Red, Gold and Green

I'm a huge believer in karma; the idea that what goes around, comes around pleases me mightily. Mostly I like it because the concept that I might actually have something to do with my fate appeals to a control freak like me very much. (Also? I like the thought that the people who I do not like will get a huge ass-kicking at some point in their life; the universe saying "HAH!". No doubt that thought will earn me an ass-kicking at some point, too.)

Case in point: Parking Karma. I always try to pass up the best parking spot in the lot with the idea that when I really, really need a good spot, the universe will provide for me. And it totally works. Also, I give the homeless guy at Tim Hortons a buck every time I see him, and I smile and ask how he is doing, and he is very smiley and polite and wishes me a nice day, and so far I am not homeless. The only problem with this theory of Divine Benevolence is that I cannot figure out why I haven't wont the lottery yet.

Last Friday I did the hair of a complete whackjob. She was indecisive, insecure and sucked up all the oxygen in the room. She was exhausting. To make a long, long story short, we discussed (at length) what she wanted done with her hair, I did what I thought we had agreed on, and somewhere between the stylist's chair (where she had it cut) and coming back to the colour room to see me, she decided that it wasn't what she wanted at all. (We call this "Paint Chip Syndrome": "I know that's what I asked for, but I didn't realize it would look like this".) I offered to re-do it for her on Wednesday, the next day I was available, and she reluctantly agreed. She called the next day, Saturday, crying and carrying on that her hair was now too short, too, and that she hadn't slept all night and her weekend was ruined and what were we going to do about it. Barb, The Best Receptionist In All The Land, replied that we were going to do her hair on Wednesday, and to get over herself. (Well, she didn't say that last bit, but it was implied.) I was dreading Wednesday.

Now, yesterday, as I offered Thing 1 a ride to school, and said I'd pick up the girl she usually walks with, too. As we set out for the high school, I passed one of Thing 2's friends on the side of the road; his 8 year-old sister had fallen off her bike, she was bleeding and crying and he looked like he was doing his damndest not to burst into tears himself. I stopped the car, brought out the kleenex and put her bike into my van and told the brother to go on his way, I'd take care of everything. (The brother thanked me and after a pause, said in a shakey voice "you're not going to tell my mom I wasn't wearing my helmet, are you?") After I brought Thing 1 and her friend to school, I got the little one squared away, told her teacher what had happened and went home to wake up Thing 2, (who had inadvertently got a half hour to sleep in, because I was so late.)

And today I got a phone call from Barb, to tell me that The Crazy Client Who Haunted My
Dreams had decided that her hair wasn't as dark as she thought, and she was cancelling her appointment with me to fix it. I nearly wept with gratitude.

And my belief in a benevolent universe continues. Now, where can I find someone to help me win the lottery? And get Karma Chameleon out of my head.

Amazing Race 13 Ep. 1

Anyone get the feeling that this was a whole lot of 'been there, done that'?

I don't think I've ever seen a first episode of the Amazing Race before where I knew who was going to be eliminated in the first 5 minutes. Those geriatric Dead Heads were nice enough, but appeared to be partaking in the Amazing Stroll Through Commune rather than the Amazing Race. Also? I'm afraid my hair will look like that when I am 60.

Whiney Fat Boy in the Blue Shirt is pretty annoying, no? I think he should go just because of that stupid yellow bandana, if nothing else. The other one seems to be normal enough, but Bandana Boy was freaking out about everything.....maybe switch to decaf, dude. And if I ever have to se either one of them without a shirt again, I am going to raise one hell of a stink. That's just hurtful. (On the other hand? Dallas, of the Mother and Son Team, should be required to race topless.)
How did they NOT guess that the "mystery" question would be about the number of steps? Thing 1 and I both said that first thing....I'd have just counted the steps to keep my mind off the throbbing mess that would be my knees.

I don't know, I get a funny feeling about that ex-NFL player and his Cruella DeVille wife....I think, I think, he may have cheated on her, because that is the vibe I am getting. Subtle, I know, but I can't shake it. Maybe we'll find out later. Also, this just in, Kelly and Christie appear to be divorced.

I am very glad that I did not name either of my daughters "Sarah", although it is a lovely name, because apparently, when you are named Sarah, you are doomed to have a boyfriend who is an asshole. Happens every season.

