i knew it would get me one of these days
By heather | August 20, 2010
And…now it’s the end of summer. It’s like July never existed on my blog. The story I’m about to tell is entirely true, and documented not because it’s especially entertaining but so that the next time I decide to do something like this, I’ll be able to read and remind myself NOT TO.
I had a big meeting today, and yesterday while plotting what I should wear it occurred to me that I hadn’t REALLY done my hair in over a month. My summer haircare routine has been blow dry and straighten my bangs, and let the rest fall where it may. I’ve been working for months now to grow it out and it was finally, FINALLY long enough to get into a ponytail, or twist into some messy version of an updo. So I looked at it in the mirror and thought, “damn I’m frizzy”. Spending most weekends immersed in chlorine at the pool hasn’t helped my ends any although my natural color lightened so that part wasn’t too bad.
I called my salon, which is the salon I’ve been going to since I unceremoniously dumped my other stylist of three years, and unsurprisingly they couldn’t fit me in for a cut in the next 2 hours.
Because I am ridiculously impatient, and because I am a hairdresser whore, I decided I couldn’t wait until the proffered Tuesday appointment to go see my regular hair stylist who’s been helping me grow out my layers and who I really like and who listens when I tell her “just a trim”. So I called up the salon I used to go to knowing my ex-hairdresser had just left there and HOORAY! They were able to fit me in, see you in 20 minutes! I explained to the new girl all about growing out my layers and trying to get some length and we agreed on a 1/2 inch off the botton and a little more off the layers since that was where more of the damage was.
As I watched her cut, I noticed that she was going excruciatingly slowly. Then I saw her lift a section and chop a good 2 inches off. At that point I carefully inquired as to her last place of employment, which was when she told me she just graduated from beauty school three months ago. Fighting rising panic, I thought, “Ok well, three months that’s not ideal but she seems to know what she’s doing even if she is horribly slow.”
Turns out she may have graduated three months ago, but had only been cutting hair for a few weeks. She also apparently had a gigantic problem with me not keeping up my color, and after offering several times to give me a “demi-color” thusly decided to go to town on the trim that I requested trying to cut off everything that was blonder than my roots. After the clumsiest blow dry I’ve ever had, and a flat iron which she did despite me telling her not to, she turned me around to see the back.
It looked like a lawnmower had run over my head. A hundred different lengths. Hair as flat as if I’d been caught in a rainstorm. Because I am from Upstate NY and we only do big hair, I am not a flat iron kind of girl - I wear big hair to disguise my big head. By the time one of the master stylists came over to take a look, I had gone from tentatively suggesting that it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to being almost teary and trying not to flip out. After some discussion of what we agreed upon at the beginning of the cut, new girl was sent away and I was spirited away to a different chair by a comfortingly big-haired master stylist who talked soothingly while she fixed what she could.
6 months of growing out my hair laying on the floor of the salon, and I have the exact same haircut I was sick of when I started growing it. On the bright side, if there is one, hey- free haircut. So a note to my future self – that’s what you get for being a hairdresser whore. Your luck ran out.
Topics: hair | 3 Comments »
Tags: bad haircuts, impatience
living summer
By heather | June 22, 2010
Out of curiosity yesterday I went and peeked at my site to see when the last time I posted was, and it was even longer than I thought. Several things have been contributory – I started working on an MBA (why? anyone’s guess is as good as mine) and I’ve found that while I have a lot of actual paid work to do, being able to work from home allows the work to flow around other things I want to do. That flow also means that tasks really expand to fill the space I have to accomplish them. I used to get more personal stuff done between 4:30 and 7pm than I sometimes do in a week now.
I also took a week and went to visit my parents, which was an awesome and relaxing trip despite the almost 10 hour drive. We had beautiful weather and the trip consisted mostly of park visits, making ice cream, bubbles, and other good stuff. It is so amazing to me to watch these two distinct little personalities as they emerge and grow and leave impressions on people around them.
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| Bubbles at Grandma and Grandpa’s House |
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| At the park… |
I really miss the mountains. And this is one of my favorite pictures of Emily Kate:
Her expression says so much about her personality, the raised eyebrow and half smirk indicating that she had a bigger plan for that water table…
My dad and I were laughing too hard to stop her. I think that should be the goal this summer…to be laughing so hard that you can let the little things go.
Topics: vacations | 2 Comments »
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when you stop talking, you learn things
By heather | May 11, 2010
I’m not sure why, but the last few days I’ve felt calmer than I can remember in years. As last week taught me, sometimes you just have to sit back and let things happen to you without really knowing why and without trying to control them or freaking out about it. Of course, you can do all those things but more that likely you’ll just wind up really, really tired.
