First Course

This morning CG arrived around 9:30, unloaded his skid steer, and started moving blocks to the back yard while waiting for the truck of crusher dust (small, unrinsed gravel that compacts well) to be delivered.  I hung around outside hoping to be invited to drive the skid steer but... no luck.  What a fun looking toy that is.  I could haul blocks for them, I could.  But I'm probably not covered by insurance.  Dang it.




While we chatted I saw that another asparagus was growing.  I really need to get out there to yank out those violets but I'd much rather do other things, more fun things.


 

Like cut out two more dresses.  The striped one is a long, caftan dress.  I want to flip through my patterns downstairs to see if I have an in-seam pocket pattern piece so I can put pockets in it.  After having pockets in all of my jumper-style Dress no. 1s, everything must have pockets.  No discussion.  The next batch of cutting needs to be some pants.  I have a stack of pants fabric downstairs that needs to get cut out.



Oh, I saw that plenty of onions have sprouted.  Still no potatoes or garlic but I can be patient.  For awhile.


I went to the downtown Y today to spend some time on the arc trainer/elliptical.  I like the arc trainer because it's a circular motion rather than up and down so it's much easier on the knees.  My usual Y only has one arc trainer but the downtown Y has four.  Lucky.  It's a really old, Gothic style building which used to rent rooms on the upper floors.  It got renovated a few years ago but I was glad to see that they kept the lovely wood banisters and the hundred-year-old tiles on the stairs.  The negative part of going to that Y is that you either park at a meter on the street or in the parking ramp so no free parking.  And leaving the ramp now, if you're paying cash you have to pull over, get out of your car, and go into a little booth to pay a machine because there's no human at the exit, only a way to pay with credit or debit cards.  I like using money, that way I know what I'm spending.  No surprises at the checkout.  It's too easy to just whip out a card and swipe it.  Yeah, I know, that's old fogey thinking.

The landscapers got about halfway across with the first course of bricks/blocks/whatever.  CG worked most of the day on the beginning end because it's much lower than the major part of the length so there are a lot more courses on that end, plus he had to build like a coffer dam around a phone box so that techs can service it if need be.  It's going to look nice.


I couldn't bring myself to knit on the Fake Isle Hat tonight (my fingers cramp because I'm strangling the needles from concentrating so hard) so I went downstairs for a book with toy knitting patterns, dug out some yarn and needles, and cast on.  LC and OJ had chrysalises in their rooms at school that hatched into butterflies and there's a pattern for a chrysalis that reverses to a leaf with a butterfly on it.  Fun, right?  Fun for me and for them.


4 June--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon. 

Monday morning at ten o’clock, I sat in the waiting area of a hair salon in Simpson Mall looking through a style magazine.

I’d been having Mavis trim my hair every six months for nearly thirty years.  I had sat in that shop in the front room of Mavis’ house in Kingman and caught up on all the local gossip, adding my own news to the stream.

            This place, Nine, was unlike any place I had ever been in.  Music pulsed at headache-making decibels and the people who worked there looked like they’d come to work on a spaceship.  The styles in the magazine on my lap weren’t much better.  All the models looked fourteen, anorexic, and sulky.  And some of the hairstyles featured asymmetrical swaths of hair shellacked into porcupine-like protrusions.  Not one of them looked like anything I could imagine wearing.

            I’d just about made up my mind to escape back to Mavis’ when a young woman in a magenta Indian peasant blouse and spiky orange hair with what looked like purple chopsticks sticking out of it called my name.

            “Gail Logan?”

            Marshalling my courage, I stood up and smiled at her.  “That’s me.”

            “I’m Nora.”  The girl looked me over.  “What can I do for you today, Gail?”

            “Well, I’ve decided to update my look a bit and I’m thinking a new hairstyle might go a long way to help.”

            As I spoke, Nora touched my arm and led me over to her chair.  I sat in the turquoise seat and Nora immediately covered me with a rose-colored drape, unpinned my trademark bun, and combed through my waist-length hair.

            “Wow, your hair’s sure long.  Just looking for a trim?”

