I’m Mr(s). Vain

The last time I got my hair cut, my hairdresser cheerfully suggested that I come back in 6 weeks for another trim. When I visibly balked at this advice and shrunk away from her warm smile like a wounded puppy, she– a bit flustered–downgraded the recommendation to 3 months and handed my debit card back to me without another word. That was in November 2007.

Sure enough, 3 months passed and I received a stylish postcard in the mail. “We want to thank you for choosing us!”, it read. “We look forward to serving you again soon!”. The flip side of the card reminded me what my stylist’s name was and kindly requested me to phone in and book a trim.

A part of me wanted to book another appointment just then, because in all honesty, I had loved the haircut and the stylist, too! My hair was growing fast and yes, it could use a little reshaping. However, the other (cheap thrifty) side of me refused to book a new appointment when 3 months had passed. You see, when I had short hair, I had cut it myself for years and years (for free!), so paying for a haircut in the first place ruffled my frugal feathers and made me determined to stretch my haircutting dollar as far as it could possibly stretch. It was the principle of the thing.

So I conveniently ‘forgot’ about the postcard (aka, I recycled it) and let another few months pass.

Meanwhile, my hair kept growing and growing (and growing!) Friends would comment about how long my hair was getting, and each time it would be a guilty reminder about the Follow-Up Trim I Never Booked. ‘It doesn’t matter’, I convinced myself. ‘I want to grow my hair very long’.

And very long it was. It started getting tangled in the straps of my bag every day (very annoying), and it even started getting caught on the hooks on the back of my bra (very painful)! Enough was enough– when your own bra begins pulling your hair with the force of a screaming child on the playground, it is time to put your foot down. So I lamely phoned the hair salon and asked to be booked in with my stylist of yore. That was at the end of March 2009.

I walked into my appointment, guilty as  sin. Fortunately, my stylist was very warm and understanding (again!), and she didn’t make me feel like a total loser cheapskate for waiting 16 whole months to come in for a ‘trim’. (Ah, the joys of customer service!) We were able to take about 7 inches off right away, before she even washed my hair. She literally hacked it off, swept up the pile (which resembled a small dog), threw it out, and got started from there. (Note: I was going to take a ‘before’, a ‘during’, and an ‘after’ photo, but I was so embarrassed at being such a delinquent hair-trimmer that I silently left my camera at home.)

Anyway, my appointment was conveniently timed for before work, which meant that there would be at least one day in the history of my employment where I could walk into work with decent hair. Fantastic. My stylist dabbed a bit of coloured lipgloss onto my lips before I left, underlined the 3 months recommendation on my follow-up card (twice!), and cheerfully sent my beautiful new self on my way. I had went in with my hair falling halfway down my back, and I walked out with my hair bouncing gleefully, right above my shoulders.

It is only a 2 block walk from the salon back to my work. I made the commute looking like I was carefully balancing a book on my head– gliding forward as smoothly as possible, lest one hair from my newly perfected head of hair get disturbed. I caught a glimpse of myself in a window as I passed, and (aside from my awkward and rigid posture), I thought I looked quite good. I imagined how my coworkers would react, when I nonchalantly breezed through the front door looking like a trillion bucks. Yes, it was true– I was sort of expecting compliments.

What I wasn’t expecting was the passionate flood of comments from my coworkers, which ranged from ‘Oh. My. God– I don’t even recognize you!’ to ‘Can I see some ID please?’ After inducing cardiac shock in all of my colleagues, one by one as I climbed the stairs to my office, it got me to thinking… perhaps I should put a little more effort into my appearance every day. You know, so I don’t kill my coworkers with the mere use of a round brush.

So I bought a blowdryer. I haven’t personally blowdried my hair since I was in Grade 9 and got the Rachel Cut, which required some serious flippage and zig-zag parting. The first morning I tried to use this new blow dryer, I blew the fuse in the bathroom (because I had stupidly plugged the thing into the Razor Only outlet). And then I had a few mornings of blow drying my hair in the living room, because we didn’t have another outlet to use in the bathroom or an extension cord that would allow me to still style my hair in the bathroom. But now we have an extension cord and my blowdryer, so I am making a little bit of an effort to let something besides gravity and sea breeze style my hair. (I am not very good at this, to put it delicately. But I am working on it and trying to recapture my youthful earnesty of yore– you know, the part of me that actually looked forward to pomade and such. I’ll let you know how that goes…)

Please Help Us! (We Are Getting A Cell Phone)

Well, boys and girls, I think the time has finally come for Marty and I to acquire a cellular telephone. We have been actively avoiding this moment for years (and even, I confess, feeling sort of superior for being cellphone-free. *Cough*). However, it took us all of one day– with Marty by himself at the Victoria Harbour selling his artwork, cut off from all modern lines of communication (carrier pigeon, anyone?)– to realize… this isn’t working.

