O Madagascar: Sacred Beach Lemurs 2010

[devildeac]

oH YEAH... I'm down to 224 pounds. Would have been under my target had I been at the last site another week. Beans. lentils, and rice. Ymm.

Damn, you oughta be able to run the court well this season with the guys currently on the roster. They are listing Singler at 6'8" and 230 pounds so you'd match up well in practice with him.

[devildeac]

Sounds like maybe it should be...Beans, Lentils and Rice...Oh my!
Get home good, and discover this...
http://www.crackcreme.com/

Don't use it on the wrong crack!

Are you referrrng to the scrotum crack?

[Lavabe]

Busy editing photos today. I've posted a few "warm up" shots on facebook. Will not be posting everything, but will post enough to whet your appetite. Warning: lots of good people shots, but my Sanford's lemur shots are KILLER!! Must continue working with the photos.

I leave Antsiranana for home on Monday. ILJ seems happy, but here is my dilemma:
ILJ warned me NOT to get her any jewelry (financial reasons). Yet I should buy her some sort of memento. WHAT should I get her?

Colorful cloth called a lamba (which we have already and which she'll never use)
Vanilla (which we have already and which she'll never use)
Jewelry (which will be greeted by a sharp, stern discussion on finances)
Assorted postcards (oh yeah... that will sit well)
Something else.

I am stumped. What little something should I get her?

[CameronBornAndBred]

I am stumped. What little something should I get her?

I wasn't aware jewelry had to be expensive. The FB photos are cool so far..good job Grey Hornet.

[CathyCA]

Busy editing photos today. I've posted a few "warm up" shots on facebook. Will not be posting everything, but will post enough to whet your appetite. Warning: lots of good people shots, but my Sanford's lemur shots are KILLER!! Must continue working with the photos.

I leave Antsiranana for home on Monday. ILJ seems happy, but here is my dilemma:
ILJ warned me NOT to get her any jewelry (financial reasons). Yet I should buy her some sort of memento. WHAT should I get her?

Colorful cloth called a lamba (which we have already and which she'll never use)
Vanilla (which we have already and which she'll never use)
Jewelry (which will be greeted by a sharp, stern discussion on finances)
Assorted postcards (oh yeah... that will sit well)
Something else.

I am stumped. What little something should I get her?

Jewelry.

Okay, I googled it, and you can get her something like handmade paper with wildflowers pressed into it, cinnamon, cloves, saffron, local embroidery, or a handmade jewelry box for the jewelry you didn't buy ILJ.

But I still like the jewelry idea. She'll lecture you, but she'll still love it.

[lawgrad91]

Busy editing photos today. I've posted a few "warm up" shots on facebook. Will not be posting everything, but will post enough to whet your appetite. Warning: lots of good people shots, but my Sanford's lemur shots are KILLER!! Must continue working with the photos.

I leave Antsiranana for home on Monday. ILJ seems happy, but here is my dilemma:
ILJ warned me NOT to get her any jewelry (financial reasons). Yet I should buy her some sort of memento. WHAT should I get her?

Colorful cloth called a lamba (which we have already and which she'll never use)
Vanilla (which we have already and which she'll never use)
Jewelry (which will be greeted by a sharp, stern discussion on finances)
Assorted postcards (oh yeah... that will sit well)
Something else.

I am stumped. What little something should I get her?

I vote jewelry, too. It's hard to lecture over a beautiful piece of jewelry, no matter how hard one would want to lecture. (I tried lecturing after B dropped a large sum on a beautiful ring on our cruise last November, but I didn't get very far, even when the credit card bill arrived!)

[Lavabe]

What little something should I get her?

Jewelry.

Okay, I googled it, and you can get her something like handmade paper with wildflowers pressed into it, cinnamon, cloves, saffron, local embroidery, or a handmade jewelry box for the jewelry you didn't buy ILJ.

But I still like the jewelry idea. She'll lecture you, but she'll still love it.

Jewelry = Sapphires with her, and I've already bought her a pendant (last year). And really, we don't go out much, so she doesn't really wear it anyway. I guess this year I'd have to go earrings, which means double the price of everything... and again, we just don't do a whole lot of activities that would necessitate jewelry. Trouble is, if I actually bought sapphire earrings, it's $300-400 that we really don't have, and that we need. Sapphires are really common in Madagascar, and they're high quality too. Maybe next year?

The embroidery is good (we have a tablecloth that tells our story of our 1989-1991 stay in Madagascar), but we really don't use it a lot. Embroidery gets folded up in our linen closet, and gets no viewing time.

Jewelry boxes here are made of rosewood... definitely a no-no in conservation circles.

We already have one of those wildflower pressed papers.

Stumped.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I think if you bring her just yourself home safe and sound, she'll be more than thrilled!

[CathyCA]

Sapphire earrings. Go with simple studs.

You can sign the card, "A pair of sapphire studs from your true blue stud."

And it will be totally worth the $300 or $400 lecture.

[devildeac]

Busy editing photos today. I've posted a few "warm up" shots on facebook. Will not be posting everything, but will post enough to whet your appetite. Warning: lots of good people shots, but my Sanford's lemur shots are KILLER!! Must continue working with the photos.

I leave Antsiranana for home on Monday. ILJ seems happy, but here is my dilemma:
ILJ warned me NOT to get her any jewelry (financial reasons). Yet I should buy her some sort of memento. WHAT should I get her?

Colorful cloth called a lamba (which we have already and which she'll never use)
Vanilla (which we have already and which she'll never use)
Jewelry (which will be greeted by a sharp, stern discussion on finances)
Assorted postcards (oh yeah... that will sit well)
Something else.

