Ladies Day – Inventory Count

You are never too old to love Venetian Beads. We began as the “bubble” of COVID when our lovely ladies couldn’t go to mass, couldn’t go to Bingo, nor the hairdresser couldn’t go to any of the things that keep them “young”. And 3 years on, they still come to our beadshop every Wednesday afternoons to count beads.

Rina, whose family is from Pederobba, Italy, an agricultural very tiny town on the banks of the River Piave, will be 100 in August and still lives alone. She has a mind as sharp as a 25 year old and keeps us on our toes. Maryann whose husband came from Silvano d’Orba outside Genoa, Italy just turned 99. Maryann spent years as head nurse at our local retirement center for nuns and balances the sparky Rina.

They count our inventory, except for the tiny beads which they say their hands won’t pick up. And in these 3 years they have counted some 10,000+ bead SKUs for us. We are just restarting from Row 1 again (though don’t tell them, I think they forget we counted them 3 years ago).

They just enjoy being at the beadshop and and having people around – a diversion from sitting at home. Don’t comment on the mess in our warehouse. It is really organized and we can find things. But with some 18,000 SKUs (individual part numbers) there is bound to be a bit of chaos.

Then after we finish for the day. We head to my house and we cook dinner together. Rina entertains us with her stories of she and her husband and their many travels, which includes driving from San Francisco (where she lived) to Acapulco in 1949 on her honeymoon, a staggering 2700 miles to get there. How they did this I have no clue, also taking a ship from New York to Le Havre where they bought a Peugeot which they drove all around Europe spending six months in Italy with their family. His family is from Lucca.

Needless to say, the dinner involves prosecco and good food. And we just call it “Ladies’ Day”.