My jewels beyond compare...

I like jewellery as much as the next girl, as my dresser top overloaded with jewellery boxes large and small attests. I can and have spent a happy hour dithering over silver rings; I once blew 15 minutes in another department store extracting a silver chain I particularly wanted from an exceptionally messy stand, and another 15 minutes putting the rest of the chains in order. But even I paled at the prospect of spending eight hours inventorying this store's 30+ stands of earrings, necklaces, bracelets, bangles, beads, and rings. Especially because this delightful chore would take place within the cold dark embrace of the loading dock.

As it happened, time passed relatively swiftly. This might have been due in part to the jolly company of the four other denizens of the 'back of house,' but I'd chalk a lot of it up to the useful ability to inhabit my mind and be instantly elsewhere.

This facility was at its most useful during the endless days of bow-making and tree-trimming. The very Zen nature of the activity -- draw out length of ribbon, fold and fold and fold and fold and fold, twist wire, snip, twist into bauble, knot, twist onto tree, pause -- allowed me to mull at length the research acquired for four Herald holiday special edition articles. Come the weekend, committing the story to paper was (almost) thoughtless: it was as if I was channeling my inner Martha Stewart, allowing those hours of bow-tied contemplation to flow out in an 800-word story about, say, weddings in Monterey.