Monthly Archives: March 2012

For most of my life I kept my hair long.  Not because I’m vain.  Not because they were gloriously shiny, beautiful tresses.  Not because I am cool and know how to style hair.

But because I’m lazy.

And careful with my money (read: cheap).

The beauty of long hair is that it requires no drying, no curling, no nothing.  Just a brush, a hair band, and you’re ready to go.  Sure, you would need to keep your ends and bangs trimmed.   At least, most people would.

Not me.

“Bah!” I would say, “I can do it myself”.   How hard could it be?  It’s not like the ‘bang-police’ will come looking to see if my lines were straight.  So that’s been my Modus Operandi my whole life and it worked just fine…

Until….

I got my hair cut earlier this year.  Cut short.  Jim Morrison short.  It’s cute as all get out. Purposefully unruly, it’s blissfully easy to take care of.  I wash it, shake it like a dog, put a little anti-frizz product in it (because it smells fruity and I’d rather smell like a grapefruit than the greasy Scottish-Italian housewife that I am) and I’m good to go.

But, it requires more frequent trims than my long hair did.  Like, every month or so.  Especially the bangs.  But you know me (lazy, cheap)…..I waited more than two months before I went in.  And even then it was only because I absolutely HAD to.

You see, my bangs were driving me nuts.  NUTS.  They had grown so long that they were constantly in my eyes and I had to keep doing the snotty teenager ‘head flick’ thing.  I felt like an old, fat, female Justin Bieber.  Ever heard the phrase “seeing the world through rose-colored glasses”?  I was seeing it through brown greasy hair.  It was time for action.

So, there I am in the bathroom looking in the mirror, and do the ol, “Bah! I can do this.”  But I didn’t have any scissors in the bathroom.  Well, not normal scissors.  I did have those little tiny curved fingernail scissors.  You know those scissors that come with any fingernail cutting kit?  The scissors that aren’t good for anything? Yeah, those scissors.

Well I found something they could do.   They could trim bangs.

And I did just that.  I trimmed my bangs with fingernail scissors.  CURVED  fingernail scissors.  It was not easy, I’ll admit.  The curvature of the blades made a straight cut impossible.  The tiny-ness of the blades made it impossible to line it up with previous cuts.  But I did what I do every day of my life in every aspect of my life….

I fudged it.

And you know what, friends?  My bangs looked like someone took a pair of fingernail scissors to them.  Someone with a skewed idea of straight.  Like, maybe, Pablo Picasso. I was going to have to go back to Images Hair Salon in Poolesville, and let them work their magic.  And I knew they would know I tried to do it myself.

Head hung low, I went and sat in the chair feeling sheepish, wishing like hell that I wouldn’t have to explain.

My stylist, God bless her, was so sweet to me.  She was cutting, trimming and clipping and when her capable, talented hands and well-trained eyes got to my bangs, she did nothing more than pause, raise an eyebrow, smile understandingly at me in the mirror, and fixed them.

She was so nice about it, I confided in her what I had done. And get this….

….she nodded knowingly.

No surprise. No shock. No amazement.

So I have to wonder….how many people use pedicure tools to try to avoid getting a professional haircut?

My captain often surprises me.  So often, in fact, that you would think I would catch on and cease to be, er, surprised.  But no, I’m blissfully ignorant like that.  It makes life so much simpler that way.

Critter and Varmint and a couple of their friends were getting together for a ‘pick up’ basketball game at the local Catholic Church, St. Mary’s.  We often go there to play because it’s 1.) Free, 2.) close to most of our friend’s houses, 3.) always available, and 4) so squeaky clean and wholesome I feel like I’m back in the 1950s.   The basket never has a net on it, but that never stopped us.  We have good imaginations and sometimes can even imitate a “whoosh” sound if we feel the need.

We love going there.  I’ll sit and watch and they actively play.  I figure I’m getting exercise by proxy.

St. Mary’s basketball hoop is at the end of their parking lot, adjacent to their playground.  It’s got a beautiful view of Sugarloaf Mountain behind it.  You couldn’t ask for a better place for the kid’s to grow up.

