermeer & I would rate those South Sea earrings 11/10....and would need to sell one of his paintings to finance a shopping junket with you and Heidi.
DeleteHappy Birthday from me too GSL. Have only recently been following your blog and like all the many others who have been wishing you well, am now a fan. Always look forward to your comments on others' blogs too, so witty and incisive.
DeleteI too have tried on a strand of pearls with FF and Heidi in that store. The ones I chose (none of them had prices attached) were the less ladylike giant gumball size. (I tend to enjoy extravagant jewellery.) They were so big and glowingly beautiful they lit up my tired old face. Thought of putting them on layby. If I'd paid $1000 a year for 280 years they could have been mine. Heidi later told me they'd been sold! Sadly quite out of my league!
Your mother was such a beauty! Can see you're a proud son! Again, many happy returns!
Pamela (known to H and FF as Pammie)
Thanks for the birthday wishes Pammie! You, FF, and Heidi make a formidable 3some...who drove the getaway car? Love hearing the Downunder lingo from you gals; your "layby" is our "layaway" although I've found my ski-mask and pistol can expedite those transactions.
DeleteHappy Birthday!
ReplyDeleteThank you T!
DeleteHappy Birthday GSL! I woke up thinking about birthdays because our dear silly Scout is 10 months old today. However your day is a much bigger milestone and I hope your enjoy it thoroughly... I owe you a birthday drink when I finally wind my way down to the Old Windy City.
ReplyDeleteYour Mum: gorgeous! I agree about the pearls and I wear my single strand every day, even if I am in apron and cargo pants scrubbing the floors, which I usually am these days come to think of it.xox
Thank you Dani! I'm sure that single strand shimmers on your elegant neckline even in apron and cargos.
DeleteHappy Birthday! Tabs and I have been keeping the 50s warm for you!!!
ReplyDeleteI am so with you on the 'net. I tripped over Virginia Woolf reading and I was giddy for days!
I like pearls as well, though I am a long strand kind of girls. The only thing left on my jewelry wishlist is a long strand of real pearls!
Your Mum is a beauty! So happy you are with her today!
Wendy, you and Tabs have set a high bar. I can definitely see you rocking a long strand in a very glam Flapper at West Egg way.
DeleteOh I thought it was the 8th, wishing you a very Happy Birthday, welcome to the club!
ReplyDeleteNow Tabs I had intended on posting a pic in my white swim trunks but the B & P funhouse selfie mirror I bought at auction has yet to arrive.
DeleteHappy birthday to the most fascinating person in our little corner of the blogosphere. I've been doing the rounds of people's 50ths here in Pleasantville, but I suspect yours would be one to remember. I will raise a virtual glass of scotch to you this evening.
ReplyDeleteI love pearls. I tend to wear diamond studs because I'm too lazy to change my earrings and they are indestructible but when I take the time to fancy up, I have both white pearl and black tahitian pearl studs that I treasure (particularly fun to mix them for a Rubens Venus effect.) I received a strand of cultured pearls from my parents when I was young and they've bought a necklace for my daughter, which will be tucked away until she is a little older. Pearls get so much nicer with age I think.
Thank you Jen! You struck me right away as a pearls gal and would love to see how you work the white pearl and black Tahitian...although recent evidence shows you could only get half the Rubens Venus effect as apparently Serena has kept your figure from veering into Rubensesqe territory.
DeletePearls are timeless, age beautifully, and make any woman of any age look fabulous!
Well, you know I find modern technology quite vexing for its counter-intuitive and anti social qualities. But as much as it is isolating it can also provide different opportunities for joining communities you wouldnt otherwise have the chance to meet. And I have certainly become accustomed to having info at my fingertips. Hedge and I are in the midst of listening to a WW1 history podcast in the evenings as we fall asleep
ReplyDeleteI love sparkly stones, but my pearls are, along with my wedding ring, my foundation piece of jewelry. And my birthstone
Dearest Bebe,
DeleteFar be it for GSL to probe into the AA bedtime rituals but since you mention that WW1 podcasts are currently summoning the sandman let me highly recommend audiobooks as over the summer I listened every night to Sir Max Hastings 'Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914' which is a more comprehensive and scholarly treatment of what Barbara Tuchman so beautifully wrote about in her superb 'The Guns of August'. The audio is studio quality and the readers are usually great stage actors or professional readers/voiceover artists that greatly enhance a work which I much prefer over the amateur quality you can get elsewhere. Also, you can listen to a 5 minute sample prior to purchase. I have well over 300 books in my audio library that I listen to every night and when driving.
Darling G,
ReplyDeleteWishing you all happiness and joy on this your special day and, of course, many, many happy returns.
To us, darling G, you are a mere youth. Our 50s are now mere shadows of the mind. And, after all, age is just a number....and a frame of mind. Grow old disgracefully is our motto.
We do share your concerns about the technological age in which we find ourselves. Its complexities and speed often seem to us rather inhuman in their scale and scope. However, when we consider that, although an ocean separates us, we are connected from the comfort of an armchair, we have to wonder at the magnificence of it all. And, we are glad, very glad that our virtual paths have crossed. Indeed, it is only the day when we walk into the Red Lion, pearl strands dangling, and we meet in the real world that can better this moment.
