Never underestimate the importance of great hair

You've seen the commercials. Melissa Gilbert, Alyssa Milano, Jennie Garth, Ming-na, and many more all swear by it.  I'd been intrigued from the start, but the cost, oh, the cost was so deterring.  What am I talking about? I'm talking about WEN cream hair cleanser (don't you dare say shampoo).  The commercials show the before pictures, with each model's hair looking flat or flyaway or straw-like. 

courtesy of Guthie-Renker

Then, Chaz Dean, Miracle Worker, applies his super WEN cleanser and Voila! The hair--it is beautiful!  I'm was a little skeptical, but the claims are so convincing.  I am here to tell you--it's all true.  

I bid on and won a big beauty box at our fall fundraiser that included a starter kit of WEN.  I was super excited and noticed my hair was softer and shinier right away.  I don't usually blow dry my hair, which is naturally curly-adjacent, so it's always a little messy looking, but it was soft to the touch and you, if you were so inclined, would be able to run your fingers through it with no problem.  

But today, I was in a big hurry as all my instruments of waking had failed me, so I just grabbed the shampoo that I still had in the shower and washed it and conditioned it.  I did grab a squirt of WEN as a leave-in, but fat lot of good that did me.  In the commercial, they show Alyssa Milano having shampooed with regular stuff, and after with WEN. 

courtesy of Guthie-Renker

The photo on the left? That's exactly what my hair looks like today.  It's rough to the touch, super frizzy, and just plain not pretty.  

Is it pricey? A little, but not so terrible that I can't work it into my budget. Plus, you can get deals on Amazon and QVC.  

Does it really make a difference? Abso-frigging-lutely!  No, seriously, I am never using that shampoo again.  Even unstyled, my hair on WEN is a thousand times better than without.  

As dorky as it sounds, yes, I'm a WEN girl.  

 

Hollywood is the strangest place in the world.

I just got home (10:14pm) and the strangest thing happened. I'm still kind of unnerved by it.  I parked my car and as I was getting out, noticed a man walking down the street looking a little sketchy.  I locked the car and rather than get up on the sidewalk, I walked down toward my house in the street.  "Hey, can I ask you a question?" he said.  Still safely in the street I said, "sure."  

"What would you do if you were feeling suicidal?" he asked.  I answered, "I don't know. I've never felt suicidal. I probably wouldn't commit suicide though." I'll admit, it was a little flippant.  "No kidding," he said, "but I mean, for real. What should I do? I have all these feelings and I'm afraid that if I call 9-1-1, they'll put me in jail for trying to kill someone. But I'm just feeling so crazy."  At this point, I noticed he was shaking and his voice started to crack.  "I don't know what to do. And I can't even call 9-1-1 because I have to charge my phone."  He started to cry.  "What should I do?"  

Since I live diagonally across the street from the police station, I suggested he go talk to the police.  They will probably get the paramedics to take him to a hospital.  "But they'll put me in jail!" he sobbed.  "No," I said, "they'll take you to the hospital where you can get the help you need."

"But I'm afraid. What do I say to them?"  So, I told him to tell the police exactly what he told me.  They are trained to help and will get him to the hospital.  "But what if they don't?" by now, he was shaking like a leaf and had his arms wrapped around himself.  While I didn't think he was a threat, I was still wary, so I continued to walk in the street and walked past my house. I walked with him to the corner and told him, "okay, the police station is right there.  I'm going to stand here and watch to make sure you're alright." 

"I don't know what to say," he told me.  I looked at him, really looked, for the first time and thought how young he looked. Maybe not young as much as extremely vulnerable.  "You've been really brave so far. You told me and I'm a stranger.  You can tell them.  They'll be able to help you more than I can."  He doubled over and sobbed for a few minutes. I waited for him to gain control. He straightened up, nodded, and crossed the street into the police station.  I turned and went home. 

I hope I did the right thing. I hope they helped him and didn't just write him off as drunk or on drugs. He swore to me that he was not high on anything. Mostly I hope he's okay.

