Define:long

My good friend J gave me a gift certificate to my favorite spa for Giftmas. Awesome. I made a facial appointment for today, since R's mom was watching AB for 25 hours starting Saturday morning at 9:00. Even more awesome-er.

The appointment was pure bliss. The woman, Cara, did everything right. The sales pitch was barely audible over the din of my relaxation. Wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that when I went to pay I launched the same credit card I always use and paid in full. Later that night at Starbuck's I look in my wallet and there is that damn gift card, nestled and resting with the all the other cards. Suck. That I have to go back isn't bad, but that was just stupid. I don't tolerate stupid well, as you know if you've read more than one page of these blog entries.

So I'm all greasy and languid from the facial and I look at my hair and decide it's over; I've got to get it cut. I need to wash it again today anyway from the spa oils. It's been months. I'm all shaggy. So instead of planning, making an appointment, and going to see David, my favoritist hairstylist in the world, I swing by a locally owned and operated salon with very little wait. See how smart I am? Uh huh.

So she calls my name and I walk over with her. She is very nice. Says I can put my purse on her table/shelf/whatever. It's covered in hair. I nearly shuddered as I placed my beloved designer bag on it. So shallow, but there it is. Don't worry, it escaped the situation unharmed. It didn't even get a 90's haircut like its owner.

She took me back and shampooed my nasty hair. Asked me in broken English what I wanted. "A trim and long layers." Soooo easy and simple and full of short, third-grade words. I'm guessing she didn't understand me, and I don't speak Yiddish, nor did she listen well enough to realize she didn't understand me and get clarification. She shakes out the apron and I am coated in a fine ash of cut hair. Yum. She starts cutting. I close my eyes and try to remain still while hair tickles my neck and face.

She completes the trim. We're halfway home. Then she cuts another layer into my hair about three f*cking inches shorter. Is that a LONG layer, stupid hair lady, or a SHORT layer? I sit there and stare at what she is doing, unable to believe I'm about to get a "Jennifer." She gave me what Ms. Aniston made famous about, oh, eight years before she made it cool to be a deserted wife. That's not the worst of it. She cuts that super-short layer into my already thin and fine hair, right? I thought it was over. Then she dries it and trims a teeny bit off the front left side while dry. I'm thinking, that's a nice touch. It might offset how short half my hair is if she does it right. She looks disappointed when I quickly refuse her offer of bangs. Is this 1992, crazy hair lady?

Then she goes over the the other side and proceeds to hack off a lock about three inches long. I scream "NO! NO NONONONO!" in my head, and gasp in horror as it falls onto the apron, small and dead, but all that comes out is a weak, "no, no, no." She says, sorry, I was just making it even with the back. That's foreign-speak for tapering it into the longer layer, which shouldn't have been necessary if you understood the meaning of the word LONG. I say forget it, it's fine. I sulk while she finishes (it looks like shit the way she styles it, of course), pay, put my hair in a ponytail, and stomp to my car.

It's just hair, who freaking cares. It'll grow out. The irony here is that I had a shorter lock just like that a little bit ago, a lock that pretty much JUST finished growing out. It bothered me ALL DAY LONG. I spent the whole day putting it behind my ear, which makes me look vain and makes that strand cling together from finger oil accumulation. I did not even try, however, in my native tongue to get this across to her foreign ears. Nor did I launch into how it all needs to go into a ponytail and stay there so I am not pestered by it while I run. Hence the term: LONG LAYERS.

I can make it work, but I'm pissed. I look like Farrah Fawcett.

...

More irony? Can you handle more irony? All the shit she put in my hair smelled SO BAD that I had to wash my hair again later. So I could have just scheduled an apppointment with my beloved David, and washed it at home that day. Course, I got all icky and needed a shower from de-hairing a sofa we're donating to R's sister's BF, but that's not relevant. The entire time while I'm straining and vacuuming nasty cat hair off the sofa, the floor and curtains behind the now-relocated sofa, and everything in between I'm smelling that nasty crap that smells like what my sister uses. I hate that smell. It was awful. You'd think I had a bad day the way I'm making all this sound, but I was listening to my iPod while vacuuming, and let me tell you that really helps.

