Category: Daily Life

If you haven't met me in real life, you're probably thinking, "What do you mean? You obviously have very curly hair in your little scribbly avatar."

Actually, that cartoon was drawn in the the mid-1990s when I had a perm. Everyone had a perm then. I believe it was the law at the time.

Mostly I've spent my life with fairly straight hair. Even in the 1980s when I had my ferocious blonde mullet, I couldn't really get very much texture with scrunching, no matter how much hairspray and gel I used.

However, that's been changing over the past several years. I suspect it has something to do with the texture evolving as my hair gets more and more grey, ahem, underneath all the color I use on it. The upshot is that my hair has become downright curly, especially the finer hair underneath.

So as the summer heat and humidity moved in prematurely this year, I decided I would stop straightening my hair and see if I could make my curly hair presentable. This decision was reinforced by the fact that my straightening iron had developed a worn patch and needed to be replaced anyway.

I'm loosely following the Curly Girl routines, particularly the no 'poo protocols, which I learned about from reading Miss Zoot (whose hair is considerably curlier than mine).

It hasn't been easy. Some days my hair looks pretty decent at first and then turns into a ball of frizz later in the day. Other days it's overly heavy and icky from the get-go. It got really bad last weekend, but I restored some equilibrium by scrubbing with a paste of baking soda and then rinsing with water followed by diluted apple cider vinegar.

My go-to product aside from the various conditioners I use in the shower is Marrakesh Oil. It smells good, keeps the frizz down and seems to make my hair dry more quickly. I got a sample of a jasmine-scented hair oil in my June Birchbox shipment and used it today, but I think I like the Marrakesh Oil better (and it's cheaper).

Tonight I'm going to try the recipe for making hair gel from flaxseed that I found here. I'll give it a try on my hair tomorrow and see what I think.

The whole thing is still an experiment and I might at any time just give up, buy myself a new straightening iron and drag my shampoo out of storage. However, I am kind of enjoying doing something different, so I'll probably stick it out through the end of the summer.

We won't even talk about Tuesday morning through Friday afternoon. Work, work, work, work, work. However, I decided to attend First Friday after work and it's been pretty much non-stop fun since then.

As soon as I stepped out of my building on Friday, I was approached by a guy who identified himself as a poet who did spoken word performances. Would I like to hear a poem? Well, sure! He did a somewhat dramatic recitation of a poem about U.S. consumer culture. I thanked him, shook his hand and moved on. Later on I ran into him again and, having realized I should have tipped him earlier, gave him a couple of bucks after he recited a poem about the healthcare bill to one of my colleagues.

I met up with a friend and we took in the whole experience, criss-crossing the Crossroads, visiting galleries, listening to music, eating from food trucks, dodging zombies, etc. Here's some of what we saw.

A gigantic salad.

Delicious street tacos from Port Fonda. I also bought a cupcake from Ms. Nene, but I ate it before it occurred to me to take a picture. You have my word that it was both beautiful and delectable.

While we ate our tacos, a zombie flash mob shuffled by. The guy on the left had the best costume by far. You can see him near the end of this video I took a little later in the evening.

It was too dark to get a really clear shot, but this guy was juggling and balancing on a ball. I saw him as I was heading back to my car to go home.

The next day started out pretty low-key, but I did manage to introduce my husband to the Philly cheesesteaks at Grinders. He was very impressed by their stage and performance venue out back and couldn't believe he hadn't known about it before. I told him it was because they somehow manage to only book bands that neither of us could care less about. A perusal of the flyers on the window confirmed that theory.

In the evening, I went to Knuckleheads to see Dread Zeppelin. I'd always wanted to see them and the tickets were pretty reasonable, so it worked out well. It was a warm evening, but there was a decent breeze and ample access to cold beer and soft drinks.

I have to hand it to Dread Zeppelin for committing to a schtick and running with it. When it comes to Elvis-impersonator-fronted, reggae, Led Zeppelin cover bands, well, they're it. The show was great, though.

I woke up this morning with the bar stamp still emblazoned on my hand and also transferred onto my opposite elbow. Good times.

I've been mostly taking it easy today, but I did stop by my garden plot to water the plants. They're looking pretty good.

I finally figured out a non-splashy way to transport water from my house to the garden: a huge cat litter bucket with a tight-fitting lid. Next time I need to bring a cup or pitcher to transfer the water from the bucket to the plants until it gets empty enough to pour. I did the two-hand method today, but it wasn't that efficient.

So that's where I leave off for now. How have you been spending your weekend so far?

Well, I'm on the third day (really third? yes, it's already Sunday) of my four-day weekend and I've been keeping pretty busy.

Yesterday my nerd friends and I played a single game of Dune that lasted more than five hours.

The spice must flow!

