Curly hair

I remind myself of Frieda, the girl with naturally curly hair in the Peanuts comic strip.  But unlike Frieda, who was quite proud of her tassle of  red locks, I spend a goodly amount of time blow drying my hair straight and then using a curling iron to make it curly again. Huh? It really does make sense, you see, my naturally curly hair  has a mind of its own.

In every photo of me from elementary school you will view a cute little girl with something that looks like wings jutting from the sides of her head. High school pictures reveal a cute teenager with teased hair and something that looks like bat ears jutting out through the poof. In college I let my hair grown really, really long in hopes that the weight of long hair would pull down the flight devices. But no. I was a Joan Baez with two curls fighting a death match — sleek hair lost. My one period of victory over the rogue curls was when I permmed my hair into an Afro (I have previously posted about my Righteous with the Sistahs period).

When it became clear to me that I was never going to be Black, I let my perm grow so that  for awhile I had a head of wavy hair close to my scalp and  tightly permmed hair at the ends. I think I have seen that hair style in an episode of Star  Trek. These days I often let my hair “air dry” without benefit of  electrical devices. The result is a tent shaped, gently curling head of hair — I tell myself I look like Cleopatra. Oh, I guess she was long dead before she got to 60 years old. So I guess I look like Cleo’s grammy.

Now, in addition to curls I have added colors, the current one being “caramel”.  At least it was caramel. Now it is grey for the  first two inches and then it is caramel.  I think I will dye the ends red so I look like a soft ice cream.

Alien life forms encounter snow on trip to earth

I saw this on page 5 of one of Boston’s newspapers, affectionately known to locals as the Boston Glib: Sunday January 18 volunteer firefighter Rudie O’Leary made a 911 call at approximately 10:35 AM to report sighting what he called “a (expletive deleted) UFO” landing in a rural area of Westford, Massachusetts approximately a mile from the Rt. 3 exit on Interstate 95. “I was in my truck heading to North Billerica when I hear something like a helicopter was about to land on me. Scared the (expletive deleted) out of me! I pulled over and got out to see what was going on. I am telling you this straight, there was a disc shaped vehicle hovering about twenty feet above my truck. I just stayed there for awhile and then an opening appeared and a chute like the kind you see in airplane safety videos extended to the ground. At first I thought I was being like shown how to get up into the disc like they wanted me to come in. But there was no way in hell I was going into a (expletive deleted) spaceship. And I am telling you now I have laid off booze for five weeks now and was cold stone sober. But I was like stuck there. My legs did not seem to want to obey my mind which was saying ‘Run like hell you fool!’ Just then I see two figures emerge from the disc and slide down the chute.

It had just begun to snow lightly and these two things, space people, aliens I guess, paid me no attention. They was looking at the snow. They were’ntdone up in space suits neither. As far as I could tell they were buck naked except for wearing what looked like tool belts. They began to do some experiments on the old snow that had accumulated — measuring it looked like, taking samples . . . they poured some stuff on it like dippety do gel. That made the snow glow kinda yellow but nothing else. The snow had picked up and was coming down real hard by then. These two fellers (I am guessing here — they did not have you know. . .) began to get agitated like and started to swat themselves like they were being attacked by flies. One of em comes over to me and takes my new hat I just got mail order from L. L. Bean and puts it on its head. But his head is all coney shaped and the hat gets blown off easy. By then the two of em are danc’n like they was doing the hokey pokey their feet on fire or something.

I am not proud to admit I was a big chicken (expletive deleted) but I was not moving — so the snow was start’n to build up on my coat and my head, everywhere. I looked like a snowman. One of em poked at me and some of the snow fell off. They jumped back in alarm. It was getting pretty (expletive deleted) cold too — 19 degrees or something. If those buck naked fellers did have proper equipment well they would be having major shrinkage that is all I can say. Finally I got control of my normal self, and being a true patriot and willing to die for me and mine, well I picked up some snow and made me a snowball and flung it at em. Direct hit to feller number one. Kapow! Then I ran behind the truck and flung em snowballs as fast as I could make em. One of those fellers actually tried to make a snowball to retaliate but he was still swatting and got more snow on him then on me.  After about 20 minutes they was both on the chute trying to scramble up into the space ship. One would get ahead of the other and knock him off in the rush. They finally got on board and that disc closed up and took off so fast I had never seen nothing like it.”

Police investigation of the area did find evidence of a snowball fight and several places where the snow had been disturbed but no clear evidence of an alien visitation. Mr. O’Leary has signed a sworn statement to the truth of his report and the matter has been handed over to the State Department of Parks which has jurisdiction over the site where the incident allegedly took place.

