Just Another Manic Monday

Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

Sunday night, I was brushing and flossing before bed when I guess I got a little too vigorous with the floss and...pop! Out came a crown.  Super way to start a week.  I love looking like I am the mayor of  Dogpatch.

So, first thing in the morning, I called the dentist while I tried to suck my coffee through a straw in order to avoid scaring Tim and Chloe by screaming every time the hot coffee met the exposed nerve (I probably could've skipped the coffee, but that just would have led to a really ugly incident when Tim spoke to me, breathed too loud, or entered my line of sight.  Believe me, the straw was the way to go to avoid massive bloodshed.)
Naturally, I got the dentist's voicemail, so I left a message and then proceeded to have my usual Monday fun cleaning and doing laundry.  Yea Monday.

Somewhere around 10:30 or so, the dentist called back to say he could see me at 12 or...hmmm, nope, noon was pretty much my only option.  Great. I guess unless I want to pick up some cement at the hardware store and have a go at it myself, I'll see you in an hour!?!? Yikes!  I think the wicked witch had more warning that a house was going to fall on her.

Now normally, this wouldn't have been an issue, but at that point, I had made some poor choices. 

First, I had decided to try my hairdresser's advice and put rollers in my hair instead of blow-drying it, since standing out in the yard with the dog eight thousand times a day had reduced my hair to a flat, yet frizzy mess due to the humidity/constant rain (when did I move to Seattle?)

Chanting, "I think I can, I think I can", like the little engine that could (ha! What did he know, he only had to climb a lousy hill!), I began ripping rollers from my hair, flinging them hither and yon around the bathroom, only to discover that I had solved the pesky flat-hair problem by giving myself a bouffant!  Aack!!!  Unless I wanted to break out the pearls, memorize Harvey Fierstein's songs and join a local production of Hairspray, I needed to do something fast.

Frantically, I grabbed at my head with both hands trying in vain to deflate the hairdo from H@**, while eyeing the spray bottle of water I was using to train the dog.  Hmmm.  Big hair or flat, frizzy hair?  So many decisions, so little time.

Catching sight of the clock, I realized I was running out of time, so option A it was.

The second mistake I had made was to let the dog crawl under the bed for a little snooze instead of running her outside fifteen minutes earlier.  So now I had to quickly dig her out and take her for a potty call or else I would return home from my trip to find Lake Superior in my living room.

"Chloe, Chloe," I called in my 'happy voice', trying to coax her out.

Unimpressed, she yawned, stretched and rolled over, burying her head under her tail.

"Come on, girl.  Let's go outside."  I clapped my hands and fake-ran toward the stairs.

Nothing.  Not so much as an eyelash flickered.

"Chloeee,"  I begged desperately, dangling a toy in front of the bed, even while I silently acknowledged the utter futility of such actions.

"Come to mama."  I made kissy noises and rubbed my fingers together like I had a treat.

Sadly for me, the little dickens is as smart as she is cute, so all my efforts came to nothing.  Finally, with precious seconds ticking away, I had to resort to running down the stairs and pretending to go outside to stir the little monster...er, I mean darling, into action.

So back up the stairs I dashed, grabbed her majesty, and tore outside, depositing her in the "potty" spot.  Standing over her, I invoked the magic words, "Hurry up!" and waited.  And waited.

Hey was that a squirrel?  "Hurry up!"

Oooh, is a person walking by?  "Hurry up!"

A doggie! A doggie!  I wanna play!  "Hurry up!!!"

Finally, when she had nothing better to do, she obliged me, but not before the humidity and done it's job and I no longer looked like a refugee from the sixties, but more like a home perm experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong.  Super great.

With the clock ticking, I jumped in the car and took off, keeping my fingers crossed that I would get a parking space.  At lunch hour.  In a shopping plaza located near the courthouse and multiple businesses.

I do believe in miracles.  I do.  I do.  And I also believe in an invisible six-foot rabbit named Harvey (old Jimmy Stewart movie).

And all of this was before I chose a route with construction.  And drivers who had apparently failed their test sixteen times in a row.  And...Ahh.  I love Monday.

There Once Was An Ugly Duckling

Most days, I think I look okay.  So maybe my hair isn't salon styled perfect and my make-up hasn't been applied by Bobbi Brown herself, but I hardly think I look like a train wreck.  It's just everyone in the beauty industry that thinks I do.

Recently, I decided to switch hair salons for a variety of reasons.

"What do you want?" the new guy asked me.  "What's wrong with this?"

I launched into explicit detail on cut and color.

"No.  I will tell you," he declared imperiously, cutting me off.  "The color is all wrong; too dark here, too light there, the wrong shade.  The cut is bad; too long here, too short there."

Okay, so then why did you ask me if you already knew the answer?  Was it a trick question?  If I answered wrong, would I get buzzed and lose my turn?

