Don’t ask me why, but I just love it. So in love with them, that I bought them by the dozens in Singapore more than 4 years back.  Given that I am a creature of habit when it comes to designs and styles, buying at such a quantity was an ideal thing to do because, not only I use one piece of earring at a time (I wear it at the outer ear rim at the top of my ear – also called the pinna piercing) but also for a very embarrassing fact that I have a penchant for losing my earrings way too often. 

Recently, I realized that I am left with only 2 pieces of usable earrings. 

This is when I start to panic, because at the back of my head, I just know that I will not be able to find anything remotely similar (creature of habit syndrome sets in).  And I was right! 

 Because I have anticipated this moment to come round a while back, I have actually spent the last 1 year or so searching for it, and to date, I still am not able to find any.

Recently though, I stumbled upon a pack of loose pieces of jadeite  at a DIY bead-store. There were altogether 5 pieces in one packet, each with different shades and tones. Hence, as soon as I saw them, I thought they would make the perfect replacement for my soon to be extinct nyonya-styled earring for my pinna-pierced ear. 

Feeling happy, I then approached the sales staff and asked her (very nicely!) if she could please make these into simple hooked earrings for me. She furrowed her eyebrows, telling me that there were only 5 (I know!),  that they are of different shades (I know!) and each one is too small for an earring (I also know!). She repeated the same comments at least 3x, as if she was questioning my sanity, and each time, I reassured her with yes, I know, before she proceeded with making an earring out of each of them.

I left it at that, smiled gleefully at her and I did not explain to her why I would need odd number of earrings 

And the whole time, I could see her face scrounged up while she was making an earring out of each jadeite.  She looked to look so unbelievably bothered and “buay-gam**” by my request.

The only thing I can think of why she reacted that way was perhaps because (I think!) it must have killed her not knowing what the hell I was going to do with 5 separate pieces of earrings. I mean, they each not only looked different, they are in odd numbers, and are all too “small” to be made into a hooked earring!

She could have asked, really, and I would tell her the reason. But she didn’t, and I left the shop with an impish smile of glee on my face. I really like what I got myself.

I kind of enjoyed the sick humour I had unwittingly created; and only because she had given me the “dirty look” as she could not figure out what I would be doing with it.

Like I said, she could have asked. 

Turned out, since we started baby swimming in January lastyear, we never did pick up any of the certs, simply because for us, it was not a big deal and also because, nobody actually reminded us about it.

So, Spud never has any official swimming certs, and if not for that little nudge from Silver Bullet (I did not see any signs!), I don’t think it would even occur to me to ask for it. And when I did ask for it, it turned out that Spud has four to her name already – 1 for every semester.  Sweet.

To be honest, I don’t know what we will do with four certificates, and I am sure there will be more certificates to come   – only to collect dust in the end. 

In any case, I guess they are kind of a keepsake for Spud. 

I wonder what comes after Little Fish and beyond.

(I had no idea what “cygnet” means initially as it was a term I don’t think I am familiar with; only to find out later that it means “young swan”. )

For some reason, I had an image of a krill (from Happy Feet) when I saw the word “cygnet”  on the certs.