Fall Poetry: Dressing Up a Chandelier

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From "Autumn"

Autumn: Her dress is a net of mussels;
dark shelled, it covers up
summer’s weatherbeaten body.

So pull out your boots
and stand on an aged, wood floor
like an evergreen.

~ Mary Hamrick

My mother wouldn't let me pierce my ears until I was twelve years old.  

Tyrant. 

For years I resorted to parading around the house in her "clip-ons".  Wearing those plastic pearls and rhinestones made me feel like an eight-year-old Christy Brinkley---
without the hour-glass figure, long legs, and perfect teeth.  

For the first few minutes after putting those earrings on (along with her shiny gold heels and a misting of her l'Air de Temps perfume), everything was right with the world.  

But then I would feel my earlobes getting warmer and warmer and warmer until it felt as though lava was brewing beneath the clip-on clasp.  When I removed the rhinestones and pearls, I discovered red-hot welts on my skin where a REAL earring should have been.

Fast forward many earlobe-cattle-brandings later . . .

I have now been a card-carrying member of the pierced ear world for over two decades.  I even had a brief stint in college as a double-pierced-ear-rebel-kind-of-gal.  Gasp.

I love earrings, and they love me.

This may explain why I was looking at my chandelier this week and decided that it, too, needed some "earrings".

Here is what the chandelier looked like before.

There is nothing really wrong with it (if you're into that "Shriner's hat" look on your chandelier).

But then I saw these and knew my chandelier could be better.

I got these Christmas ornaments for 40% off the package price at a local craft store.  That meant I could give my entire chandelier a Christy Brinkleyish overhaul for under $4!

I used these supplies to start the makeover.

I then secured the "earrings" to the chandelier with the craft wire and trimmed the excess with the wire cutters.

5 minutes later, my chandelier looked like this.

I can't believe the difference a few sparkly bobbles can make on a light fixture.

Every time I look at my lovely light, I wonder two things:

1.  Why I didn't do this sooner?

2.  Where were these ornaments when I was 8-years-old?

They would have looked fantastic with a pair of shiny gold high heels.

P.S.  My mother finally took the plunge a few years ago and pierced her ears.  I guess even she got tired of "lava lobes."

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