Then there was a great date later, interrupted by an annoying yet successful production outage at midnight (working on the weekend, nothing bettah), but overall it was a spectacular 25 hours. AB was so sweet when we picked her up. She talked to us the whole way back, and really put some advanced thoughts together Sunday.* She also drew her first drawing that really looked like what she intended, and frankly looked like a 4-year-old drew it. She is a really, really cool kid.

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*Some AB quotes:

"Mommy, Daddy and me make.... family"

"I'm Daddy's poodee-butt." (Response to "Are you my poodee-butt?")

"I know that it will get old." (Sad voice, worried about not finishing her couscous. I put the leftovers back with the others so she could eat them later.)

"One time, Aunt sat in that seat." (Talking about how Daddy was in the backseat with her. She proceeded to recall something Aunt said while sitting in the back with her.)

Better Mood? You Decide.

Let's see if I'm in a better mood today. Only way to tell is to start blogging and see what comes out. Ready? GO!

Run this morning was OK, I went for 15 mins straight, then had to cruise a bit. I got over 25 minutes overall running, I think. I chose to forgo Robert's crooning for today (sorry Robert!) and listen to tunes instead. My HRM said was in target zone for a piddly 12 minutes, so either I'm getting used to my super-slow-crawling-jog and will need to step it up or that bad boy is on the fritz.

Hmmm... I'm starting to get a pretty good bead on my mood. Let's cover one more topic before we bring this baby home...

Avery had a note in her cubby this morning. I read it (as opposed to... eating it?). It said she was scheduled to move up to the next class in the next two weeks! NOOOOOO! We love her teacher! She's fond of her buddies! Noooo! However, her best bud James is in the class above, as well as several others who have moved on. It'll be fine. Older kids will be better at staying healthy, so maybe she'll be sick less. I'll get out of the Newsletter that I stupidly volunteered to help with on an extremely rare moment of altruism that I don't have time for. I called R and communicated some of this sadness. Also a touch of the acceptance I had already reached, but that did not make it across the wires. Later he calls me:

"Hey."
"Hey."
"What's up?"
"I talked to Bekki, the director?"
Uh huh. (Repeated quotes not tenable.)
AB's not moving up until the regular time, as previous.
What? Did you ask for that?
Didn't you want me to?
No!
Oh, well.
It's fine. She'll do fine either way.
OK, bye.
Bye. Love you.
Love you.

13 years we've been together, you'd think we could have figured out this kind of communication shit, no? Too funny. We'll be 80 years old and mis-communicating as fast as we can move our lips and breathe CO2 across our vocal chords. He's sick and I ramble, so there was error on both sides. No biggie. If that's the biggest thing I f*ck up today I'm doing well.

::sigh:: Didja guess on the mood, yet?

I know. I'm working on it, dammit! ;)

So go read someone cheerful.

Are You Kidding Me With This?

So as I've said, we're going to San Diego for our summer vacation this year. Used to be we'd go to Savannah, but this year various circumstances have changed that will disallow or discourage this. So we're going to watch the Rock n Roll Marathon in San Diego. I'm the uber-planner, so I was handily put in charge of flight, car, and accommodations.

This is good and bad. Good because I don't want anyone else doing it, and bad because I am an over-analyzer. I have to look at every possible angle, weigh it 100 times, and ensure all the facets align to refract 100% of the light I direct at it. My "vacations" sometimes include suggested itineraries. So I am an over-analyzing, perfectionist, compulsively over-planning organizer. Yeah. I'm easy to live with.

I decided that Yahoo travel did not help much, since its search capabilities were inconsistent at best. I switched over to Orbitz/Hotels.com and they did a better job. Orbitz is now my favorite travel site, BTW. So I'm looking at the eight thousand options and trying to determine which hotel will satisfy every one of my 200 requirements. I'm perusing through some photos of a hotel that I thought I had landed on when I saw this.

