hair follicles...er...follies

OK, so I am most unfeminine in that I do not color my hair, cut it myself, and generally treat it as the dead locks of keratin strands that it is. But....today I thought I'd try something different. I haven't changed my hair color purposefully since high school (read - red dye disaster), and I have never done highlights. For whatever reason, I was standing in Walgreens, buying my millionth hair brush (either the kids steal them, or we have a hairbrush eating monster that lives under our sink - either way, I don't want them back), and I decided I wanted to highlight my hair. Oh, yeah, this was just a greaaaat idea.

So, I got home and thought, "not doing it." And then I realized I paid $13.99 for that box of color, and oh yes I was. There were more directions on the box than my computer came with, and it was really hard to read the directions through the translucent plastic that was a pair of gloves. Now, why they felt the need to attach the gloves to the directions, I don't know. Is it an extra bid to make sure users USE the gloves? Protection from water on the instructions? I just know that somewhere out there, some woman doesn't see them at all, and thinks she didn't get a cheap pair of plastic gloves. So, I fearlessly mixed up some blue paste with the little plastic paddle (which would make an excellent canoe paddle for outdoors Barbie, but, oh...nevermind), and tried to apply it with the little fingertip brush. But the brush kept getting stuck in my hair, and leaving globs of blue paste in odd places. And then I lost the brush entirely, and I kept thinking, "fifteen minutes...is that from the start or finish of application?" and I started to have visions of locks of my hair falling out. So, I abandoned the little fingertip brush, and just started finger combing it through my hair.

So, here I sit, with blue paste applied very unevenly all over my head. I kind of stink...I'm almost positive this was a mistake...and I am wavering between washing it out before the 15 minutes are up, or sticking it out to see what happens.

And why am I doing this? There is no reason why my mousy, dishwater blonde hair shouldn't be just fine. No need for streaks of light...except, I usually get these for free from the summer sun. The sun I haven't seen much of this summer, and it's depressing to end the summer with winter dull hair. So...I've gone the chemical route. I feel so illicit. I feel so cheap. And I really feel kind of itchy. So, maybe I'm developing hives. Then I can be bald AND lumpy. Good plan.

Why all this fuss over how I look anyway? I get mixed messages. On the one hand, I'm told it's what's on the inside that counts. But to be sure, if my outside showed up to work with no make-up, flip-flops and a bathrobe, I wouldn't have a job by noon that day. Certainly media gives us crystal clear messages that women are expected to uphold certain ideals of what is or is not attractive. Why settle for what nature provides, when we can chemically enhance ourselves.

So, I'm sitting here waiting for the structure of the cells in my strands of keratin to change, so I too can look nothing at all like Malibu Barbie - because I'll never be a Barbie doll kind of girl. Who knows...maybe it'll be a good look for me. Maybe I'll try red again after all...surely disasters can't happen twice, right?

the things Julia Child won't tell you

A co-worker today was telling the story of making Julia Childs' roast chicken for Sunday dinner. She and her husband have taken it up as a challenge to cook each and every Sunday from the classic cookbook. They take turns being chef and sous chef...they have stocked up on butter. It all sounds so cozy. She talked about playful banter about who was in charge that week. She described the melting butter, cooking a sauce without garlic, and rotating her bird. No, really, she made it sound like they were having the time of their lives.

While I am a decent cook, I do not eat nor do I cook meat. I have two children. They do not eat tofu, eggplant, portabella mushrooms, and several other vegetarian kitchen staples. There are limited things you can do with beans, brown rice, cheese, and pasta. Of course, they enjoy the standard vegetables - peas, carrots, broccoli, green beans, zucchini. It's the more exotic flair they resist. So, Julia has little appeal for our household.

I think sometimes that I will write my own book - all the things that Julia Child won't tell you. It would be sort of a cookbook for moms, or those of us who live in the non-gourmet world. I'd include all my wisdom...it would be a short book.

• You can spend half an hour chopping your mise en place, cook the perfect pasta primavera sauce, and your kids will ask at the last minute if they can have "just noodles with butter."
• You can whip up the perfect lemon creme brulee and be told that it is "almost as good as the jell-o pudding cups."
• No one in the real world actually eats capers.
• Ditto for anchovies.
• Houston humidity and the leavening agent in yeast do not play well together. One might even say they fight it out. The humidity wins, every time. Much like when it tangles with my hair. Darn humidity.
  
• Those who can actually flip an omlette or turn a perfect crepe are freaks of nature. They are to be viewed with awe and fear. Mostly fear. For they could take over the world if they chose to do so. But, fear not, for most of them are too busy admiring their perfect crepes t0o worry about world domination.
• The best vegetables in the world are the ones you pick out of your own garden. Sometimes the peas don't even make it into our house - I just find a trail of pea-pods, leading from the garden to the garage and a bowl with three full pods for the table.
  
• Okra, however, does not improve with age or size. It becomes stronger and fiercer, and well...wood-like. We picked some overripe okra last year - I could have built an ark with it. None-the-less, Houston weather grows some champion sized okra.
• A ten year old can set ANYTHING on fire given a toaster oven and enough time.
• You can hide anything in a muffin. Anything...seriously.