Linshaolin gets new toys

My husband got me a new laptop for Christmas. It is sleek and silver with a large monitor and an unusable touch pad. Listen up people, giving a touch pad to a Parkinson’s person is like giving Jackson Pollack a paintbrush loaded with paint — all you get it artistic splatterings. Seeing that my using my new computer in its present state was impossible, my spouse wisked me off to Micro Age superstore to select a wireless mouse. Micro Age had a whole aisle of mice organized by $14.95 Crappy, $59. 95 Feature-ladened with Features you Won’t Use, and $99.95 Just What you are Looking For. Being a savvy shopper I went directly to the $99.95 section.

The newest thing seems to be Laser mice. Laser is better than whatever old mice were. It says so on the box. So I narrowed my search to the laser models. I prefer a large mouse — a large mouse provides stability and is easier for me to grasp. There was only one really big mouse and that was a Logitech Revolution.  It had lots of buttons, rollers, slider gizmos, and clickers. I will use one of them. We had been looking for about a minute when a young sales associate suddenly appeared. I asked if a particular mouse with compatible with Vista. He assured me it was. I asked why that was not listed on the packaging when it was listed on other mice. He had the good grace to blush and went off to check. He did not return. A minute later a second sales associate arrived. I asked the same question. He say “Oh, not unless it is listed on the requirements and this one is not.” He then swooped down to the $99.95 section and pointed to the one mouse I had had my eye on. “This is what you want. It is the best.” As soon as it looked like we would buy it he slapped a label on it and left.

Then I remembered I’d need a mouse pad and selected the largest one they had. On my way to the check out a third sales associate materialized and slapped a sticker on the mouse pad. Clearly commission was involved in this labeling business. Finally I made it to the check out line, which was at least ten people long. We were corraled into a roped off line, with racks of merchandize on either side. This was impulse mechandise of the most alluring kind. There were breath mints shapped like CDs, pens shapped like pens, CD cases, maps of New England, a refridgerated case of soft drinks and ice cream bars (it was 14 degrees outside so the cold treats were being skipped over). I grabbed a bottled water and an Eskimo Pie — I felt sorry for the cold treats. I also picked up a bumper sticker that said “My hard drive is bigger than your hard drive.” Hubby  made me put it back.

SAD

Starting at about this time of year many people suffer from low-grade depression caused by the lack of daylight and the cold, dreary winter months — this reaction to winter is called “seasonal affective disorder.”  Better known as SAD, it has become the disorder of choice amongst the college age population.  Households all over the northern hemisphere are hearing the same conversation: “I went to the infirmary at school and the doctor said I look anemic and I need to go to (fill in the blank with your choice of the British Virgin Islands, California, Bermuda, Mexico, Hawaii) for maximum sunlight.” “Oh, when I called the infirmary I heard something different — would you like to tell me what the doctor really said?”  “Well, the doctor did say I need more light.”  “I think the doctor actually said that if you broke the hermetic seal between your lips and the lips of that girl who giggles in the background every time I call, you could get outside once in awhile for fresh air and sunshine.”  You would think that the discussion would end there, but no — the drive to go on a winter break is too great to be squashed by mere parental reasoning.

 In addition to the future leaders of the world, SAD primarily affects middle-management.  It tends to strike immediately after performance review time when the middle manager has been informed that for the third year in a row their placement in the salary grid means that they won’t be getting a raise.  And if that were not bad enough, the following week middle managers receive the e-mail giving them a script to follow when informing their employees that the free coffee and yogurt are being eliminated, to be replaced by motivational posters in the lunchroom.  Suddenly dark shadows replace the sun that had been dappling on the snowbanks, the snowbanks turned to freezing gray slush, and the only birds that can be seen are roadkill.

My 24 year old daughter, currently unemployed, has informed me that she is going to California in February because she has SAD.  She will stay with her friend so her only expenses will be the airplane ticket, the cab ride to the airport, the cab ride to her friend’s apartment, the cab ride to dinner, the cab ride back from dinner, the $300 for “entertainment”, the cab ride back to the airport, the five dollar package of airport cheese and crackers, and the cab ride back home.  When I inquired whether she has sufficient funds for this trip she gives me the look that says “Mom, you are such a downer.”  I hate to be a downer, but I have SAD too. My doctor told me that unless I go to a tropical Club Med I would suffer from slow thyroid, weight gain, adult acne, and I would not get a raise.  Certainly I must honor my body and not allow such horrible things to afflict me!

When I told my husband about the recommended cure he went out and bought me a sun lamp.  He still doesn’t understand why instead of being appreciative I stormed out of the room and sulked for the rest of the day.  I attribute my bad behavior to SAD.  I am not responsible.  Once I am in a lounge chair by the pool with the piña colada I will be a new woman.