Are you KIDDING me? You're going to keep that monstrosity up on your hotel in the hopes that it will lure people to you? How long has it been since anyone, anyone wore a spandex french-cut thong workout pantie over white spandex shorts? Certainly not to work out. Maybe to a strip club or something... to perform a Flashdance tribute or flail about to ONJ's "Let's get Physical." Notice the clever use of mirrors to make the microscopic workout room look twice as wide. The 1984-dated water cooler nestled beside the artificial foliage says, "Come, work out here. You will be comfortable and oddly relaxed. Get physical." Shudder. Thanks, Olivia. Get that elongated mons out of the shot, for the love of good.

Then it got worse. Behold, Hell's Lobby.

You're serious about the over-the-balcony shot looking down on the overdressed matrons? The demure spiral-perm-caught-at-the-nape maiden in a white skirt? The nondescript male and overdressed, flight-attendant-suited clerk? A cravat, people? I cannot imagine a more boring way to spend an afternoon, or a more boring group of people to spend it with. And these are supposed to draw people to your hotel? You got some bad advice, my friend. Baaad advice. Snap some new photos to update your image, or you will find yourself attractive to geriatrics only. People who remember the 80's and the enormous shoulder pads as the prime of their lives. Shudder.

In spite of this, shortly thereafter I landed on one, and I feel good about it. Facets aligned. Mission accomplished.

I talked to AB about going to California. Then I got frustrated about a hotel I liked that was too far away from the airport and AB said, "I'm sad." Why are you sad? "Because I wanted to go to Tali-fornia." Oh sweetie, we're still going. I put her down. "Ippee! I can't wait to go to... Talifornia!" She has no idea where or what California is. Can you imagine getting that excited about unknowns again? Something so unfamiliar? No.

I must be irritable from lack of sleep and hotel hunting. Let me add to this tirade the following tidbit: if you're interested in a 2-hour nap please go see Hannibal Rising. I literally closed my eyes and went to a happy place during several of the more melodramatic, poorly-written scenes. When it was over the first thing I said to hubby was, "That was the longest eight hours of my life!" The most exciting part was when I got up to go to the bathroom. That's always nerve-racking. Other than that our date went very well. We had a great dinner with expectedly terrific conversation. Sans interruption from the little one. It was nice.

I'm going now. I'll try to grump less tomorrow. Or you could just not read this one, I mean, what careth I? I'm not making money from this, just uncovering a few skeletons.

"Math is Hard!"

You'd think someone with two degrees, such as myself (note pompous tone), would have some idea how to do general math. Apparently I do not.

So I started week 7 on my trusty podcasts for running. I'm expecting a 5-15-5 or some such crap when I hear... "Today is 25 minutes of running, or about 2.5 miles." Screeeech! Again? Oh hell, I'll try it. Nothing I can't do, pep talk, bullshit, etc.

That was NOT 25 minutes. My heart rate monitor (shut up) told me I was in target zone for 31 minutes. 31 minus 25 is NOT zero. No way was it 25 minutes. I think Robert's doing some kind of math mind game where we're slowly running longer than we think... that's ascribing a lot of malice to the poor guy, so I probably shouldn't continue in that vein. That would be pretty damn mean of him.

Regardless, it was the longest 25-or-31 minutes of my life. I walked twice. Suffering from the teenage temperature and caloric limitation. It was hard, cold, and miserable. I hope it did some good. If not I will be SO pissed. So pissed.

Shut up, Author, it's Friday! Woo hoo! I'm such a cliche. At least I know it.

So go read some news.

The Parting

9 times out of 10 when we drop AB off at school she is the picture of perfect pupil-ness. Ahem.

Anyway, today was very hard. She slept badly, and didn't have a good morning. Asked to take her "baby" to school with her (she now calls her care bears "babies"), to which the stock response was, "of course not." She broke down in a fit over that expected triviality. We knew we were in for a hard day.

When we got there she didn't want to get out of the car. She didn't want to go to school. Ever the picture of perfect parent patience, I said, "I don't care," and grabbed her out of her seat. She walked to her classroom and tried every trick she knew to delay the process. We had the usual discussion over the laminated Van Gogh on the wall... "AB, it's Fourteen Sunflowers in a Vase, remember? Can you say, 'Vincent Van Gogh'?" She said, "I don't know what Vincent Van Gogh is." Short explanation. She hemmed and hawed. Dragged her feet as only a beautiful, genius, entitled 2-year-old can finagle.