Enough of the good French wine...well, you won't care what you cook.

Bon Appetite!

geriatric technology

I am spoiled, and I will be the first to readily admit it. I live in a house where we have several computers - more than one per person, which is ridiculous - and all are networked. We all know how to program the DVR, use the satellite television, use the assorted smart phones and i-this and that's in our lives.

And then I step into my mother's house. And it is the proverbial dead-zone of technology. Except, she keeps trying to change that, and turns it into the Twilight Zone with every attempt. My mother has done things in Microsoft Office that I doubt Bill Gates ever thought of doing. She has killed printers, fried DVD players, completely broken down CD players and made remote controls run screaming under the couch.

Today, my mother announced that she wants a new computer with...wait for it...a web cam so she can "scrape" with my brother. Took me a minute too...finally decided she was talking about Skype. By the time I had this all figured out, I was breaking out in a cold sweat. See, my brother lives 2300 miles away, and he can safely suggest that mom just pop out and buy a webcam, knowing full well that I am going to be the one left to deal with the reality of trying to teach her how to use it. The first 45 minutes will be taken up with showing her how to plug it in, and then the fun begins.

First, however, I have to help her to replace her geriatric PC. Until two months ago, she was still using the hand-me-down desktop model I gave her more than ten years ago. At Easter this past year, she handed it back to me saying that it doesn't work anymore. Now, I wouldn't have been surprised if the PC DIDN'T work - it's older than my kids, and was obsolete before the first time she cussed at it. But...it works...just fine...I still don't understand the mysterious "doesn't work." I am too afraid to ask if she had it plugged in.

See, I am torn here - I truly believe that everyone should take full advantage of technology, and the best way to learn is to dive in and just get your hands dirty. I tell older coworkers all the time not to be afraid, that they're not going to break it unless they throw it across the room. But, my mom? I'm not so sure she won't break it. And if she doesn't break the PC, the web cam, or the new headset she'll need to Skype, well...she might break me at last.

And while I was pondering all of this, I had a thought. I could complain, or I could profit from this experience...by writing the world's first geriatric to English tech dictionary. See, then those of us who live our lives in the modern world could look up "swiping the moose" and realize that someone is trying to talk about moving a mouse around. Or we'd know to say "the little clicky thing," instead of the cursor. It begins to make total sense for me...at last, a way to come out ahead. In the meantime, I plan to send my brother a plane ticket...so he can come give mom the lessons in using her new web cam. And I can just sit back and take notes for my new bestseller.

inertia

I can still remember the first time I heard the word, "inertia," it was in fifth grade science class. An object at rest will stay at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force. An object in motion will stay in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. It fascinated me. As some of my friends know, I am obsessed with words, and often get caught up in using them, thinking about them, wallowing in language. Inertia is even fun to say. I wrote a story once...not quite a book, but close, and named it "Breaking Inertia." It was about a woman who walked out on her very ordinary life and came back ten years later - after many adventures - to find her husband and children still living their own very ordinary lives and how they didn't really need her to move forward, but accepted her back into their lives just as easily. As the story progressed, it became more clear that she was the one who had truly remained inert, never growing as a person or breaking from her own selfish existence, while they had been living quiet lives that were none-the-less full of meaning and purpose. Her one act of breaking away had not been enough to change her from that inert soul.

Inertia. I feel like I am there now. I become restless when I realize that I can predict so much of my life, despite moving forward in an every day kind of way - am I really being acted upon, and am I acting upon others? I am inert as a human being if my own essence is not growing and changing. Unlike a ball at rest, I cannot count on someone else to come and propel me forward, but I must be self-propelling instead.

Those who know me well, know that I am restless by nature. I resent sleep because there are always more things to do than I have time to finish - more books to read, more trips to take, more work to do, more time to spend with friends and family. Inert, I tend to wallow in my own thoughts, without acting. I pull inward and live in my own head if I allow myself to do so, and so I remain without growth or action.

I am inert, and seeking some outside force. Any takers?

choices

I read once that we are defined as human beings by the choices that we make. I wonder what my choices say about me? It sort of drifted to me as I stood in front of the refrigerator tonight, pondering what I was going to eat for dinner, and thinking that there was nothing here. That is, of course, not true at all. There was nothing easily accessible that I WANTED to eat. It finally came down to a choice of pick something or go to bed without dinner. Seen in that light, I chose to enjoy my homemade vegetarian chili for one more night. And, you know, it was just as good tonight as it was on Monday - when I first made it. It was simply the feeling that there was nothing else here, and not having a choice that made me kind of picky for those few minutes. Kids need the freedom of choice, why not adults?

Today I chose to quit complaining about the clutter in my office and clean it up. I chose to procrastinate about exercising, and I regret it now that it is bedtime. I chose to keep my mouth closed when I disagreed with a coworker, because there was no glory in debating a moot point. I chose to make a joke at the expense of another person, and although that person was not there to hear, I know what I said and know it makes less of me. I chose to not have wine with dinner, knowing that I took Benadryl and the combination is one that will not let me get by on less than ten hours of sleep. I chose to nit-pick with one daughter, and overlook a bigger issue with the other - because I didn't have the energy to argue. I chose to put off calling my mother back, and I'll feel bad until I do it.