Obviously I didn’t willingly sit back and let things happen, but not being able to talk my way out of my speeding ticket or express my EXTREME displeasure at yet another extension for the kicked-out kid at daycare turned out to be a fine way of being forced to learn something. My tendency to obsess over and constantly talk about whatever happened to me really just prolongs the agony and annoyance. It’s now been over a week since I lost my voice and I still can’t talk normally. Trying to “save” the voice I have left forces me to choose my words carefully, to be discretionary when yelling at the kids, and to think about whether some things really need to be said at all.
With that in mind, the 24-hour change in Alex is remarkable now that this other child is no longer at daycare. A bully since he was old enough to walk, this boy kept the other kids constantly on the lookout for sneaky pushes and pokes, and delivered Emily Kate’s first and only smack to the face when she was only 10 months old. When he wasn’t picking at the other kids, he was screaming his head off about something or other, refusing to follow directions and loudly expressing displeasure over everything he was asked to do. I know this not only from observation, but because my kids started to bring it home over the last few months, reacting as if I’d told them I was going to chop off a toe when I would offer a snack they didn’t like.
I realized last night how much the situation was wearing on me, on all of us, when I thought back to those mornings when I couldn’t wait to get back to my car and away from this child. Just 10 minutes with him was a horrible way to start my morning, and here I was dropping off my kids to spend the next 8 hours with him. Then they would come home defensive and cranky and I would wonder why, and even worse get mad at them for behavior that was pretty much inevitable given what they were exposed to all day.
Last night and this morning, Alex in particular was a different child – sweet, helpful, polite, playful. It’s as if he understands that the situation is finally remedied and he doesn’t have to be defensive anymore. He nicely told me he didn’t like his dinner and wasn’t going to eat it, rather than whining and getting angry. He gave happy hugs goodbye this morning and at lunch Miss S texted me to tell me what a great day he was having, participating in lessons and songs when often he is withdrawn and quiet.
I feel so incredibly lucky today that a situation I had a hand in causing (by referring the parents there in the first place) is finally done. I’m not living in a dream world, I know my kids will still act out and act up and argue, and that’s fine. Because rather than coming from a place of defensiveness, it’s learning and exploring who they are within boundaries set by discipline and rules that will eventually make them productive members of our family and society.
(The speeding ticket parallel is not lost on me with that last statement by the way. But I would still like to point out that everyone around me was going as fast or faster, and the radar was definitely faulty, and I couldn’t see the sign because trees were in the way. Ahem. )
Topics: Alex, parenting | 2 Comments »
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freaky parallel universe
By heather | May 6, 2010
I’m kind of anxious for this week to be over. Not because my life is so stressful or anything, but because something crazy or HIGHLY irritating has happened to me every day this week. I’m a little nervous waking up every morning.
Monday: Show up at daycare and in some freaky, horrible version of Groundhog Day – the bad kid was there. After I spent the entire weekend celebrating and detoxing the kids from the bad habits of screaming and eye-rolling and tantruming over every freaking thing. He got kicked out in the beginning of April. First he had two weeks notice, then an apparent review of the contract between parents and daycare determined they would actually get three weeks notice. On Monday, they showed up claiming that an extension had been granted by text message and in some sort of delayed reaction mode, Miss S did not slam the door in their faces or make them prove their claim.
Also on Monday, I totally lost my voice, which I believe to be God’s way of protecting me from saying something I shouldn’t as I live in this freaky parallel universe where this kid just WON’T. GO. AWAY.
Tuesday: I come back to the house, still silent and voiceless, to find that a garbage truck has dumped a literal ton of garbage on the street in front of my house. Apparently the driver, who meant to hit “COMPRESS” had a slip of the finger and pushed “DUMP” instead. Is it just me, or should those buttons really be further apart?
Wednesday: Speeding ticket while taking Emily Kate to gymnastics class. All around me red Corvettes and jacked up Oldsmobiles roar past, and yet the motorcycle cop opts to pull over the mom driving a minivan. Still no voice, so I can’t even argue or demand to see the radar gun. Af friend of mine pointed out that with my fine, I’ll be helping to keep city employees on the payroll. Like the one who dumped a ton of garbage in front of my house.
Am so annoyed by this, that I decide to take a Cinco de Mayo style lunch because I heard tequila is good therapy for a variety of ills. I’m starting to wish I’d paid more attention to the baby sign language videos because I’d like to be able to say more than “milk”, “please”, and “thank you”.
Thursday: My work computer, which had been acting funny by refusing to play sounds when I watch YouTube videos and instead made loud, insistent, DOS-like beeps suddenly works again. There was no interference from me, although I would say it’s a good thing I didn’t take it to the tech support guys because it probably would have been one of those embarrassing situations where they can’t find the problem and it would indeed work swimmingly for them.
Also, Brett makes a doctor’s appointment for me because I SHALL NO LONGER BE SILENCED. Verdict: there’s nothing they can do. You can try this prescription for steroids but it really just takes time and resting of the voice. Same astute friend points out that when my voice starts to return I’ll know that I’m leaving the parallel universe and returning to my version of normalcy. Until then, I just watch and learn. And whisper.
Topics: freaky | 3 Comments »
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