A Baxtrr story to share, and to keep from wasting the time of those who despise my nattering, here's the punchline up front: never marry a geologist.
When the Mrs. and I were deciding some years ago to make a go of it, I asked her what she wanted in an engagement ring. She told a story of how, years earlier, she had been a geology student at Radcliffe and a world-renowned gemologist had come to her class to let the students see some of his stones. He happily handed out enormous rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and more, and let them circulate around the students without a glance...but there was one stone he took from his pocket and squired around personally. It was a Russian alexandrite, one of the better ones out there. That had made an impression on her, and she had decided that an alexandrite was what she wanted.
Having done some reading on the subject, and knowing about her interest in the stones (if not why, before that moment), I knew that the big thing at the time was the new Brazilian alexandrite mine, which was being fought over and blown up on a regular basis. (Brazilian alexandrites are far prettier, as a rule, than the best of the Sri Lankan or Russian stones, with better color changes and more clarity.) I also knew, given my fiancee's predilection for perfectionism, that she would never settle for a substandard stone, and would eventually settle for something different entirely. I figured I'd outwait her.
So I laughed out loud and said, "Well, honey, if that's what you want, that's what you'll get...as soon as there's one on the market."
(Y'all can see where this is going, right?)
We looked around and sure enough, the Brazilian mines were closed (again) and the jewelers we spoke to only had Russian stones, whose color change went from olive-ish to brown-red-purple-ish, and which had small flaws that made them affordable rather than astronomical. It was looking good... and then our goldsmith, who was custom-making our rings, called us in the middle of the night to tell us that a raid on the mine had resulted in one bag of stones totaling maybe 150 carats uncut weight making it into the USA, and that a jeweler in New York City had a stone he'd be willing to let us look at for 24 hours, tops.
The next day, in the goldsmith's shop, he cracked open the safe, took out the stone, and let us examine it while he stood guard at the front door. It was a small stone, only 1/3 of a carat, but it was perfectly cut and of exquisite color. The goldsmith told us that in 30 years of work with alexandrites, including at the Smithsonian, he'd never seen one with a better color change: from wine-red under candlelight to brilliant scarlet in incandescent light to green in sunlight to ferocious aqua in fluorescent light and black light. "Museum quality," literally.
My wife and I are not particularly materialistic people, and neither of us has ever gone in for jewelry, but looking at that tiny stone on that scrap of velvet brought home why people will kill for this kind of beauty, and have for centuries.
The stone's very small size made up costwise for its exquisite color change, and by modern gemstone standards it was a real bargain. I don't know if the Mrs. showed it to Scott when he met her last year; she wears and shows it with pride.
These days, with the advent of synthetic stones and the forcible reopening of the alexandrite mines in Brazil in the late 1980s by someone with enough firepower to keep them open, our stone is actually worth a bit less than it was then. But it's enough to know that at one time we actually had an alexandrite that was nicer than the ones the Smithsonian had. And having paid off the bank loan promptly, these days I can joke about what at the time seemed like a ridiculous expense.
Which brings me back to my punchline: never marry a geologist.
bax
I've offered to create a HiRez fan art page for Scott, I suspect there won't be much push back on that concept 
Happens when I get under 3 hours sleep for too many days in a row. I'll be getting home from work about 8:30 AM and will have all scanned and posted by 10 AM. Stay tuned. 
