Category: writing

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Haircuts for Life

Did I tell you about where I get my haircut? From the gentleman that is about 80 and has very shaky hands? They call him Barber Joseph, he’s from England and ever so very sweet. Getting a cut from him is so exciting. Will he cut my neck open? Snip off my ear? Seriously make my hair straight on the side? Give me an eighties-style cut? It’s better than just about any roller coaster and more thrilling than a scary movie. I went again today and while I sat in that chair with a sharp, spiky implement gyrating haphazardly near my ear, listening to Barber Joseph natter on about his kids and grandkids and who’s in baseball and who doesn’t visit enough, I wondered why it is that I come to see him when my very life is in danger as he presses my head to the side, exposing a long swatch of soft neck skin where he might impale me with very pokey, slanted scissors.

It’s because I love him. He is wonderful and caring and British, and who doesn’t love to listen to a British accent? No one. And you can tell by the way he speaks about his family that he loves them all so much. I think it gives me an idea of how great it could be to age to 80 and still be useful and have a full life. And, oddly enough and defying all probability laws, I’ve always left with all of my pieces of skin unpunctured. And my hair always look so great! He’s been cutting hair for 50 years and his snips are always so decisive and sure once the scissors touch the hair strands. Yes, the scissors orbit the planet that is my head, sometimes dipping dangerously close, and the comb frequently jabs my scalp in a most uncomfortable manner and I have to stop myself from flinching because it hurts him to think he might have hurt me and then I feel worse. (how is that for codependent?) But most likely, in 6 weeks, I’ll be back in his chair with adrenaline flowing full speed in my veins wondering if this is the time he will chop off my ear. Bonus: he gave me his home phone number and said to call him anytime. Yowza.

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Avoiding the Meme

I’ve been tagged a few times for the 4 things meme but not done it because hey! I’m the one that interviews people, not the other way around, right? And, isn’t it dead already?

But now, in true leahpeah fashion, here is my attempt to participate.

4 jobs I never want to have:

gas station tiolet cleaner
cloth diaper washer
contruction worker that has to hold the slow/stop sign
a contestant on american idol

4 movies with Drew Barrymore:

Never Been Kissed
Ever After
The Wedding Singer
Mad Love

4 people I can’t stop listening to:

Feist
Imogen Heap
Coco Rosie
Seu Jeorge

4 dishes I’ve made that have created illness:

some casserole thing with beef and fruit
an apple pie made with salt instead of sugar
undercooked thanksgiving turkey
egg salad sandwiches

4 sites I visit every single freakin’ day:

kottke
metafilter
waxy
gofugyourself

4 reasons to get out of bed in the morning/afternoon (whatever):

my kids
flowers
television
work

4 things I wish I never would have said:

‘Yes. I absolutely know that is true.’
‘If that isn’t reason enough, do it for me.’
‘When is your baby due?’
‘Just get that back to me whenever.’

4 things I tell myself every day/night:

Do the hard thing first.
I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.
I’m doing a great job.
Walk away from the cake/donut/french fries/bread/carb

4 things my kids do that make me laugh:

Devon: tells me when he’s going to use the toilet. He’s 17.
Alexandra: looks at herself in the visor mirror and makes pig faces
Tyler: grabs my leg when I go up the stairs
Anthony: asks me where the cheese went. (I don’t know)

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Ring, Ring

If I was into ringtones, which I’m not, because I really think a phone should just, you know, ring, then I would so get this one from Project Runway. I think Joe has a crush on Tim. Heck, I have a crush on Tim.