You see, I was at work yesterday, phoning home every few hours to check our messages and seeing if there were any art-related ones that needed to be relayed to Marty. Um, this was pointless, because there were art-related messages but I had no way of relaying these messages to Marty, what with him being by himself at the Victoria Harbour and cut off from all modern lines of communication and all. Ahem.

So we are caving, and we are now officially in the market for a cell phone. Which we need by today or tomorrow.

I know most (if not all) of you already have cell phones with cameras and MP3 players and text messages and videos and internet capabilities, etc., etc. At this point, we only need a cell phone that takes incoming calls and occasionally makes outgoing local calls, too. (Such a simple life we lead.) Can we get some feedback from you to help us decide on a phone and a good plan or network? We are literally clueless when it comes to these sorts of things and will probably end up picking out something based on shiny-ness alone without your help.

So, if you don’t mind, can you please just take a quick trip to the comments section and let us know a) what plan/carrier you use, b) if you like your plan, and/or c) what plan/carrier you would recommend for us, we who only require a newfangled cellular telephone to take the occasional incoming call. (‘You mean to tell me these phones dial out, too??! Incredible!’)

That would be AWESOME. (If you have any feedback re: phones/plans/companies we should avoid at all costs, we’d appreciate that info, too. And then I can text you, saying “thx! c u l8r!”)

Whoop! It only took us…. 12 years?…. but we will finally be climbing onto the cell phone wagon. Yeehaw!

Enjoy The Silence

One of these days, I’m going to write all about my new haircut and our very exciting little lasagna garden outside. I’ll tell you how busy it has been getting Marty set up as a vendor at the Victoria Harbour (he starts tomorrow!), and I might even show you a picture of my shy little bicep (which is actually starting to approximate a real, honest-to-god bicep! Go, me!)

Unfortunately, today is not one of these days. It pains me to say it, but you’ll all have to wait just a little bit longer until you can get caught up on the fabulous life of Dana L. In the meantime, though (to help whet your appetites) here is a picture of some mystery seedlings growing outside in our garden, under the makeshift shelters of old Frappuccino cups:

Ooohh... what could be growing in there? (Please note: The suspense is intended to occupy you for days.)

Talk to you soon, everyone. Happy Spring!

Chlorella: Superfood, My Ass!

Because inquiring minds need to know:

You might recall that after my most recent bout of stomach sickness, I decided that our hemp protein powder was either slightly rancid or Evil Incarnate, or both. However, because I was doubled over in sickness and sweats while Marty experienced nary a stomach cramp or gurgle, I was left to conclude that I– and I alone– must be deathly allergic to one of the ingredients in the powder.

The ingredient list is not very extensive or complicated for our particular brand of protein powder, but I was unwilling to try each ingredient on its own so I could single out what was causing my violent reactions. (Do I look like an idiot to you?) No- It was enough for me to swear off the protein powder altogether and to hope that whatever I was really allergic to wasn’t one of the more common ingredients, like hemp, flax seed, or (god forbid) chocolate flavouring!!

Unfortunately (but fortunately for me), one of our friends recently discovered the hard way that he, too, might be deathly allergic to a common ingredient in some protein powders. He sent us a foreboding e-mail the other day, describing in intimate detail how he had experienced crippling nausea and explosive episodes of throwing up after he had consumed a simple shake. His e-mail pretty much summed up my exact symptoms (spookily so), but he was able to take it a step further and to single out the ingredient that was likely causing his discomfort.

Chlorella

He wasn’t drinking the same brand of protein powder that we have– in fact, he simply made a fruit shake with a chlorella extract in it after a workout one day. (Our brand has chlorella in it too, though.) Apparently, after he had vomited his guts out, he did some research and discovered that an allergy to chlorella is more common than one might think. And even though a part of me knows I might not be able to draw conclusions about myself based on somebody else’s experiences, you know what? I’m perfectly alright making the assumption that I’m allergic to algae based on how closely his experience matched mine. End of story!

(Luckily for me, it’s not too hard to avoid eating algae… I might be a bit crunchy and granola for some people, but algae is not a regular player in my diet. I promise.)