Jewels from a Drag Queen

I know, the title of this post was way random, huh?! But it is appropriate because I literally bought the jewels of a drag queen tonight. More on that in a minute.

Dan, Noah and I went down to Chinatown in downtown Honolulu tonight for a date night. We were supposed to meet up with some friends but it ended up being just us and we were kind of relieved; we needed some family time.

Each first Friday of the month, all the art galleries open their doors to the public and feature new and local artist. We got down there before things really kicked off so we strolled over to the Aloha Tower Marketplace and had dinner at the late Don Ho's restaurant. It is touristy but a nice place to eat right on the water. Noah got serenaded by a great Hawaiian singer and he was mesmerized (I have a video that I will post later this weekend): he's obsessed with guitars because his daddy has one that he plays for Noah.

Anyway, after dinner, we shopped a little bit and went back over to the First Friday festival in Chinatown. For those of you not familiar with Oahu, Chinatown is a seeeeeedy place after dark. It becomes filled with the motliest of crews (a word?) you could imagine. And it is definitely not the place to have a baby out and about.

We were finishing up our shopping and stopped by an outdoor jewelry vendor at the end of the row in Chinatown. She was selling estate pieces and several caught my eye so I stopped to check them out; many of the pieces were sparkling in the Hawaiian sunset and I had to stop and ogle them!

But one broach and earring set in particular captivated me. The vendor started to tell me the back-story of the pieces and I immediately decided I had to have them! She just recently purchased them from a Caucasian, blond drag queen "showgirl" who had reached his 40s, was past his performing days and had fallen on hard times. The set was from the 1950s and had belonged to his mother. He didn't want to sell the jewels to an estate dealer but he had no choice. So she sold them to me for exactly the nominal fee for which he had sold them to her.

I was giddy from the thrill of my purchase! I felt that I had gotten a steal on the jewels but also felt a sadness for the man who had had to part with his late mother's belongings. I left Chinatown wanting to find out more about him, his mom and I wanted to find a way to tell him that his jewels were in good hands now and will be well cared for. Oh well, thus is life. I just hope that he's found happiness and things are looking up for him.

I always love a good back-story, don't you?!