So the kids and I were on our way to the church to play. My Captain did not come with us, as he sometimes does, because he said he had something to do.  He’s a busy busy busy (as in, really busy) man.  I understood.

We stopped to pick up friends and were pulling into the church parking lot to find, horror of horrors, someone was parked right underneath our basket!!  No one is ever parked there!  ARGH!!  But as we got closer, we saw it was, in fact, OUR van.  Our other car.  And then we noticed a ladder under the basket with none other than My Captain attaching a net he’d privately purchased for the kids and the church.

Mind you:  He is not Catholic, this isn’t our church, he rarely plays basketball himself, and most of the kids who play there are not ours.

But, as always, he saw a need and he filled it.  And, as usual, he did it quietly, without fanfare or bragging.  In fact, had we not caught him in the act, we would not have known he did it.  We would have thought the church had.

That’s My Captain.

Me, being me, called the Church Secretary and told her I expected us to get into the upcoming St. Patrick’s day church dinner at a substantial discount.

She told me I can have all the cabbage I want.

SWEET!

They say opposites attract. Does that mean that since he’s so kind, generous, and altruistic, that I am mean, miserly, and selfish?

Nuts.

I told you about my favorite cookie jar from Montana in  ~ Cute Cookies ~.  Love that thing.  That same trip and same gift shop in Apgar Village on the southernmost tip of Lake McDonald, was where I found my Drunken Duck.  I love him too, but not as much as I love my cookie jar.  Most probably because the duck doesn’t hold the promise of chocolate chip cookies.

I’m simple that way.

He holds bottled beverages of your choice.  Wine. Beer. Ketchup.  Whatever you might like him to hold for you.  He’s a very helpful sort of duck.  But there is one little quirk about him.

He drinks whatever you ask him to hold.

I remember having several friends like that in college.  Or now.  (Why am I thinking of both of my friends Cupcake and Dutch?)  Talk about Fowl play.  I mean if you can’t trust a friend with your drink, who can you trust?

(Answer: “Depends on the drink.”)

We don’t put the Drunken Duck to work very often because the poor critter suffered a broken webbed toe whilst holding a bottle of cheap wine.

But he still has enough cute-ness to rate hanging around.

I mean, come on.  You can’t ignore his silliness.

And you should know from my earlier post about Duck Butts how enamored I am with Duck Tuckuses.  (Tuckuses?  Go with it, she’s on a roll.)

Oh, and if you are wondering about the bottle in his beak currently….

Of course, a Dogfish Brew.

Got a little bit of Black Chai Tea and other weird flavors to it.  All I know is it makes My Captain happy.

And that, really is what I want more than almost anything.

A close second, of course, being Dogfish Head Restaurant’s Cajun Egg Rolls.

Which need to be bronzed, in my estimation.

What was I talking about?

Right.  The duck.

You are probably thinking about now that I have a fetish for Ducks.  And Moose.  I would tweak that and say that what I really like to do is surround myself with things that cause smiles.  Things that bring an involuntary happy wave to your mind.

I figure there are plenty of things in the world outside to cause the opposite.  I want my family to relax when they get home.  And feel content.

And chuckle at silly things.

And put life in perspective.

We bought a label maker.

Big deal?

I’ve labeled everything from the files in our filing drawer (which is the reason I bought it), to every cabinet in the kitchen, to the shelves in the closet.

I love this thing.  It’s so clean and it reeks of ORDER….something I always need more of.

I was having a blast labeling everything I could get my hands on.

Until I had to buy a new tape cartridge for my P-Touch Machine.

ONE measly cartridge cost $15.00!!!  ARGH!

Now I’m wishing I hadn’t wasted its tape labeling the catbox.

Or the Bidet.

Or the fishbowl.

From now on, only the essentials are getting labeled.

Like the mailbox.

and maybe the trash can.

and the cat food bin.

But that is absolutely it.

…except maybe the key rack.

…and the shoe rack.

But that is totally absolutely it.

….except maybe my sock drawer.