            “No.  I’ve decided that my bun makes me look too old.  I want something easy and a little more modern.  But not like the styles I saw in that magazine out there.”

            “Don’t worry, Gail.  Despite what you see on my head, I promise I won’t make you look like any of those models.  We had a workshop yesterday, and what you see is what I got.  I kind of like the orange, but, frankly, all the gel and spray they put on it itches like crazy.”  We laughed.  “So, what did you have in mind?”

            I ran my hands through my hair and it fell around my shoulders like a protective cape.  “I don’t know exactly.  I’ve worn it like this for the last thirty years because it was easy and I just don’t have the hairdo gene; I’m at your mercy, Nora.”

            “Okay.”  While she was thinking, she brushed my hair.  It was so relaxing I didn’t care how long it took for Nora to figure out what to do.  “Your hair’s so heavy, I suggest we chop a bunch off first so we can better understand how to proceed.  How short do you want to go?”

             “Pretty short, I think.  I need something really simple.”

            Nora selected a pair of scissors and a few clips.  She sectioned off my long locks and grabbed one.  “Last chance to change your mind.”

            “Go for it.”  I squinched my eyes shut as the blades slashed through thirty years of hair.  Methodically working around my head, Nora cut and cut, leaving it chin-length.

            “Okay, now we shampoo and see what we’ve got.”  Nora escorted me to a basin, the warm water and firm fingers on my scalp making me feel like I’d stumbled into a spa.  When I was back in her chair, Nora combed through my hair, moving it this way and that.  I kept quiet, letting her think.

            “Here’s what I suggest.  You’ve got nice hair and it’s pretty healthy.  Do you object to bangs?”  I shook my head.  “Okay, you’ve got a nicely shaped head and it looks like you’ve got a little natural wave.  I think it would look good if we give you some bangs, not so much that you feel like a sheepdog, leave it a little longer on the top, and layer it on the sides and in the back.”  She stopped, obviously expecting a response.

            I hesitated, having no idea whether I’d like that or not.  “That’s fine,” I finally said.  “You’ll have to show me how to fix it by myself.”

            “No problem.  If I’m right about your hair, it’ll almost fix itself.”

            “Good.  That’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

And with that, the final piece of my transformation began.

Again Nora sectioned off the hair and large chunks began to rain down around me.  When I could, I watched in the mirror, not sure whether to be happy or horrified as more and more of my hair fell to Nora’s scissors.  I peeked up to watch her face, trying to gauge how she felt about what was emerging, but Nora retained a professionally blank expression.  Combing, cutting, using what looked to me like a straight razor, Nora worked to make her vision come to life.  It was almost an hour later when she turned me to face the mirror again and said, “There.  What do you think?”

Looking at the stranger in the mirror, I was speechless.  There was a thin fringe of bangs skimming the tops of my eyebrows, soft wings of hair fell from the crown of my head, and, when I turned, I saw that my hair flipped up in little curls around the sides and back.  My entire neck was exposed; I could feel a breeze and it gave me goosebumps.  My head felt so light I thought it might just float away.  “I…I think I like it.”  My hand crept up to touch my hair.  “It feels very different, strange, but I like it.  I like it a lot.”  I broke into a big grin and looked up to see Nora grinning back.

           “That was fun,” Nora said.  “You look so much younger without all that heavy hair weighing down your face.  Let’s rinse it out and then I’ll show you how to do it yourself.”

Twenty minutes later I left Nine after Nora patiently taught me how to style my hair and sold me a can of mousse.  I thanked her over and over for my new look.  Driving back to Kingman from Simpson, I decided I liked the anonymity of the bigger-city salon.  I’d always felt that as soon as I walked out of Mavis’ I became the topic of conversation among the remaining women.  It was a relief to have made such a giant change among strangers.  No explaining my motivation, no deflecting prying questions, just a relaxing hour of pampering.

I think I'll go downstairs and start sewing up some of the things I have cut out tomorrow.  Or maybe I'll knuckle down and keep working on the Seaview outline.  I'll figure out something constructive.
--Barbara