Musings of a 70ish writer, reader, and opinionated observer determined to understand life before it’s all over. Seems the older I get the less I know. There’s a story in there somewhere.
Ever wish you could cut and color your own hair? I was born with super fine hair and I’ve always wanted it to be thicker, maybe even wavy. Stylists have colored and permed it over the years but no one has every gotten it right – at least someone could have come closer to what I asked for.
It’s always cut too short (Not so short, please, I’ll be back in six weeks); caramel colored instead of just highlighted lightly with blonde – with bleach so it has more body (No caramel color, please; it doesn’t go with my skin color.); the grey/silver is covered (Please, I’m proud of it.); it’s parted on the wrong side (It naturally parts on the right, please.); the crown cowlick is always ignored and subsequently sticks up like Alfalfa (Please, please, please cut to calm my cowlick.); it’s styled by rolling it around a big round brush, repeatedly (… even though I prefer to style with my fingers, please; could you show me how to do that?) and, the bangs are chopped super short (I like my bangs, long, please.).
I’ve had stylists who cut my bangs right, left it a bit long, parted it properly, colored to my wishes, and even left my bangs long – just not all those skills in one person. It’s no wonder that I change stylists every year. No one ever gets it right.
It would be so much easier if I’d just been born with thick hair and no cowlicks.
Why is it we’re always born wanting something else?
… two years ago and I just discovered him two nights ago.
I’m a junkie, no denying it. I will eat every M&M in the bowl, every ice cream bar in the fridge, and every peach on the tree, if left to my own will. I’ve recently discovered I can binge on TV, as well.
A friend of mine, a total bacon hog (yes, I meant to say that), recently sent me this. He loves bacon. So do I but I don’t worship it like he and his friends do. I picture them kneeling before an altar made of bacon – his addiction is that serious.
I do, however, think this, and the current bacon rage in this country, hysterical.
(Sorry, I don’t know where the photo came from. Maybe out of one of Wally’s drooling dreams.)
1. A maid could iron my husband’s shirts. I’m an ironing fanatic and can perfectly iron a shirt in no time. But, I’m sick of it. A maid could do just about as good a job as I can. And, I don’t want to have to train her; she should come well prepared.
This is probably my husband’s idea of a maid. Frankly, I don’t care. As long as she does his shirts! http://www.halloweencostumes.com
2. A maid could make healthy meals for me. I want to eat a more healthy diet, but I hate having to figure out how to do that and then shop and cook and clean up and all that. I have lots of books about healthy eating. I could give them to my maid and she could provide fresh, healthy food three meals a day. She would also be available for midnight snack preparation, based on my whims, of course.
3. A maid could clean the fireplace out on a regular basis. It always seems to be full of ashes at this time of year and it’s such a mess to clean. It makes me feel like Cinderella, and I don’t like it. I’m much more the ugly step-sister kind of girl – no glass slippers and fancy pants princes for me. Oh, and the maid could build fires and keep them stoked while she’s at it.
We’ve been taking Italian lessons over the past couple of years, with the intent to throw some of it against the wall when we arrive in Italy and hope that it sticks. As part of that fantasy, I receive a daily “Italian flashcard” via email, which kindly gives me a useful Italian sentence, its pronunciation and meaning. I don’t always find time to learn a new sentence each day, but I keep them all knowing that someday my free time will catch up to me and I can study them all. Continue reading “La sua testa era completamente calva.*”→
7 Things You Totes Need to Stop Saying if You’re Over 30 (Oops, There’s One of Them)
A lot of us are guilty of it. Especially those of us with teens, or tweens, or kids of any age who watch kid-centric television shows or who spend a lot of time on Instagram.
We start to talk like them. Words, phrases, the flotsam and jetsam of another generation’s vernacular seeps into ours and before you know it, we catch ourselves (or our friends) dropping these little beauties into everyday conversation, Facebook updates, blog posts and tweets.
Someone needs to step in now, and beg of us all: STOP IT. For the love of all things good and pure and age-appropriate, please stop. Continue reading “Totes amazeballs”→
I came home today by way of the neighborhood market where I’d stopped to get the makings of chicken soup. Two days ago a co-worker came into the office with a full-blown cold. Now I don’t know if you can catch a cold in two days, but honestly, I never get sick when I’m away from that office and I have a hard and fast rule about coming into the office when sick. Unfortunately, I’m the only one who seems to adhere to it.
Chicken soup is a common classic comfort food that might be found across cultures. (Photo credit: Wikipedia). I’m hopeful I’ll get a bowl before I met my helpful stalker, er, stranger, again.
I couldn’t remember all the ingredients and in my feverish state, I asked the nearest woman I could find what she put into her chicken soup. Bad idea. She pointed to her husband who proceeded to tell me he’d been a cook in the Navy. He looked older and was a big burly guy – he looked and like he could sling hash onto your plate and beat the crap out of you if you didn’t like it. Not wanting to get the crap beat out of me, I listened for about 15 minutes while he told me what he put in it, why I shouldn’t eat wheat, should take a lot of different vitamins, eat lots of vegetables, never eat corn and a bunch more stuff than I can’t remember. Continue reading “Chicken soup and helpful strangers”→
Let me disclose this first thing: I don’t like cucumbers; they don’t like me.
Two nights ago my doorbell rang – at a reasonable hour, but we hardly ever have anyone ring our doorbell or even come onto our porch. The doorbell rang a second time and after exchanging surprised looks with my husband, I answered it. I expected door-to-door Bible thumpers who wanted to convert me, or at least a couple of guys farmed out by their company (always a cable/internet provider) to drum up business on the block. These are the only people who come to our door. But, people like this ring the doorbell and stay politely behind the closed screen door.