"We will fix everything.  How much time do you have?"  He pawed through my hair like those monkeys you see on National Geographic grooming each other.

Uh, how much time do I need?  Should I have packed a lunch or an overnight bag?  Maybe I should have called the Extreme Makeover staff and thrown myself on their mercy?  How about the guys on that Restoration show.  They have lots of tools and can fix even the most derelict antiques to look like new.

Long story short, I didn't  like what he did, and ended up back at my old place several weeks later.

"What happened to you?" my old hair guy gasped when he saw me.  "Who did this?"  He managed to make it sound as though I were Dr. Frankenstein's latest attempt...and it wasn't anywhere near as pretty as his first creation.

"The color is all wrong; the cut is not right.  I'll do what I can today, but it will take weeks before it is right."

So you think I'll survive?  Gosh, I hope so because I still have so much to live for!

And if both of these guys think my hair is that bad, it's nothing compared to the guys at the mall who try to sell flat irons from those kiosks.

"Miss, miss," they gesture frantically, yelling over the din of the Saturday mall crowds.  "Come here and let me fix your hair.  I'll show you how good it could look."

Hmm.  Okay.  You've just insulted me in front of sixty thousand other shoppers, but I'm guessing that you think by calling me miss (which Tim will be more than happy to attest to the fact that the boat has long since sailed on that!)  I'm supposed to be so flattered that I will vault over those women too ugly for you to even offer to help and throw myself on your mercy, kissing your feet while weeping tears of joy that I, and I alone, am The Chosen One.

Right.  Oh, and by the way, you studied hair design...where?  Vidal Sassoon?  Paul Mitchell?  You know what? My nine year old niece can work a flat iron.  Doesn't mean I'm going to let her take a 125 degree weapon and aim it at my head.  Thanks, but no thanks.  I'll stay ugly.

The only people worse are the skincare and make-up people.  Generally speaking, you have to put your head down and run through the department like there is a fire in the center of the mall and you are the only one with a bucket of water.  If you make eye contact for even a fraction of a second, you are toast.  And NEVER, under any circumstances stop, or they will be on you like a hungry lion on a gazelle.

"Oh dear," they cluck, examining you like a bug under a microscope.  "Thank goodness you've come now.  Another day or two longer and..." they shudder and trail off as if the consequences would be too horrible to even mention.

"Do you see how dry/oily/scaly/red/green/saggy/wrinkly/baggy and/or dull your skin is?  Tsk, tsk.  What have you been using?"

Like the "Do these pants make my butt look big? question, there is no right answer to this.  You can tell them everything from drug store generic brands to whatever the current best seller among the rich and famous is and they will tell you why it doesn't work and you look like crap. (Basically, it's because they don't sell it)

Then, they will proceed to slather eighty-two different types of goop on your face and after each layer, hold up a mirror and chirp, "There. Don't you look better already?  See how the lines and creases are disappearing?  Your skin is getting tighter, taking on a youthful glow.  The years are melting away.  (Why Miss Elphaba, you're beautiful--Wicked reference, she is the green "wicked" witch).

Then, they lean in conspiratorially and boast, "I'm 82, but people think I'm 18.  It's all because our products have something nobody else has.  Shh.  It's alpharetinolcaffinatedteatreehydroxy oil.  Plus eye of newt and tongue of frog.  And just a little bit of pixie dust.

Okay, so is that a magic mirror you look into?  Cause the one you're currently shoving under my nose is not making me look like Heidi Klum.  Just so you know.

After all the various concoctions, potions and lotions (and a good hour that you'll never get back has been sucked out of your life)  you then move on to make-up, which of course, you have been doing all wrong.

"So what colors do you use?"  They query as they pull out a tray with more colors than a super jumbo box of Crayolas.

"Uh, blue?"

"Aspen blue, Blue heather, Twilight blue, Eggplant blue, Neon blue or Teal blue?"  They wait expectantly, as though I actually know the answer or can tell the difference between them.

"The blue I bought last year?"  I hesitantly offer, wishing I'd said chartreuse.  How many variations could there be on that? 

"Last year? Last year?" they shriek, clutching their chest and staggering backwards.  "You're five seasons behind!  No wonder you look like the "before" photo."

With a flick of the wrist, they unroll a set of tools and utensils that would rival a top-notch operating theater and begin transforming you from the hideously outdated creature you were to a cross between a drag queen and Tammy Faye Baker. 

"Here is a complete list of all the products I've used today," they tell me another mere hour later.  "The first 192 are the must-haves so you don't scare small children or people with 20/20 vision.  The other 56 are optional.  More or less.  Well, less.  On second thought, they're not really  optional...for you.  And by the way, who does your hair?"

Black(Brunette) Friday...The Saga Continues

Years ago, when I was in college, I used to walk into hair salons and say, "Do whatever you think will look good."