My kids make choices every day, and the older they get, the fewer I get to make for them. Oh, I was fairly bragging today to a coworker about being the law and order in my house, and sometimes I am. But the truth is that I pick my fights - sometimes I pick them well, and sometimes I choose to fight the the bad fight. Sometimes I give up the battle to win the war that waits over the ridge of puberty. My oldest daughter has been making choices about who she is lately, and how she wants to represent herself visually. I disagree with her on many occasions. I could have made the purchase of a new bathing suit into the bikini wars of 2010, but I chose not to do that. Instead, I stealthily sewed the strings on the sides together at the knot, so no wayward dive will leave her without half a suit. And I'll choose to believe that she'll make good choices of her own.

Goodness knows my parents never had confidence in any choices that I made. They're still hoping I will choose to change careers, find a new husband, lose some weight, buy better clothes, and live a whole new life. Some of the choices I've made are in direct and purposeful opposition of what they would have wanted for my life. I see that now, though I chose to ignore it for years. Some choices have been very much my own. I don't eat meat. To me it's simple, I love animals, and there ARE readily available options that can feed a person and still keep them healthy, so I choose to not eat animal flesh. I don't force my choice on others - my kids eat meat sometimes, and I try not to preach at them. It is something of a family joke to "forget" that I don't meat and serve all carnivorous options at family gatherings. To them it is a ridiculous choice to make, and they do not respect that it's my right to make that choice, no matter what. I promised myself I would never do that to my own children.

Sometimes I miss the days when I got to make all the choices for my kids, and the most they got to do was pick the red one or the blue one. Make that the RED ONE or the blue one. ISAID the REDONE or the blue one . Yeah, subtlety was never my strong suit. I have to hope all those years of guiding their choices has led them to understand how to make their own. I'm not with my kids all day, and it won't be far down the road that they're away and making bigger decisions. Hopefully they'll choose to share with me and ask my advice. In the meantime, I'll choose to hold my tongue when it's not such a big hairy deal, in hopes of not burning any bridges. Hey, I can always choose to change my mind.

dreams

Just like other children her age, as I would totally hope she does, my older daughter has dreams for her life. Unlike my younger child, whose philosophy is, "I'll grow up and then figure out what I want to do when I get there" (which is practical, since it's what most of us do anyway), my oldest daughter has always known what she wants to do with her life. Since she was five years old, Katie has wanted one of two career paths. Path A involves studying biology and becoming a penguin keeper at Sea World. Strange, but suits her perfectly. Path B involves being a Broadway actress. Suits her as well. And, yet, the odds are stacked against her ever doing either of those things. Both are life occupations that require hard work and a good bit of luck, and talent in the case of the second.

My twelve year old should not have to change her dreams for today, but at what point do I, as a parent, start talking about "back up plans" and more realistic plans for her life? I mean, I know I grew up hearing that America is a wonderful place to live and you can be anything you want to be. But that's not true, is it? I mean, there are billions of people living in our country, and only one person every four years can be elected president. Only a handful of people will ever be astronauts. Sea World only hires a handful of penguin keepers. And New York is littered with waitresses who are dying to work on Broadway. At what age do I have to burst her bubble? See, I still want her to aim for her dreams, even when she knows the odds. I want her to work hard, seek goals with determination, and still be able to accept that plans have to change in our lives. I want her to find the balance of taking blind leaps of faith, but also know how to pick herself up out of the dust when that leap doesn't work out.

I'm missing the days when parenting meant teaching my girls to not run into the street, how to write their names, the dangers of a hot stove, and what it's like to walk barefoot after a rain. No one told me that being a mom meant sometimes being the bearer of bad news, and often times the only one with the guts to give that news. The lessons just keep getting harder, and reality is crushing in on them.

When Katie was two years old, we were sitting in our backyard, after playing on her hand-me-down trampoline. She was enchanted, watching the sun set over the neighbor's house. She turned to me and said, "I love sunset, it's when the sky gets to make magic colors." Her dad started to give a detailed explanation of where the colors come from and using scientific terms. I stopped him, because I thought my two year old needed to hold on to magic a little bit longer, the way that she needed to hold on to the Easter Bunny.

I still want my kids to hold on to magic and their dreams a little bit longer. I think our dreams help define who and what we are. Without dreams, why do we bother to try a little bit harder, push a little bit more, aim a little bit higher?

To me, she's still the same little girl, in a grubby pink dress, carting her favorite stuffed penguin around the backyard, talking about magic colors and putting on shows for us on our back patio. I didn't want the reality of reason to intrude on her enjoyment of life then, and I still don't want that for her now.

I'm so entrenched in the day-to-day of my life now that I am not sure I'd recognize my childhood dreams if I met them coming down the street. I am sad to think that I'm not sure when I gave them up, or how hard I tried to follow their path. I hope my children follow their dreams to wherever the path might lead, but keep a map back, just in case it doesn't work out.