Diamonds, pt. 3

You’ve done your research and discovered that while you can’t buy an American-made diamond, you can buy a diamond with a conscience. So far so good.

So you head off to a local jeweler and look for rings that don’t incorporate blood diamonds. Things go downhill quickly from there.

Allow me to digress for a moment. I focused my attention in this process on the center diamond, the solitaire, in Shelley’s ring. I quickly learned that it was very difficult to determine where rings were actually made

So you wanna buy a diamond.

So you wanna buy a diamond. Be prepared. It’s not easy.

It hits you somewhere around a month or two into your year-long buying-American adventure: damn. I want to buy a diamond.

Diamonds aren’t really MITUSA. Let’s just get that right out in the open. Technically some come from Arkansas, but we’re talking the occasional random diamond

Could responsible lumber involve exotic Brazilian hardwoods?

It has just occurred to me that maybe the best lumber option for my forthcoming fence and eventual deck will be the least American option.

There’s this newly popular Brazilian hardwood called Ipe (pronounced ee-pay) that is great for decks and fences because it’s very impervious to weather and insects. It’s super-dense and really exceptionally long lasting. It’s also really beautiful, and really expensive.