I am stumped. What little something should I get her?

Three Horses Beer.

She can admire it and how little it cost and how much her favorite BIL will enjoy drinking it and then ponder where she will display the empty to serve as the Lavabe family souvenir of this year's trip ;) .

What did you expect?

[devildeac]

Sapphire earrings. Go with simple studs.

You can sign the card, "A pair of sapphire studs from your true blue stud."

And it will be totally worth the $300 or $400 lecture.

That's actually an even better answer than mine. And, if you buy two pairs, I will most certainly reimburse you for the 2nd pair. And no, I will NOT be giving them to ILJ. I'd bet they would look great on Mrs. DD at a Brunchgate this season ;) .

I'll still take the beer off her, err, your hands though .

[captmojo]

Are you referrrng to the scrotum crack?

This stuff is supposed to be better than the high you get from smoking 'Gold Bond'.

[Lavabe]

Sapphire earrings. Go with simple studs.

You can sign the card, "A pair of sapphire studs from your true blue stud."

And it will be totally worth the $300 or $400 lecture.

That's actually an even better answer than mine. And, if you buy two pairs, I will most certainly reimburse you for the 2nd pair. And no, I will NOT be giving them to ILJ. I'd bet they would look great on Mrs. DD at a Brunchgate this season ;) .

I'll still take the beer off her, err, your hands though .

You should have placed the order before I left for Madagascar. My gemstone guy only has two matching sapphires for earrings (1 carat each). Think two pear-cut sapphires in earrings for $350 is a good price?

[CathyCA]

Sapphire earrings. Go with simple studs.

You can sign the card, "A pair of sapphire studs from your true blue stud."

And it will be totally worth the $300 or $400 lecture.

That's actually an even better answer than mine. And, if you buy two pairs, I will most certainly reimburse you for the 2nd pair. And no, I will NOT be giving them to ILJ. I'd bet they would look great on Mrs. DD at a Brunchgate this season ;) .

I'll still take the beer off her, err, your hands though .

You should have placed the order before I left for Madagascar. My gemstone guy only has two matching sapphires for earrings (1 carat each). Think two pear-cut sapphires in earrings for $350 is a good price?

Hard to tell if that's a good price or not. I suppose it depends on the quality of the sapphires. The pricing of sapphire earrings is all over the place. I've looked at both Macys.com and ross-simons.com and I've found the price of sapphire earrings to vary, depending on what type of setting they're in, the quality of the stones, and whether other stones are present. $29.95 to $1270.00 was the price range at Ross-Simons. I suspect that some of their lower-priced earrings might be synthetic stones. At Macy's, the prices ranged from $39.00 to $2,000.00.

[Lavabe]

Hard to tell if that's a good price or not. I suppose it depends on the quality of the sapphires. The pricing of sapphire earrings is all over the place. I've looked at both Macys.com and ross-simons.com and I've found the price of sapphire earrings to vary, depending on what type of setting they're in, the quality of the stones, and whether other stones are present. $29.95 to $1270.00 was the price range at Ross-Simons. I suspect that some of their lower-priced earrings might be synthetic stones. At Macy's, the prices ranged from $39.00 to $2,000.00.

Madagascar has among the highest quality sapphires and demantoids in the world. NO diamonds here. No artificial gemstones here.
So the problem then comes down to what does one pair with the sapphires. Over here, the gold is good quality, and the workmanship is nice. However, sapphire is usually paired with CZ (cubic zirconia), which help bring luster and sparkle to the Duke blue stone. Maybe the solution is to buy the stones, then have someone in the US (at some high price) work on it, hopefully with some real diamond (or diamond chips). Then again, the amount of diamonds needed to bring luster to the stones is VERY cost prohibitive.

[CathyCA]

If you get them set over here, you can't really surprise ILJ with a souvenir when you get off the plane, can you? The conversation will go, "I brought you these loose sapphires, but I need to get them set, and that's going to cost additional money."

Get them set over there, box them up, and hand them to her when you get off the plane. If she protests too much, sell them to DD. We already know that he wants a pair for Mrs. DD.

[Lavabe]

Thanks all, but this has become way too complicated... and I doubt we have the money to go for all of those stones. Better we should get a computer, or to get someone to hang things on our walls (now that we've been in the house for two years). Or maybe... we can pay off some of our debt from the flood earlier this year.

On lemur news, I got my translations verified yesterday, so it turns out my ethnographic stuff is legit. I know I have a publishable article from it. I've also posted on FB photos of one of the nocturnal lemurs at the site. It's a sportive lemur (genus Lepilemur), but the species is unclear. The geneticists have complicated the taxonomy of this genus. Take a look.

[shereec]

Right after he retired, my husband drove to Alaska and back with his buddies. My souvenir was a cookbook from Alaska filled with flowers he picked at various stops along the way - by the time he got home they were perfectly pressed and oh, so impressive! Affordable AND romantic!

[Lavabe]

Kudos to shereec's husband. GREAT idea. Only problem with doing that... if it's an agricultural product, the US Customs folks won't like it. You have to have established permits to bring back plants in ANY form from Madagascar.

[DukieInKansas]

If ILJ protests too much about the sapphires, let her know you have at least 2 people lined up to take them off your hands. I'm the better option as she won't have to see them on someone else's ears in future years and think they should be hers. I would go with setting them there with no other stones - this would be a simpler setting that she could wear more frequently. On a future anniversary, as finances allow, you could always reset them.