Sorry, Bev. Sandy's not for sale.

I found this note on my car this morning.  I'm puzzled by the emphasis on car, as if I'd somehow be confused and think she was asking me to buy my private jet.   The other emphases (Hi and Hm) are no less puzzling.  

Hm, indeed, Beverly. Hmm.....

I saved the yarn

Healthy Choice makes this new line of frozen entrees that steam cook and are delicious.  You don't poke the plastic cover; you just pop it in the microwave and the trapped steam escapes with a weird whistling sound.  I guess I never really thought about why it didn't just explode. I guess I just assumed it was magic.  But, I'm sure you all know that in order for the steam to escape with that weird whistling sound, there has to be a tiny opening somewhere.  And there was--somewhere.

Do you want to know how I discovered it?  I was running late today and just tossed the frozen entree, Sesame Glazed Chicken, in my knitting bag and ran to work. Once I got here, I was pulled into one thing and another and forgot--FORGOT--to put the frozen entree in the freezer at work.  So it thawed, and the delicious sesame sauce made its way out of whatever tiny opening allows the steam to escape and into the bottom of my knitting bag.  Unfortunately, I didn't notice this until I grabbed the bag, tossed the entree in the microwave, and headed for the front desk for my hour of coverage. I set the back on the marble counter and noticed it was saturated.  "Oh, the thawing left condensation in the bag."  Then I touched it and it was sticky. Ewww.  It smelled delicious, though.  I found some paper towels, a wet wipe, and carefully unpacked the bag.  The yarn, Thank God, was on top and was safe from sauce.  Everything else needed to be wiped down and dried.  The bag is machine washable, too, so no tragedy there.  

The real tragedy was the food.  Without the delicious sesame sauce, the chicken and rice were overcooked and barely palatable.  

This is what it's supposed to look like.  This is not at all what it looked like when I was done.
courtesy of HealthyChoice.com

Delightfully Creepy

These mannequin feet were featured on the Etsy e-newsletter.  The seller, tumblingmoon, describes them thus: "One pair mannequin display feet, circa 1980's. Weighted in the toes, these can be balanced on any flat surface. Great for sock display or room display. "  I love them. No, I LOVE them.  I would totally buy them and pose them on a ladder climbing up to the gnome door in my bathroom ceiling or on a ladder behind a curtain or something.  That is, if they hadn't already been sold.  They are too perfectly creepy to resist.

No Comic Con passes and injured to boot

I won't bore you with the details. I, like everyone else, had a bad link, had to waste precious time cutting and pasting the URL into the browser, and didn't get 4-day passed to Comic Con.  We got Sunday tickets and we've got plans to hang out anyway, but alas, no full con for me.

So, after the Comic Con ticket fiasco, I left my friend to study for her CPA tests and went to run errands. I jetted downtown to return library books and pay my fines (Yikes! $54!!), then headed to Target.  Since I didn't spend the whole amount of Comic Con money, I decided to get groceries--real groceries, not dollar store groceries--at Target.  I picked up the essentials, got out under $100, which is always a feat, and loaded up my car.  I took the cart back to the cart corral, and turned to look for my car again.  I started walking across the parking lot, looking for my car and not watching where I was going.  Suddenly, I tripped....(pause)

(side note) Do you have one of those irrational fears that you just can't explain but which haunts you? I do.  No, not my fear of the dark.  I am constantly afraid of tripping and falling on my face, breaking my teeth.  I don't know where this  fear comes from, but any uneven sidewalk, like the one in front of my house, causes me to tread carefully and/or avoid it altogether.  

(back to the story).  I tripped over one of those cement blocks that keeps your car from going too far forward and I couldn't catch myself.  I flew a few feet before landing in a skid, like I was coming into home plate, belly first, arms and legs stretched out in front and back.  Think of Frosty the Snowman when he goes sledding with the kids. That's what I looked like.  I pulled myself up, and discovered my right hand was gashed.  The flashlight and whistle broke off my car keys, but my cell phone and iPod didn't have a scratch. Phew!  Also, somehow, I managed to hold my head up so it didn't make contact with the pavement.  I hobbled to my car and started laughing at myself, because it's always kind of funny when someone falls. Driving home was fun, because my hands hurt so much I couldn't grip the steering wheel, plus I was still laughing at myself so it was "Ow, haha, OW, haha" all the way home.  Also fun? Carrying a load of groceries upstairs when both hands are disabled.  

