Color me desperate

Should I or shouldn’t I?

I couldn’t/can’t stand looking at myself in the mirror anymore.  My hair needs not just to be cut, but it’s turned all manner of  trashy orange  shades, as it is wont to do. All I can think of is that photo I saw at Belle’s grooming salon, an image of a mop-like, tawny-furred  dog with an orange Donald Trump comb-over.

I cannot live like this.

BARKBOX PHOTO

So today I put on my mask and my gloves. I went to CVS and bought  permanent hair coloring. All-over color and highlights in 30 minutes!

Of course I want to look like the babe in the photo on the box.

Of course I know I won’t.

I just don’t want to look like Donald Trump.Or, more  nightmarish still, to have all my hair fall out  when I towel it dry.

I’ve hidden it from my husband. so don’t tell him. He might yell.

But maybe I do need someone to yell.  My tonsorial projects have turned out about the same as my cooking forays (minus the visit from the fire department, that is).

I bet a lot of people right about now — OK, yeah, mostly women — might need to be talked off the ledge as far as hair is concerned.

COVID  is not pretty.

Yes, these are tough times.  For living. For health.

For personal grooming.

Should I or shouldn’t I?

 

 

Shelter for a storm

It rained.  LOUD.

Don’t you just LOVE loud rain?

Anyway, I’d put up my handy-dandy $59.95 Ozark Trail 4-Person Instant Dome Tent (see above) a couple of days ago, so i’d have a place to vacation. I bought the thing probably eight years ago, and I can put it up by myself in less than five minutes, thankyouverymuch.

Anyway, I obviously put it up just in time.

The sheets of rain started whipping down and I was ready: grabbed some blankets and some stuff to read  — “Siddhartha” and “In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe,” (because who knew what kind of mood the deluge might insp

ire) — and  ensconced myself inside my little flame-resistant nest. 

The sound of the raindrops, each one it seemed, banged a little harder all around me. The birds sang, and a white-throated sparrow hopped closer to see what was going on (like when you’re on a Jeep on a safari, you become part of the vehicle and the animals don’t worry about you).

I did find a couple of, um, small leaks in the tent.

They were dwarfed by nature’s 360-degree rainshow.

Another COVID-kinda day….

A picture’s worth more now

My phone camera was full up. Not one … more … photo, it said, digging in its little android  data heels,  until you get rid of some.

Yeah, annoying. But again in these times, the pause and reset button was a lesson for which i can now be grateful.

I started scrolling

Images flashed before my eyes.

The past. Some of it distant, some not.

Here, OMG, imahgesa of the beaiutiful crazy barn where we used to take classes. Pictures not more than two months old.  Try weeding them down — but every one, even the blurry ones — seemed,  important.

And here, pictures from a friend’s wedding. I always meant to send her photos of the two French bull terriers who had attended. But the first photo I saw was from our table, our friends — and in the foreground, a friend who last week died from the virus.

He is smiling , his gray blue eyes the focus — the main source of light — in the picture.

It was hard to look. But then I am glas I did. so glad I found that photo — and several more like it.

I told myu friend. It was her daughter’s wedding. She said she wanted to see the photos. I am grateful to have once again stumbled on a breath-catching discovery.
THE HACK:

People say “send me the photos.” I have a hard time sending “the photos.” Caiuse I take a lot, and then, well, I’ve always had a hard time kist picking “your best four or five.

So I remembered i have Dropbox. The supersize one. 2 terrabytes!   For someone like me, Dropnox is a godsend.  I don’t have to decide whether to send the  image of the woman with the intriguing half-smile, and the one with her chasing me with the stick after I’d taken one too many shots. 

I used to visutally trudge through my phone deleting photos, choosing betweeen details I could barely see. I used to bulk load them onto my laptop, which took a lot time, crapped out in the middle, and eventually exploded the laptop.

Now I put the dropbox app on my Samsung Galazy Note and i hit the plus sign to “add files” and Boom. they’re added. In fact. They’re being added as I type this. So I’m sweatily killing off photos when I get to whole bunches of them 

 

Bad hair rising

Can we talk hair for a minute?

My hair. It’s … it’s … God, how can I describe it?

OK (she typed, closing her eyes for strength):  It’s Donald Trump color, in a Rod Stewart shag.

I know the phone’s in the way. I meant to do that.

I know.

I know.

Kill me now.

Stick hot pencils in my eyes.

I knew this would happen, I called it a couple of weeks ago, when I first saw it turning… orange.

Now it’s full-on.  I may have to resort to drastic measures. I have 3 boxes of some kind of Clairol product in my bathroom cabinet. And I will use them, yes I will. All the boxes, if necessary. Full metal jacket, tonsorially speaking.

And, of course, I have … scissors.

I’m sorry, Kristen at Color Me Krazy in Cornwall. You will have wreckage to deal with someday, hopefully soon. But desperate times call for desperate measures….

 

 

 

.

 

No greater love

I feel bad.

Guilty,  It can’t be helped, sort of.

I am a sitting duck, according to statistics. I check√√ off all the at-risk boxes on the COVID hit list

√ I am old, according to #coronavirus.

√  I am medically compromised —  asthma.

√  I get no sleep. √ I am always stressed. √ I forget not to touch my face.

So I give up. It’s stupid for me to  go out, if I can avoid it.

Unfortunately, I am in a fortuitous situaation. My husband doesn’t mind or feel nervous  goes out. In fact  I think he likes to.

He braves the social vicissitudes, negotiates the various ingenious machinations of doing business (you even call the beer store from the parking lot now).

Most of all he goes to the supermarket — and brings home stuff I love but didn’t even ask him to get.

I am grateful for his sacrifice.  If this isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

 

 

Guilt goes postal

Help! Stop! No more! Please!

I know it’s the holiday season and that’s the reason I keep getting all these “gifts” in the mail. But I don’t want them. Not only don’t I want them, but they make me feel bad.

I got a dime from the March of Dimes, a stamp from Wounded Warriors, and  personalized return address labels from a wide variety of charitable organizations.

The letters — and the gifts — are unopened. And stacking up.

The higher the stack gets, the more guilt-ridden I get. In a perfect world, I would open these letters, enjoy the gifts, send back a donation. Not opening them means the organization wasted its money — which tacitly is my fault.

These are all worthy causes — I cry when I see their commercials on TV.  And just seeing the letter from the Wounded Warrior project got me upset all over again. But I can only afford so much a year, or a season. I donate to lots of causes, and give extra during the holidays. But I simply can’t give to every one — even if they send me a stamp, a dime, a label.

I am unable to throw these letters out, though.  That seems truly heartless.  Do I send them back — does “return to sender” work?  Maybe for the dimes and stamps, but what will they do with all those custom-printed return address labels?

Does anyone have any constructive suggestions for this problem? I can’t stand feeling like Scrooge — especially during the holidays.