Check out Judy T’s cool blog, “My Freezer is Full – An Iowa farm girl getting back to the farm,” home to this sad little cucumber.
Imagine my shock when I opened the door and a very nice woman, holding the screen door open, shoved a huge cucumber in my face and asked, “Do you want a cucumber?” I hesitated only slightly, said “sure” and took the cucumber. She smiled and quickly left the porch.I closed the door and held the cucumber up for my husband to see. “You don’t even like cucumbers,” was all he said before returning to his book, leaving the cuke and me alone. I held the big ugly thing for several minutes, wondering what had just happened. I tend to be the kind of person who questions most everything, and so it was that I found myself staring at it, trying to wrap my head around this mystery gift.
I’ve spent odd moments since wondering if there was a message for me in that cucumber (which, by the way, left the house the next morning for a new home on the “take it” table in my husband’s office kitchen). Was it telling me I should be more accepting of gifts from others? Or, that cucumbers can be gifts, too? That the cucumber-bearer just had the wrong house? Or, maybe, never to answer my doorbell? To lighten up a bit and stop looking for ulterior motives and meaning in everything, especially cucumbers? Or, was it a sign that aliens now lurk outside my windows, under the Buddleia and lilac?
And, after all this stewing, here I sit. I still don’t know. Maybe it was just a sign that I should let my husband answer the door from now on.
Looks like my sister arrived at her remote destination in Wyoming . . .
Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 7:58 PM, Mary to me:
Hey, wanted to let you know that I have internet access from this place, but not cell coverage. I’ll check it a couple of times a day and when I’m out and about, check my cell phone just in case you need me!
Wed, Jul 25, 2012, at 10:53 AM, me to Mary:
You may have internet access but it is waaaaaaaaaaaay slow getting out of there. I just got this. I tried your cell phone this morning . . . where is the dust pan? Laundry detergent? I’m about to go buy them.
Lemon cucumbers. Good for target practice. Look pretty in a basket. That’s about it. Image from sdca.org
Everything here is fine. Tahlia follows me everywhere and sleeps with me. I brush her daily and she says to tell you she doesn’t miss you. Don either. Carmine is like Max. He talks to me and flops over until I pet him. Then he gets up, moves and waits until I go to him and pet him some more. Then he moves and waits for me to go to him again. I’ve seen every square inch of your house. The Zack is a bit more stand-offish but is being really good about his medicine. By the way, they both say they don’t miss you and that you shouldn’t bother to come home. They like all the extra treats I give them and Zackie especially likes the fresh ahi I buy him every day!
The garden is doing well. I am using the cucumbers as targets for the water gun. I have cut down the lavender and the crepe myrtle. (Did I tell you I hate crepe myrtle, too? Why does everyone in the Sacramento Valley plant crepe myrtle??) I’m making friends with the squirrels. They let me know their feeders are empty by banging the wooden lids at 5 am. So cute. Not. I am going to use the back fence they run along as an arcade. You know, “run, run, run, duck!” I am filling the water gun now and will be ready at 5 tomorrow morning.
Precious little buggers! They are an institution in Sacramento. Lots of trees equal lots of cute squirrels. Image from animalcontrolsacramento
I am not laying by the pool. I am not reading. I am not sleeping. I am not watching TV. I am not having fun. And, I am not seeing my friends. There is too much work to be done. I can’t find anything. I don’t miss my husband think I will go home.*
Please have fun. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be here watering, feeding cats, taking out trash, looking for cotton balls, breaking fingernails, calling you names, singing camp songs to the walls, deleting programs from your computer, drinking all your wine, draining the pool (since I don’t have time to use it), driving your car to a mall and leaving it with the doors open and a sign on it that says “strip me, please” (by, the way, what’s the worst section of town these days?), and selling all your stuff on eBay for $.99.
Your sister
Bring it! Image from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate
PS. Send chocolate
*The last person who house sat for my sister for two weeks called her about three days in and said she missed her husband too much and was going home. Personally, I think the unreasonable work load and the cucumbers drove her away.
You may have heard that the latest ridiculous law suit comes from Oregon: Justin Bieber has been sued for $9 mil by a woman who claims screaming fans at a Bieber concert in 2010 destroyed her hearing! Oh my God! What did she expect?
Some time ago I mentioned an idea of my husband’s called “Common Sense Court” where frivolous/ridiculous/get-outta-here/hilarious/you’ve-got-to-be-kidding lawsuits are handled by a group of people who use common sense to resolve issues.
The harmed party in this suit says, “It was incredibly loud inside the arena thanks to Justin’s shrieking fans” and that Bieber made it “MUCH MUCH WORSE when he climbed into a heart-shaped aluminum/steel gondola which was pulled out into the crowd.” She says he “created a wave like effect of screaming by pointing into various sections of the arena. Then [he] enticed the crowd into a frenzy of screams by continuously waving his arms in a quick and upward motion.”
The woman claims that the gondola acted as a “sound conductor creating a sound blast that permanently damaged both of my ears.” As a result, she now suffers from tinnitus which causes a constant whooshing sound and pulsing which makes it hard to sleep, as well as other hearing-related damaged.
She is, of course, suing Justin Bieber, his record label and all his affiliated companies, the concert promoter, the arena . . . . and on and on, ad nauseum. There’s gotta be a buck in there somewhere.
In other words 