Two Cute

This post is really just an excuse to share the cutest photo of these two French Bulldogs, sent to me by a co-worker who knows I adore flat-faced dogs (the pug, of course, being the family Dog of Choice since childhood, save for an occasional cur or two).

He sent a series of them, but this is the most charming. Just look at those brachiocephalic faces!



"Kola" is the one in the foreground, and "Montgomery" is the sweet/bashful looking guy peeping around behind him (who, sadly, trotted across the Rainbow Bridge some time ago and is, as his owner has said, "In a better place.")

Anyway, I just love this photo. Quite simply, I find it charming, and, as the British might say, it "gladdens" me. So I needed to preserve it--and share it--in this blog.

One Hot Mama

I did it.

I fired my hairdresser. It was simple, painless, fast and necessary. And it was time. I'd been seeing him for almost 4 years, and he was okay--just okay--while my hair was still and only a pixie cut; but in the past year, I began to want more; I needed some things to change, and for that, I suffered needlessly. Still, I was unwilling to let the relationship end, although it was merely a business agreement. I am not always good at such things, even when they prove without question to be detrimental; I hang in there. I make excuses for the other person. I tell myself patience is my finest virtue, when really, I am being passive. It is a character defect I am working on. Trust me.



My former hairdresser has seemed fairly checked out for the past year. I mean, pleasant and all (albeit spacey), but I was really, really consistently hating what he was doing to my head. I used pictures. I explained. He highlighted & cut. And I'd pay (plenty), leave, slink home, stand in front of the mirror, and think, well, it's still growing out and besides, there's always the next time. And the next time was invariably the same.



It all changed when I recently met someone with fine, straight hair just like my own, with the exact shaggy haircut I've been desiring. I asked for the name of her hairdresser and she happily obliged, saying "She'll make you feel like a Hot Mama!" Conveniently, she was located downtown, near where I work. I made an appointment (which in and of itself felt like a profound betrayal of my old hairdresser, but I quashed those feelings). I went. I explained. She wrinkled her brow, lifting clumps of my hair and saying, "There's a lot I need to correct." OUCH. But correct, she did. Expertly. Perfectly.

It is true; one's ego is often entirely wrapped up in one's hair. I know what I want; I know what I like. I do not have a hard time articulating things, not always. I have fine, unruly, cowlicky hair that needs a certain amount of coddling to look decent. She got that. She said, "I'm old enough to remember when shags were in the first time."

My former hairdresser was a mere sprout, somewhere in his 20's. He didn't truly know from the glory days of the Jane Fonda shag.



So all is now good. I've been liberated. And I've learned an important lesson: if you don't get what you want the first time from a hairdresser, chances are you won't get what you want the next time, or the next. Move on. Lots of people cut hair.

Rules for life. Rules for shags. Rules for my ongoing recovery.

And, yes, it's true. I finally feel, for all practical purposes, like one Hot Mama. :-)

Let the Sunshine In.....

Thank God.

Things are thawing in the Nation's Refrigerator. It's beginning to look a lot like....Spring.

The time changed (3 weeks early) this past Sunday morning, and we went from cold and dark to bright, warmer and sunny, pretty much overnight.

I'm not complaining. The seasons here literally butt up one against the other, with little to no transition time; it's just so sudden, it takes some getting used to. I'm still wearing Winter turtlenecks and drab earth tones. I suddenly have the urge to replace everything in my wardrobe with breezy florals and pastels.



Things are melt-y and slushy outside, and the last big snowstorm will soon be but a memory.

This just makes me want to return to the land of citrus trees, shaking ground, salt air and endless coastline that much more (yes, I'm talking about California).

Until that actually occurs, however, I can at least keep eyeballing this photo:

There's a word for it

"Navel-gazing" is a term I use for the perennially self-involved. You know, the type of person who goes through endless years of psychotherapy ("analysis," if you're from New York), encounter-grouping, and basically all manner of self-realization, usually peaking in this area around midlife, at which point the evaluation of one's navel becomes even more exquisitely profound, thanks to perhaps a failed relationship or two, the specter of death, the first few gray hairs, kids (if any) growing up and leaving home, and the (imminent) loss of one's parents.



I'm a little (okay, a LOT) that way. I grew up in Berkeley. Berkeleyans, in general, are all at least a little that way. We wrote the book on navel-gazing. We're really good at it. It's a West Coast thing. We use terms like, "You're not hearing me," and "I'm not okay with that," and "How are you around that?" When we're distressed, we tell one another that they're "pushing our buttons." We are encouraged to "get in touch with our anger." We even ask our Inner Children to come out and play from time to time.



Anyway. My friend in Portland, with whom I have discussed at length the concept of navel-gazing, and with whom I have copiously navel-gazed, came across this word and sent it to me:

Omphaloskepsis. Greek derivation. Definition: Contemplation of one's navel.

I wonder if this makes me an "Omphaloskepsist."

Blog on, Blog off

No, I haven't blogged for a while. I believe part of the reason why is the nearly back-to-back snow storms we've been having in these parts, leaving me feeling draggy, terribly unwitty, and badly in need of a stretch of hibernation.

We had a major storm last Saturday/Sunday, followed by another this past Thursday into Friday; bands of bad weather that came roaring in, only to dump copiously, leave a mess and flee--somewhat like a recent former friendship.



Ah, but I digress, however briefly. You get the drift, no pun intended.

Today, I made my way on foot to the grocery store, as I do many Saturday mornings. All was white and treacherous, and I do mean treacherous. After living here for 5 years, I no longer take the most quotidian functions for granted, such as stepping off the curb and crossing the street. After the city has plowed, great heaps of dirty snow are pushed into 4 or 5 foot mounds along the curb, and there they sit. Now, one does not merely step ever-so-daintily over these mounds, no; one must prepare to scale them, ascending, hitting the man-made summit, then descending, praying all the while that one does NOT slip on one's ass. The best one can hope for in such circumstances is that another has gone before, leaving deep foot impressions in the snow, thus creating a sort of helpful stair-step effect.



On the up side, we're getting closer to Easter (more chocolate!) and Passover (more macaroons!), both of which I love for the aforementioned foods. As a reward for my I-may-as-well-be-trucking-up-Everest-'cause-they-won't-find-my-
corpse-till-Spring-thaw outing today, I treated myself to one of those funky Manischewitz cans of Almond-flavored macaroons, the tiny, chewy ones that usually become part of a "Hello, Jewish Neighbors!" endcap display at this time of year.



So all is not utterly horrific. Just cold and white. But The macaroons are a reminder that Spring can't be too far off. And for that, I am profoundly grateful.



Though I can't say I'm thrilled at the prospect of slogging through slush. Ah, Portland! Rain never looked so good!