I was thinking this morning about the things that stick with us through the years, surfacing in the memory at the oddest times.  When I was 3 or 4 years old, an acquaintance of my mom came over to our house to sell Avon.  My mom looked over the catalog with me at her elbow, browsing.  I fell in love with a little ring that had a nest perched on top with 3 little blue eggs nestled inside.  My memory is that my mom ordered the ring for me, and I waited eagerly for it to arrive.  40 years later I’m still waiting.  I mentioned it to my mom recently, and she had no memory of the episode, so I don’t know if the ring was actually ordered.  To this day, I continue to keep an eye out for that gorgeous ring as I peruse used jewelry at garage sales and thrift shops. Knowing the general quality of Avon products, it was probably a cheap, tawdry thing, but it still lives in my dreams–gold glittering.