Sunday, January 4, 2015

Let's get this out of the way so I can enjoy the rest of the year.

Yesterday I had a hair appointment with a new stylist at a salon recommended by a friend. I told the friend I'd made the appointment. It went like this:

Me: "I've got an appointment at the salon.
Her:"Which one are you seeing?"
Me: "Erin."
Her: (pause.)  "Be very specific. I used to go to her."
Me: "Used to?"
Her: "Yeah. I go to another salon now."

On what planet does a woman recommend a salon that she no longer patronizes? What criteria are being applied here? "It doesn't matter because you clearly don't care how you look"? "You don't need anyone especially skilled to look that way you do"?  As with a gynecologist, a recommendation for a stylist must be without blemish or reservation. Somebody clearly has not read her Chick Playbook lately.

But OK. Maybe she was just too picky (she can be), and is more easily dissatisfied with trivial things. Could be. But just in case, I printed out pictures of what I wanted. Front and side shots. Easy.

Yesterday I set out on Route 1 towards Boston and my hair appointment. Something caught my eye, and I saw the lid of my trunk flapping in my rearview mirror. I pulled over into the breakdown lane, hopped out, shut the trunk securely, and hopped back to the driver's side door -- to find that I'd unconsciously done what I always do: I'd hit the lock before I closed the door.

Only my keys were still in the ignition.

I stood at my driver's door, looking into the car at the keys and my purse containing my spare key sitting on the passenger seat.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" I screamed, with cars whizzing behind me at 60 mph.

This wasn't a complicated situation: I was completely locked out of my car on the side of a highway where there was nothing but embankments. And I had a hair appointment to make. I'd have to break a window.

I climbed the embankment looking for a good-sized stone. Nothing. I kicked aside leaves, looked under sticks. Growing up, our American History teachers loved drilling into our heads that the reason New England was such tough land to settle and farm was because of the rocky New England soil. Oh, those poor farmers and all those rocks. Rocks that had to constantly be pulled out, rocks that went into ubiquitous stone walls lauded by Robert Frost for their contribution to neighborly harmony. Oh,we loved the history of of forefathers' grim triumph over the cruel, remorseless soil with its many stones. If Shakespeare had grown up in New England, Hamlet's line would have been, "Rocks, rocks, rocks."

Rocks that apparently were not to be found alongside highways.

"Where the hell are all the farmer-breaking rocks?!?" I cried out to the indifferent New England sky. I had a fleeting moment of panic as my entire public-school education was thrown into doubt.

I finally saw one (!), and next to it a discarded rusted length of metal. I grabbed the metal and hopped back down to the highway. My car is old and has one of those opera windows in the back - a small, triangular stationary window behind the back-seat window that rolls down.

I had to hit the window four times before it broke, and once it did I was in and away.

I got to the salon, but remembered that I had in my back seat a pair of cross-country skis I'd been given 20 years ago and had salvaged from the basement of the rental unit in Dorchester.

So I strolled into my appointment carrying the skis.

Erin was young and aloof, although i got her to warm up with my tale of misfortune and my relentless questioning of her personal life. How someone can go into such an intensely interactive profession and be so reserved baffled me, but I kept at it and she began to melt.

As for the cut: I showed her the picture. I explained I wanted a short hairline with some length from the crown, some texture. Not too butch

She looked at the picture. "You want short and choppy."

Bottom line: I have essentially the same cut I've had for the past 5 years. It's very, very short. Annie Lennox short, which works well if you have an angular face, but for mine, which is rather fleshy.... I'll break out the big earrings.

 It's not like the picture. But it's fine, well done, and it only cost $35, so for now I'll give her another try unless I find someone better.

Today I visited a new friend in Gloucester so she could show me around. We had fun, and I had a good time. On my way back I was driving along a two-way road that essentially services industrial parks and it being Sunday, was pretty deserted. Except for the car in front of me going very, very slowly. I figured they were figuring out where they were or were looking for a turn, and anyway, it was a totally empty street, so I just went around them.

Except the road wasn't deserted; there was a cop right behind me.

"License and registration."

"What's the problem?"

He explained my illegal passing, and he added that I'd done it right in front of him which was, I suspect, the greater affront to civil order.

"The green car? I thought they were turning."

"They were going very slowly but they weren't turning, and you crossed a double-yellow to pass them."

"Oh, OK. My bad."

He looked at my license and my father's registration, then noticed the window.

"What happened to your window?"

I gave him the condensed version, and he said, "You're having a rough couple of days."

"Yeah, you could say that."

He let me off with a warning in a Stern Voice, I thanked him, and headed home.

I'm trying to believe that somewhere there's an adage that if the first weekend of the new year is crappy, it means the rest of the year will be full of spectacular success and happiness.



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