Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

I have a fair amount of gray in my hair.  I consider it my highlights.  I’m not embarrassed by it  or ashamed of it and  I have no need to cover it up with store-bought color.  This is who I am and I’m sure I have earned everyone of those silver strands.

But then again, I don’t have too much gray.  Just a sprinkling of gray highlights in amongst the rest of the dark hair.  It’s all good.

Until I get my hair cut. My hair is being trimmed and I look down at the black sheet covering my body.  And it’s littered in gray!  That’s all there is!  Gray! Lots and lots of gray!

That must be why I see just a sprinkling of gray highlights when I look in the mirror.  The hair dresser cut out most of the gray and left me with just a few gray highlights.

Clever woman, my hair dresser!

Add a Little Kindness

What are we so angry about? Today I read a  blog by a self described “bad ass” girl who wrote  about her “bitchy” self.   I saw a bumper sticker with a cartoon character peeing on something the driver dislikes.  As I entered the grocery store parking lot I apparently was not far enough to the right in my own lane because the guy coming out was in my lane and mouthing angry words at me.  This angry behavior is everywhere.  And we pride ourselves on it!

Why are we so angry?  We have more stuff, more time, more money, more freedom than most of the world. But we’re angry.

In the middle of my ponderings I picked up the September issue of Good Housekeeping and read about Ellen DeGeneres.  I once saw a few minutes of the Ellen DeGeneres Show.  (I have a very hard time sitting to watch TV. Which is no longer an issue because my TV is analog and I don’t have a converter! Took care of that problem!) But I liked what I saw in those few minutes.  Granted it was only a few minutes so I really knew next to nothing about Ms. DeGeneres until I read this article.

My goodness! This woman is 53 and she looks like she’s 30! She’s beautiful!  And she’s wise. “You listen to any monologue on late-night TV or just in general, to people talking, and there’s always a joke at someone’s expense.  It’s sarcasm; it’s nasty.

“Kids growing up hearing that, and they think that’s what humor is, and they think it’s OK. But that negativity permeates the entire planet…So I’m really proud I’m not adding to the negativity…I’m not mean…I’m going to be kind.”

It was so refreshing to read this.  If I had a digital TV, and could sit still long enough, I’d definitely watch the Ellen DeGeneres Show again.  We need more of her kindness!

… She’s Happy

I received a letter today from a childhood friend and she told me about the following interchange:  One of her good friends  (hereafter referred to as A) from high school recently met up with another high school friend (hereafter referred to as B) of all three us, but whom neither A, nor my friend, nor me has had any contact in decades.  B asked A about me and A replied, “I think she’s happy.”

I hope you followed all that.  The point is that a woman who knows of me, through a mutual friend, told a former high school friend of all 3 of us, “I think she’s happy” when asked about me.

That about knocked my socks off.  What a beautiful summary of the past 4 decades of our lives.  There was no gossip, no details, no guessing, no judgments.  Just, “I think she’s happy.”

What better summary can there be of life, than that you were happy?

The Magic of Libraries

What a wondrous place is a library.  In fact, I think libraries are magical. Libraries are full of books that I can borrow and take home. For free! I can keep them for 3 weeks and if after those 3 weeks I’m not quite done reading them I can renew them and keep them for another 3 weeks.

The choices are endless. Libraries have books for kids and books for adults. They have fiction and biography and large print books. They  have CD’s, DVD’s, and magazines.    They offer story hours for kids and educational programs for adults. If you want to research your family tree, learn more about garden composting, or how to reroof your doghouse,  just ask their staff for help.  If you don’t have a computer, you can use theirs.

Oh, I know you can Google ‘most everything and now you can download books  and read them on-line, within minutes.  It’s fast and easy. But it’s lost the charm of checking out an actual book, with pages slightly smudged by previous readers and a book jacket that is covered in crinkley plastic paper. You miss out on the need to be polite and tiptoe into a building where people are whispering conspiratorially behind their books.  You never have to worry about turning a page and getting a paper cut.

I’ve just ordered up my next book at my neighborhood library.  I’m doing my best to make sure libraries don’t go the way of the dial phone.

Anybody in there?

I was chatting with a friend the other day and I found myself envying her.  She’s so comfortable with who she is.  There’s nothing fake about her and I’m not talking just about her personality.  I’m talking about her physical self.  Her hair color didn’t come out of a bottle, her skin tone isn’t from a booth, her nails aren’t plastic from a salon, and there are no surgically enhanced parts.  She doesn’t even wear make up. And she’s beautiful. And that got me wondering why most of us are so afraid to be who we are.

Now, I understand and appreciate a bit of make-up to cover up or highlight. Professional hair cuts are a good thing and an occasional manicure is fun. But I often wonder why we are so afraid to be us. Who are we hiding from with our mask of make up, dyed hair, fake eyelashes and fingernails, spray tans, plumpers and implants? It’s as though we’re always ready for Halloween.

But not my friend. What you see is who she is.  Way to go, girl! You are my inspiration!

Autumn disguised as Summer

Summer still officially has 2 weeks and it’s doing its best to wow us,  here in the Puget Sound.  June, July, and August were absolutely pitiful this year except for the week of July 4. That was about all the summer we had. The rest was rainy, cool, and dismal.  The tomatoes barely bloomed, forget any actual fruit. Even the zucchini just sat there.

Then summer decided to wake up. The past two weeks have been spectacular and the forecast is for more of the same.  High’s in the 80’s with beautiful blue skies and fabulous views of the mountain (Mt. Rainier.  We natives just refer to it as “the mountain”, as in, “Did you see the mountain today?”  Which is a good question considering the cloud cover we frequently have which hides our view.)

But it’s really not summer.  It’s fall.  The kids are back in school, vacations are over, the nights are cool,  the days are getting shorter, fast,  and in spite of the 80 degree highs, the days have that edge of coolness, that “fallness”, about them.

Yes, summer is trying to wow us, but it’s fall and we all know it.

Cat # 3

We’ve had Cat #3 for over 6 months now.  Cats #1 and #2 still hate him.  They stalk him and chase him and sneer at him as they walk way around him to get to their food dish. Cat #3 hisses and spits at them on his way to the couch for his nap.

With hope in my heart I recently watched Cat #3 walk up to Cat #2. They gingerly sniffed noses and carefully checked each other out.  Then Cat #3 backed up and hissed at Cat #2!

And I said to them, “What was that about?  You walked up to him, shook his hand, then told him off?  Was that necessary? Do you have to constantly express your disgust?  Can’t we all just get along?”

And I realized that my last question was my answer.  My cats are no different than we people. Once we decide we don’t like someone there’s no way we’re going to change our mind. We might have to shake their hand to be courteous or politically correct but once we’ve got our hand back we’ll still stab them in the back.

Couldn’t we stop acting like dumb (albeit very cute) cats and act like reasonable people? Ah! to dream.

Today has been a pleasant cat day.  No hissing or spitting or yowling.