I perpetrated a great deal of backstabbing and treachery…and yet I still didn't win. Darn it.

Since the weekend began, I have taken a total of three volunteer shifts at two different pet stores caring for the adoptable cats (almost four if you count stopping by one store to take photos of one of the cats). That's the kind of thing that happens when you spend a long weekend at home and everyone else leaves town.

This is Tori. She's very cute but kind of stressed out about living at the pet store, so you should make her your cat.

I also decided it was time I did something with an aging carton of eggs in my fridge so I hard-boiled them all and I've already had two large helpings of tuna noodle salad today.

I predict deviled eggs and egg salad in my immediate future as well.

My only big project for the weekend will be steaming the wallpaper off my bedroom walls. I located a wallpaper steamer for rent at Home Depot and it's currently sitting in my living room waiting for my husband to wake up so I can get to work.

I don't really have plans for this evening, but it might be a good opportunity to get together with friends (read: invite myself over to someone else's house). On the other hand, I have some work (work work) that needs to be done, so maybe I should just get that out of the way.

How's your weekend going?

I have a lot of plans for this weekend, which will either be three or four days long depending on my workload. Here's some of what I have in mind:

Renting and subsequently using a wallpaper steamer to start undoing the egregious decorating faux pas I committed on my bedroom walls in 1995.

Photo credit: imspence

Playing Dune at the home of friends who are moving away soon.

Photo credit: Kanga

Taking care of adoptable kittehs (twice).

Photo of Peter, Popoki and Emma by Cathy Prather

Accompanying my husband to the cemetery at Ft. Leavenworth to put flowers on his mother's grave.

Photo credit: Juliett-Foxtrot

Yoga on the lawn at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

And finally, a deep-tissue massage.

Photo: Indigo Wild

That should keep me pretty busy and still allow for reading, naps, playing with my cats, going on walks, cooking, gardening, etc. Of course, that assumes that I'll be out and about rather than hunkering down in various basements trying to stay safe from tornadoes.

What do you have planned?

Checking out the local food trucks at First Friday.

With M. Toast and Well Hell Michelle watching an air guitar flash mob.

SUNDOG surf band at First Friday.

Saturday morning trip to Shatto Milk Company.

Locally made cheese. Yum!

Hanging out with my sister and brother-in-law at a blues, brews and barbecue fundraiser.

Watching my husband play with his new band, Voice of Reason. They're really good.

Free yoga class on Sunday morning with my niece and sister at the Leedy-Voulkos Gallery as part of America: Now+Here.

I also saw I AM and Thor on Sunday. And did my usual volunteer work with the homeless kitties. I went walking both mornings. And probably did some other stuff, too. So it was a busy weekend.

What did you do?

Today, three of the more egregious electrical issues I've been putting up with at home for years were finally addressed. I am living proof that a person can learn to ignore pretty much any problem around the house.

The longest-running problem was the ceiling fan in our bedroom. When the motor started going out, it would periodically stop moving and refuse to start again without a little push. I could live with that, but when it developed a horrible, high-pitched squeak (think hamster wheel), I did the sensible thing and purchased a new fan.

Then that fan sat in its box in our bedroom. It sat and sat and sat. Do I know how to install a ceiling fan? Yes I do. Did that make any difference? No.

I have the receipt for the fan here. The purchase date was January 10, 2009. Procrastination: It's not just a hobby, it's a lifestyle.

Late last summer, I was lying in bed with the windows open and the attic fan on when I heard a loud "thump." The attic fan shut off and no amount of fiddling with the timer dial (which, incidentally, had never worked as a timer the entire time we'd lived in our house) would get it to turn back on.

I called our electrician to arrange to have him come out to repair the attic fan and install the ceiling fan. We had a little trouble finding a date and time that worked for both of us. I stopped calling him, he stopped calling me and we both forgot the whole thing until this week.

In the meantime, the ceiling light in our kitchen was getting wonky. It would be on and then randomly turn itself off. The switch was inoperable when that happened, although if you happened to graze the metal switchplate with your finger, the faint tingling feeling you experienced made it pretty obvious that there was a short somewhere.

So yes, it was completely ridiculous that we lived with so many electrical issues for such a long time. That's why, when the electrician called today at 5:00 p.m. to say he could head to my house right then, I didn't hesitate to shut my laptop, shove it in the bag and head out the door immediately.

It turned out that the attic fan had some bad wiring, which he fixed promptly. Because the timer didn't work anyway, he put in an on/off switch in its place, and that will serve us just fine. Incidentally, the person who installed the original timer switch had made a note of the 1969 date on the back of the switchplate at the time. No wonder the timer didn't work anymore.