Terrance is a huge tool already; I'm surprised he didn't complain that she should stop speaking Portuguese to everyone, because it made him feel inadequate. When someone says they are a "free spirit" that "only does what makes [him] happy", you know that means he's never going to be bothered doing anything that makes anyone else happy. And prefacing everything with "Honey, I love you dearly but..." would get you a sound ass-kicking around here. And what the hell was with his hair during their interview???? Thing 1 and I rewound it a couple of times to get a good look at that.

So far, I like the Comic Book Nerds and Aja and Ty. They seem to be the only ones who can interact with each other with any level of normalcy. Team Brother and Sister seem to be all hyped up and competitive, but I have to give props to Nick for saying Bandana Frat Boy wasn't in customer relations.

I like how Southern Belle #1 (No way am I going to be able to keep them straight. I don't even know their names and I probably won't bother to do so.) said that it was "hard being in a strange airport, particuarly in a foreign country". Because apparently she's never seen this show before, and was under the impression it was filmed in her backyard.

Well, even a so-so Race episode is still better than almost anything else on tv!

Once More Into the Bleach.

Colouring hair can be a tricky business. Perception is reality, after all; one person’s “burnished copper” is another person’s “highway pylon orange”. But usually such differences of opinion are easily managed, and we are able to make the client happy with a bit of toner or a few more highlights.

Bleach, however, is a whole nother business. When bleach goes wrong it goes horribly, disasterously, catastrophically wrong. Like, “hair breaking off at the root and falling out” wrong. Believe me, I witnessed the “Great Bleach Fiasco of 89” when I was a junior, and it has haunted me ever since. (One of the staff wanted her hair bleached all over, and asked me to put it on. Just to be clear, she mixed it, I just applied it. When I rinsed it out, I noticed that the drain was clogging up…..from all the hair that was falling out. Of her head. At the front. In my dreams, I can still hear the screaming.)

So you can imagine my horror at finding a whole head, on scalp bleach booked in my column for last Wednesday. (As opposed to bleach highlights, which can go wrong, but at least it’s not a whole head of hair. If highlights go wrong you just loose tufts of hair, which isn’t pleasant, but at least hidable.) I’ve never done a full head of bleach, and was shitting large, triangular bricks at the prospect for at least 4 days. The lady at the L’Oreal technical hotline was full of good advice, and the other colour technician at work was able to tell me what I needed to know, and I was as ready as I’d ever be by Wednesday afternoon.

A very nice young woman came in, and unknowingly put me at ease by saying that her hairdresser told her what to tell me, and after I took a deep breath and gave God a stern talking to, I was able to replicate the job without incident. And as she went out the door with her newly blond hair, I offered up a prayer of thanks that neither of us ended the day in tears, and both of us with all our hair intact.

But tomorrow is another day!!

I Can't Even Find My Car Keys.

My parents just came back from Ireland, where they went for their 5oth anniversary trip and they went back to the hotel where they spent their honeymoon in 1958. (Thing 2 remarked, with some wonder "and it's still standing???") The manager of the hotel made a bit of a fuss about them, and one night at dinner, came to their table with a dusty old book under his arm. It seems he had been able to dig up the old registry book from the hotel's basement, and there they were, my parents' signatures from their wedding day. And then they got a bottle of champagne given to them.

I sincerely doubt that the Mister and I will be able to do that for our 5oth anniversary, because it's all electronic now, and plus, neither of us is certain, exactly, where we stayed on our honeymoon. Also, many days there is some doubt as to whether or not we will make it to our 5oth anniversary; sometimes the next 15 minutes is iffy.

Where Will We Put the Books?

Way back in April, I told you about our getting a big screen tv that the Mister wanted with all his heart and soul. When we got the new tv, we naturally needed a new stand for it, since the old armoire we used for the last tv was woefully inadequate to house the enormous dimensions of our newest acquisiton. We looked around a bit, but everything was too black and space-age looking for us, or too expensive, or simply too ugly to abide in our house with us. I said, with some frustration, "all I want is a plain, wooden table with a shelf underneath, exactly like our coffee table in the living room". The two of us paused for a minute to let the synapses fire, and looked at each other and cried "why don't we use the coffee table in the living room!!". And so we did.

That left us without a coffee table in the living room, but we figured that wouldn't be too difficult to rectify. Silly us. We have discovered that in the 16 years since we last bought a coffee table, they have almost gone out of fashion entirely.