When we got to her room she lingered in the doorway. Such manners! I plopped her down in the midst of the action and walked over to get her artwork/daily sheet. She followed and tugged on my jeans, shyly. AB is not shy. This is not going to be fun, I thought. I mentally ran through our list of tactics that Usually Distract Her From Us Leaving. Tried several. None worked. I took her over to the open part of the room and knelt down to speak to her.

"AB, give me a hug, Mommy has to go to work."
"O-tay, Mommy."
"Are you going to be good for Miss Isabel? And Miss Katey?"
"Maybe..." Shifting eyes. Delay tactic. Impish smile.
"Will you give me your sweater?"
"No."
...three minute discussion of why we couldn't leave her unlabeled sweater there... she finally agreed to take it off... HERSELF!
"I love you, have a good day, I have to go." Kiss. Hastily walking toward the door. Do not show weakness! They prey on weakness!
She is following with the biggest hound dog eyes I've ever seen.
"Bye AB! I love you!"
She starts out the door with me. Miss Isabel, ever the professional, corrals her and we start the Wave Through The Window Routine.

Her face fell as I walked away. She crumpled into tears. My heart shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and trailed me all the way to the car. She loves school. It's lack of sleep. Just one of those days. Sigh.

Now go research some great Van Gogh paintings...

Mission Accomplished

25 minutes this morning. Check! I'm moving on to next week's podcast. Now, to most people that would be a completely uninteresting snooze-fest (naturally then I'd talk about it), but not to me. Each week is a victory. Each week is new. Each week is an obstacle in my way... until I clear it after stumbling gracelessly. I wasn't sure about this morning, since I'm juice fasting and running out of energy, but I got far enough into it where I was like, "Author, you're going to do it this week sometime, why not today?" There was a whole conversation with my body that I don't need to get into here.* Bottom line is, it got done. And I'm off the hook for this week.

AB is doing really well hobbling around. She's using her knee and ankle more; whereas at first she didn't flex either since they were immobilized for three long weeks. She is getting more able to play by herself, which is good, yet a step in the "who needs Mommy/Daddy" direction, about which I have mixed feelings like any parent.

So go look up some interesting movies and let me know!

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*So my body is like, "Uh, Author? Could I talk to you for a minute?"
"Yes, pant, what?!"
"You've been running for a while now, you see, and um, we're kinda tired? I was, uh, we were wondering if you could maybe stop for a bit and let us rest?"
"I'll think about it."
"Uh, Author? Sorry, but that's not going to work for us. We're tired now."
"Give me two minutes to consider."
"Well, by the time two minutes rolls around you'll be at your goal and you'll stop."
"You're smarter than I gave you credit for."
"OK, so Author? Could you stop now? You see, Liver is wondering how he's supposed to coax more glucose from your fat without going into metabolic..."
"Tell Liver to suck it."
"What?"
"That's his job. He needs to shut up and do it."
"Um, OK, well, I guess we're done then..."
"Yes. Go broker something interesting, like an uneasy truce between my growling tummy and rumbly guts."

Ode to Robert Ullreys

Here is my ode to my dearest love, Robert Ullreys.

Robert, oh Robert
Like a personal deity you speak to me daily
You tell me things I need to know
Things like, "I am a 43-year old guy living in Northern California..."
Everyone is in California, so not fair.
You tell me other things I need to know, like how much longer I should run every day
You guide me and teach me
I know you speak only to me, yet I have a question for you...
Why not use my name, Robert? My love?
When I hear you say, "OK, Day 2, it's time to pick up another 8-minute run"
I ponder
"Why doesn't he just say, "Author, when you get to day 2 here is what I want you to do..."
It makes me wonder, and sometimes keeps me up at night, Robert.
Every morning I look forward to waking up with you,
to watch you speak wonderful things directly into my ears
I just don't know how you do it.
And you always know what I need, Robert.
You are so amazing, Robert
I love you.

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I'm off to rest up for tomorrow morning now... You go, too.