So, enjoy a wonderful day. Cast your pearls of wisdom around the Blogosphere for they make it an altogether more interesting and joyful place to be.
Your mother is still, we are sure, strikingly beautiful. She needs no pearls as she clearly has a fabulous spirit in her soul. Like mother like son.....
Darlings Jane and Lance,
DeleteThis big day just became all the more special upon hearing your beautiful sentiments which brought a tear to my eyes. I am very much looking forward to the day we finally meet..be it in Budapest, Chicago, or someplace else. What I value far above pearls, diamonds, or rubies is taking in the highest forms of artistic expression which only could be enhanced by sharing that experience with kindred spirits.
Many, many happy wishes for your milestone birthday GSL. I hope you get to enjoy a pint or two down at The Red Lion this evening in fitting celebratory mood.
ReplyDeleteWhat a charming photograph of your dear beautiful mother. I hope she's a regular reader of your fine blog so that she may know what we all think of you (and her).
Thank you for enriching the 'sphere for us all with your insightful repartee.
As I am still licking my wounds after being overserved in The Red Lion last night my gratitude for your well wishes are no less appreciated. Mum is not yet a Den reader and she might characterize 'insightful repartee' as smarty pants sass but I'm with you on that one.
DeleteHappy Birthday! Welcome to the team. Pearls are a favorite of mine. Their glow has a richness that lights a woman's face beautifully. You mom is a beauty.
ReplyDeleteI am delighted to be on the very 'Well Styled' Team JC and grateful for your blog design assist.
DeleteHappy Birthday dear GSL! I wish you a wonderful birthday!
ReplyDeleteYour mother is beautiful, her pearls are simple perfection.
I love pearls, but sadly only have a cheap fake string... I'm glad you can't tell fake from real. I might start wearing mine if I can convince myself they don't look fake!
Ruth, in updo and pearls I would be at your mercy! Thank you for the birthday greetings.
DeleteHappy Happy Birthday - so you are you spending it with family, lovely. 50 was my best year. At last I'd got to that big number and it was a relief.
ReplyDeleteAre you having a big knees-up when you get back to Chicago at the pub too? All the better. (for some reason I thought you were 40, but then you would not have been able to do as much as you have up until now)
Your mother was - and I'm sure still is - a beauty, love how she wore her fringe (bangs).
Love pearls too, actually have some fake ones and i should wear them more. You're right they're perfect for everyone and really glow on the skin.
My drinking buddy Dutch saw to it that I was overserved last night in The Red Lion...knees still in good working order although liver has filed a grievance.
DeleteJody in that blue dress (the royal blue one you wore to a gala with sulty pic of looking back over left shoulder and yes memory on these matters does well serve while liver falters), updo and pearls you'd be appointed "Belle of the Ball Emeritus".
Hope you had the best of days surrounded by loved ones, topped off with a bit of the bubbly,too!
ReplyDeletePearls do cast an ethereal,candlelit glow on those that wear. I prefer the long strands in multiples,a la Coco Chanel...she really knew a thing or two about pearls!
What a lovely picture of your beautiful mother to round out your birthday post given that she made it all possible!
Fingers crossed that your travel home is without incident and you can hop on over to the RLP to continue the celebration! Celebrate every time you get the chance,G!
My dear dear Trudye as you well know I am quite well acquainted with your exquisite taste via Pinterest and I'd love to very soon see my Trudye strutting her stuff down Chicago's Magnificent Mile in those cashmere lined suede gloves, RL outfit in Trudye Creamy Chocolate Light Brown, and a pearl choker. Chin-chin T !!!
DeleteHappy 50th Birthday, my dear GSL! I hope you celebrated with lots of champagne! I am kind of obsessed with MM's Mikimoto pearl choker that Joe Dimaggio gave her on their honeymoon. I got a chance to see it at the American Museum of Natural History a few years ago and it was hard for me to move away from it! Have you seen it? That's not it in the picture above (though she does look so beautiful), but it is one of my favorite chokers of all time! It was one of the very few pieces of fine jewelry she owned, she was not so big on the jewels and God knows she didn't need them, she was so lovely all by herself!
ReplyDeleteI am going to break out my Mikimoto pearl studs tomorrow and wear them in honor of you.
Gorgeous picture of your mother! XO, Jill
My dear Jill you must post selfie clad in Mikimoto pearl studs in one of your fab outfits. I'll have to research the MM-Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio pearl choker and that would make for a very interesting EJS post if you haven't done so already...if you have please direct me.
DeleteThank you my dear Curator! Am most looking forward to seeing your new online project unfold as your eye is as keen as they come.
ReplyDeleteHappy Belated Birthday, GSL! The photo of your mum is lovely!
ReplyDeleteI'm pearl girl, and try to wear mine often. One of my husbands old friends, is a third generation pearl buyer. He's Japanese,and most of my pearls were purchased from him.
Thank you Duchess! A pearl buyer is a great friend to have especially of the 3.0 variety. He sounds like just the man I'll need to help procure that single strand for my Immortal Beloved.
DeleteWow! Beautiful post and lovely ladies. Pearls are so underrated, more people should wear a string or two. I have tons of faux pieces and I always - always admire other people who wear theirs and notice how they do it...to pick up tips.
ReplyDeleteThank you Lady Sarah and your great post on how to wear pearls was what reminded me of how much I love how they look on all women.
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