The new bedroom ceiling fan is delightful, but the lights on it are so bright that it makes the room look even more hopelessly shabby and horrible than it did before. There is no way I'm letting this summer go by without renovating that room.

It took the electrician less than five minutes to swap out the kitchen light switch and now the switchplate doesn't carry a current anymore. That's something else I could have done myself, but by now you have a pretty good idea of my home improvement work ethic.

The charge was very minimal for all that work and now we'll get a lot more enjoyment out of the spring and summer weather, not to mention the joy of steady kitchen lighting.

Now I can concentrate my SEP field on the screen door that slams every time it's opened.

Photo credit: F Delventhal

Yesterday I was fishing in my purse for something and I noticed that my last cough drop was propped up inside my wallet, revealing the message, "Don't waste a precious minute."

Now, I wouldn't mind so much if that were written on a nice piece of candy or gum. However, it comes across as a little chilling on the wrapper of something that is essentially medicine.

Does my cough drop know something I don't?

If it had more space, would it be saying something like, "Wow, that cough sounds pretty bad. And you've had it for weeks. In fact, this is the last cough drop in the bag. You say you're also using a steroid inhaler, taking codeine cough medicine at night and dosing yourself with prescription allergy pills and nasal spray? Hmm. Well, I don't want to alarm you or anything, but maybe you should take some time to stop and smell the roses. Did you hug your husband today? Call your sister? Pet the cats?  I'm just saying…"

Then again, maybe it's suggesting that I spend less time goofing around online. In which case, I suppose I'm done here.

I knew I hadn't been doing much shopping over the past couple of years, but I've recently started to notice that a good percentage of my clothes are looking worn, if not downright shabby.

The other day I wore a thin, long-sleeved t-shirt layered underneath a regular t-shirt and didn't realize until I got to work that there were holes in both sleeves of the undershirt. Not to mention a tiny hole in the outer shirt that I'm going to ignore for now because it's one of my favorites.

The evidence has been cumulative: a flannel nightgown from the '80s reduced to a pile of dustrags, a long-sleeved tee looking thin and stretched out, a silk-screened t-shirt design cracking and fading despite being hung to dry after each washing, a spot on a tank top that isn't coming out in the wash. Finally the revelation: I need some new clothes.

My husband is in the same boat. We both wear jeans and t-shirts most of the time, but most of the attrition in his wardrobe comes from t-shirts shrinking over time or getting poked full of holes when Xena jumps into his arms and clings to his shoulder with her claws.

I can hardly think of an activity I enjoy less than shopping for clothes. Yesterday I visited a few boutiques with my sister and niece. Sure, all the clothes look adorable in size 5, but not so cute by the time they've tacked on an extra yard of fabric to get to my size.

I ended up with one top I thought was fairly cute. When I put it on over my Yummie Tummie tank to go to a party last night, my husband's comment was, "It's a little snug, isn't it?" So, yeah.

I've been trying to buy some clothes online, but no matter how detailed the sizing and measurement information are, I never seem to be able to buy anything that fits properly. One way or another, I need to do something about my wardrobe. It's bad enough that I wear jeans, t-shirts and sneakers every day; it's much worse when those garments are also worn out.

It looks like I'm going to have no choice but to enlist a fashionable friend for a shopping trip soon. If you'd like to volunteer for that position, I'm accepting all applicants.

Image of The Shaggy Man from the Oz books found at Wikimedia Commons.

I've been keeping really busy of late (me? no way!) and I decided earlier this week that it would be a good idea for me to make a to-do list of my non-job-related projects to make sure I didn't let anything slip through the cracks.

It filled an entire page.

That is how I found myself at the post office at one o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, mailing dues statements for my community service organization. Once I had the list in front of me, I put my head down and just started plowing through it.

Now I'm mostly caught up on club business (except that I need to prepare a handout for our region conference at the end of the month). Two of my three tax forms have been submitted. Work for my dad's company is under control for now. I wrote a letter to the water company on my dad's behalf and got that mailed. I feel so accomplished.

Tonight all I have to do is make a cheesecake for Cagey's birthday party (they're better if they have a few days to cure before serving) and comb all the cats with my new Furminator for an upcoming blog post.* Anyone who is coming to Cagey's will be happy to know that I plan to make the cheesecake first.

At some point I also need to prepare for a two-hour presentation I'm doing next week on business blogging. I know what I want to talk about, but an outline would be helpful.

That doesn't count the yard work and gardening that looms, nor the weekly volunteer stuff to which I've committed myself. Still, I'm feeling optimistic that I've made some progress. That's something.

*Disclosure: The Furminator was provided to me at no charge as part of a blogger program related to National Hairball Awareness Day (see badge on right). My eventual blog post is guaranteed to permanently cement my crazy cat lady reputation.

Photo credit: Tom Ray