This was not one of my better ideas. I might as well have said, "Make me look like a freak." Some of my more memorable looks included a punk rocker (minus the safety pin through the nose), the bride of Frankenstein, and Peter Pan (which may have worked for Mary Martin and Kathy Rigby, but on me only brought back traumatic memories of childhood haircuts by my mom.).

Have gotten older and wiser (?), I now try to be as specific as possible with my descriptions. Unfortunately, this does not always work out so well for me either.

Six months ago, the guy who bore the awesome responsibility for keeping me blond for the past five years moved, so I needed to find someone new. After much surfing the net, pestering everyone I knew and wallowing in angst, I took the plunge.

First, the root touch-up was too dark (oh, goody, let's make the gray even easier to spot), then, I became Jean Harlow's twin (harder to spot the gray, but coupled with my skin tone, I was getting mistaken for an albino). When I asked for some contrast, I became a honey blond (translation:an orange). Finally though, I was an acceptable shade of blond with only a few remnants of orange. Until last Friday.

In a moment of pure insanity, I asked for the removal of all "orange" color and a more "natural" multi-dimensional look. What I got was brunette with some blond hightlights that bordered on greenish. Natural perhaps for someone in a carnival sideshow, but not really what I had in mind.

After living with the results for the next twelve hours, I decided to cut my losses and call a new place to see if they could make me look human again (actually, it was Tim that was living with the results, and for some reason, he did not appreciate being married to a suicidal nutcase...go figure). I got an appointment for Monday evening, took a lot of deep breaths (along with contemplating buying a very large hat), and kept chanting,"this is not the end of the world(although I didn't really believe it) over and over. (Tim, meanwhile, started looking for cheap rates at local hotels.) I almost convinced myself too, until the phone rang Monday morning.

The perky receptionist at the salon was just calling to confirm that my appointment that night was for a "consultation" not color (apparently, she did not understand the severity of the situation and the thin thread my sanity was hanging by). After reducing her to a stammering mess (that will teach her for being so chipper when the world is coming to an end), I accepted an appointment for the following morning with a different colorist.

Tuesday morning, the phone rang again. Uh oh. Seems the new guy was sick, but they would be happy to palm me off on a third person, who apparently wasn't even important enough to have a name. Was this a joke, or was it the cosmos way of telling me I should stop fighting mother nature and become a brunette again? Never!

In desperation, I called the person who had done this horrible thing to me (something I swore never to do), and made an appointment for that afternoon.

This time, however, I was going in prepared. I pulled out a few photos from the past several months to show her what I did and did not want.

"Oh, sure," she nodded and smiled, "I can do that." Which is all asked for in the first place.

P.S. I am blond again (whew) with some darker "lowlights" that I am now willing to embrace, and Tim has cancelled his reservation at a nearby hotel.

Allow Me To Introduce My Wife

Five years ago, I became blond (courtesy of a makeover). Before that, I was a brunette with lots of reddish highlights (courtesy of CVS and Miss Clairol). Before that, I was gray (courtesy of Mother Nature). And before that, I was a minor (courtesy of my mother--I just had to inherit the premature gray instead of the thin thighs. I really won that spin of the genetic wheel).

At first, this sudden change caused great confusion (I also lost over two feet in length as part of the same makeover). Tim let me walk right past him before doing a double-take the first time he saw me (good to know that after fifteen years, I could still surprise him).

The best reaction though, came from an employee at one of our favorite restaurants.

Approaching the table where we were holding hands, he greeted us, then pretty much turned his back on me to inquire frostily of Tim, "How's your wife ?"

Perplexed, Tim nodded his head toward me and said, "This is Ann."

"Nice to meet you, Ann," Ron clipped out over his shoulder, apparently believing Tim was clever enough to find a girlfriend with the same name as his wife. "So, where's your wife ,Ann, tonight?"

If possible, Ron's tone had grown even chillier and a bit more belligerent. Rarely at a loss for words (okay, never), Tim simply stared at him, jaws agape.

Barely able to contain my amusement, and afraid the situation might become physical, I interrupted. "Ron, it's me, Ann."

"Yes. I know. Nice to meet you." Head down, eyes locked firmly on Tim (clearly, someone had aced Intimidation 101), he still wouldn't look at me.

"My wife , Ann," Tim rallied, choking back the laughter, as he nudged Ron to look in my direction.

Aha! You could almost see the light bulb switching on over his head.

Thoroughly embarrassed now, Ron apologized profusely. He even sent over a bottle of champagne although I assured him I was pleased rather than offended by his reaction (It's good to know who your friends are, although now Tim knows where not to go if he ever does decide to have an affair).

Anyway, after five years of being blond and reintroducing myself to people all over again, you can imagine my shock when, last Friday, I went to the hair salon for a touch up (you know, to keep that "natural" look), and came out as a brunette (The only thing worse would have been coming out with a recreation of my big '80's perm. Then, I would have had to find a store that sold tops with huge shoulder pads instead of just a hat.).

To be continued.....