We were able to find lots of "ottomans as coffee table", like this, which I get is useful, only if you do not want to actually use it as a coffee table.

Can you imagine this in my house? It wouldn't stand a chance. Between the cat and the kids, this would be a raggedy mess in about 20 minutes. How are you supposed to put a drink on top of that thing? Besides, it looks like it's 6 feet tall.

There were lots of this sort of thing, too. Very Flintstoney. We do not live in a very funky or interesting house, and I certainly don't want my furniture to have more personality than me.

There was a surprising amount of what I call "Early American

Pensioner" furniture, such as this. My husband may be 50, but we are too young to have this kind of furniture in our house.

We also saw a lot of this kind of thing, that made me think that the Jetsons, and that maybe we should really all have flying cars and a Rosie the Robot maid by now. But it was proving very difficult to find a plain, wooden, relatively compact, non-ugly table for our living room. We eventually settled on a glass and metal affair that we could both live with, that did not break our budget and reminds us of no early childhood cartoons whatsoever.

Now we need a new couch.

I Don't Even Like The Name "Jim".

My gym called me the other day, and by ‘’gym”, I mean “the place where I paid forty bucks a month for the privilege of berating myself senseless three times a week.” The gym must be very hard up for clients, because I terminated my contract with them almost two years ago.

They wanted me to know that they would be very happy to welcome me back and that they were prepared to offer me a “special rate” to do so. The young man on the other end was very perky and so earnestly full of good spirit that I felt mean for letting him down and refusing. But, it was also hard for me to not want to put a big old spike right through his head, either.

I had to tell him, in the most gentle terms possible, that I hated the gym, hated it with all the strength and purpose that God Himself had given me. That I would rather chew off my own right arm than go to the gym again. That the gym whipped me into a frenzy of loathing, and that I would never voluntarily darken their doorstep again. To which he paused and replied….”oh”.

I did assure him that I didn’t just reserve my revulsion for his gym alone, I hated all gyms. I have to give him kudos, he did keep talking to me, which, had I had me on the phone, I’d have probably given up. But he gamely asked me why I disliked going to the gym, to which I had to ask if he wanted my objections listed in order of importance, chronologically or alphabetically. At this point he laughed, recognized that he was on the phone with a legitimate nutbar, and wished me a good evening.

High School Musical

Thing 1 started high school recently, and the one thing, the ONE THING I strongly encouraged her to take was music. Mostly because if you aren’t in music, you aren’t in the band. And band can be a blast in high school, even if you do have to put up with punishingly early practices and painfully ugly uniforms. In band you get to meet a much bigger cross-section of kids than you would anywhere else, you get an extra half-credit for sticking it out, and maybe, just maybe, you will get to go on a trip. (Band trips are a riot, even when you only get to go to Ottawa, which seems to be the destination of choice for high schools in Ontario.)
My band went to Ireland when I was in Grade 12, and it was so much fun I barely remember anything else about high school. It was totally worth having to play the French Horn for four years, which I hated with every molecule of my being. (The French Horn is a beautiful sounding instrument, but is not pretty and delicate and most of all, light enough to lug home on a city bus without herniating yourself.)

Thing 1 played the flute in elementary school, which she began with such enthusiasm we actually bought her a flute off of Ebay. Her zeal has diminished somewhat (read: fallen off the map entirely) and she chose to play the alto sax in high school. The sax came home with her today, and there has been a series of honks and squeaks and moos out of her room since. I hope to God she is actually practicing that saxophone because otherwise I would have to conclude that she is mistreating goats in there. I’m sure the day will come when she can actually coax a recognizable tune out of that thing. (By the way, the Mister picked up that saxophone and busted out with a very impressive riff. Just came out of nowhere; had no idea he could pull that out. I was gobsmacked.)

One of the other advantages with being in band is that you occasionally get to skip out of class for some sort of special performance. My band got to play at music festivals and at assemblies and such. My friend Perrie’s elementary school band was asked to play when the bishop came to bless the newly built Catholic church in town. ( Sadly, the only song they could all play together was “Another One Bites The Dust”, which I’m sure was a novelty for the bishop.)

If Grade 9 music and band are not to Thing 1’s liking, she is free to pull the plug and pursue other interests. I sincerely hope she doesn’t, and for that, I am willing to put up with what sounds like a fight to the death between thrashing bagpipes and angry ducks.