I put the milk in the fridge and washed my hands with antibacterial soap. I scrubbed them both with peroxide on a cotton ball, then Neosporin and a Band-aid on the right one.  My knees are both scraped and bruised, but my jeans protected them, and oddly the top of my foot is bruised, but not scraped. All in all, I was just kind of sore but none the worse for wear.  Until Sunday, when my age caught up to me and the jarring of my body became evident. I'm really achy now. Oh, and while my phone didn't break, something else did. 

I reached into my purse for something and came out with a blue hand.  Oh, crap!  I had a gel ink pen in my purse and it broke in half emptying its entire contents into the bottom of my bag.  I carefully carried it to the bathroom and started emptying the bag--inky items to the right, clean items to the left.  Then, I turned the purse inside out and proceeded to try to get all that blue ink off.  It was not easy and by the end of the task, my hands looked like a Smurf, but I got it fairly clean. It's drying out in my bathroom as I speak.  

Sooo bruised. Thank God, I'm right handed. Although...

This hand isn't much better.

It's really difficult to take pictures of your own hands.  Just saying.

And then Gladys Kravitz got bitch slapped...verbally (contains profanity)

I was already running late this morning when my nosy downstairs neighbor, the Latina Gladys Kravitz, opened her door and said, "oh, Laurie, when you have a minute I need to talk to you."  I asked her what was up and she told me, "when you do laundry, go to the laundromat. You can't wash your clothes upstairs."  What the what?!?!  Um, I assure you all that I am most certainly NOT so ghetto as to wash my clothes in my bathtub.   I told Gladys this.  She told me that the water was running for an hour and a  half on Sunday and it leaked into her kitchen.  I, again, told her that it wasn't me and she should tell the Frau.  "Well, just don't do it anymore. You need to go to the laundromat," she said and started to go back inside her apartment.  I was tired because I haven't been sleeping well, and pissed because she totally didn't believe me.  In fact, she's been accusing me of washing my clothes in the bathtub since last July.  

"Bitch, do not go back inside your apartment when I'm talking to you. Get back out here."  Surprisingly, she actually came back out to talk to me.  I explained, very patiently because as I've mentioned before she's not an English speaker, that I am NOT washing my clothes upstairs, and that I did NOT run the water for an hour and a half on Sunday.  She countered with, "remember when you were on vacation and the man came to fix the leak. He said you did laundry up there and that's why it leaks."*  I tried to reason with her.  "Gladys, how would he know where and when I do my laundry?  I do NOT do laundry up there. Why are you going to believe him and not me?"  

"Well, the water was running all day and your pipes make noise and it leaked in my kitchen," said Gladys crossing her arms all defiant like.  So, I got all defiant, too.  "First of all, I wasn't even home on Saturday. I was working from 9:30 to 5:30.  And Sunday, I barely moved from the couch.  Hell, I didn't even take a shower (TMI) let alone wash clothes."  And then, she once again reiterated that I should not wash clothes in my bathtub, as if I'd been speaking Swahili this whole time and she was just nodding to be polite.  To which I replied with this heartfelt retort:

"Fuck you! How about next time you supposedly hear the water running for an hour and a half, you get off your ass, knock on my door, and I will fucking prove to you that it's not coming from my apartment so you and Frau and everyone else can get off my fucking back about the leak!"  Not surprisingly, she ran back inside at this point.  I can't wait to hear the message that Frau will surely be leaving on my machine.

*What the repairman saw was several shirts hanging in my bedroom.  I don't put my tops in the dryer. I bring them home and hang them to dry.  From this, he concluded that I must be washing my clothes in the bathtub, and no amount of protest will convince them otherwise.