And while we’re talking about cell phones, I had the same phone for the past 3.5 years, which in phone years is 24. It didn’t do anything except, you know, call people. The numbers were rubbed off in places. The silver coating had been worn down and you could see the hard plastic skeleton underneath because I dropped my phone probably about 924 times. The math equation looks like this: 12*3.5*N = 924 where N is the number of phone drops per month. A few times in the trash on accident and once on purpose when the ringer kept not working and I missed some important calls. And a few times in the gutter and on the ground outside the car. And twice in the toilet. And once in a puddle. At one point it kept shutting off on me at random moments, sometimes while talking to people that I didn’t want to talk to so it wasn’t that big a deal but after the time it shut off when I was talking to someone I DID like, I shoved a little piece of cardboard in next to the battery and that held it in place. Until I dropped it in the toilet that last time and the cardboard expaned and shredded.
Continue reading “Ring, Ring”

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Unrelated Ramblings

We bought an almost 20-year-old Volvo today. While Alison* and I were waiting in the gentleman’s living room for him to get some of the paperwork together, I glanced up to a shelf along the far wall. In the center spot, which is normally reserved for a trophy, your child’s gilded shoe or photo of Aunt Matilda, there was a wilted cardboard box with bold, black lettering on the side. It read:

FRESH
CURLS
POO.

Well, once I’ve seen a thing, I can’t just unsee it. So I had to keep looking at it and trying not to giggle. Then I mouthed it to Alison when the guy’s back was to me and pointed and waved at the box. And then I felt 13, hormonal, and begged myself to stop, but did I? No. I never listen. Instead, I drove myself crazy with the idea of blurting it out loud to the man. ‘FRESH CURLS POO?? Really?? Your CURLS are FRESH and POO? POO?’ At which point I realized I no longer felt 13. No, I felt 3 with a major chance at ruining my perfect potty-training chart with a sad, empty spot sans sticker for today if I didn’t get it under control. And so I did get it under control. But as soon as we left and had the chance, we both looked at each other and laughed and yelled out loud. It was almost a Laverne & Shirley moment.

On the way home, the bumper sticker of the car in front of me said:

Bringing Friends and Fun Together.
Square Dancing = FUN.

I don’t think I have much to say about that except – ok.

The Office is one of my favorite shows. I love the BBC version as well, but the US version has Steve Carell. From last week:

Michael (Steve): We are just going to sit here until someone comes forward or you are all under punishment.
Pam: What kind of punishment?
Michael: Time Out! You’re all in time out!

My son worked on the LAB portion of his science report over the weekend. His idea = pit a mouse and rat against each other in a race for food and see which one is faster. The twist? First train them both to recognize a color and link it to food intake. He created a maze (and I use the term maze loosely because it was in essence a large box with four horse stalls on one end) and put large swatches of color at the end of each of them. The problem? He didn’t take the time to color-train them, which may be fine because I don’t think they are color-trainable due to the fact that rodents are color blind. He wanted to do a week’s worth of races, one per day, which became seven races in one day which became three races in one hour which finally became no races of any kind and more of a food-fest where the rodents hung out in the middle of the box and ate sunflower seeds, peanut butter and cheese together while speaking of politics and religion. After watching them gorge themselves, my son decided to just make up the results and call it a day. If I was one of those conscientious parents, I would have made sure he actually did the science experiment the way he had originally outlined and told him under no circumstances could he just make up the results. And when I mentioned that to him, he calmly told me that science is not, in fact, facts but more hypotheses and conclusions. I just hope his teacher takes that in to account when she reads his conclusion that the rat was trained better to the red color than the mouse was, thereby making him the winner of the race tourney. His graphs turned out fantastic.

*Go listen to Alison’s new song, A Boy and a Bird.

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In a Galaxy Far, Far Away

A long, long time ago, in a different lifetime, I had four tiny kids all age 7 and under. I lived in Germany and was married to my first husband who was in the Air Force. I had violent mood swings but mostly I was trying to be a good Mormon wife and mother and make Jesus happy with me and make everyone else in the world think I was sane. I pretended. A lot.

I met and became friends with a wonderful person who became one of the reasons I didn’t end up ripping all my hairs out one by one and running along the rooftops naked. Well, I probably wouldn’t have raised many eyebrows with that anyway since they do it all the time, but in any case, I often teetered on the edge of reality and it was very nice to have this friend in my life who mistakenly thought I was good friend material. Hey. I wasn’t going to correct her.

We hung out together when our husbands would be gone TDY or when her husband, who was an MP, was working odd shifts. I believe she had tinfoil on the windows of the bedroom so he could sleep during the day. This is something I still think about. Tin foil. She also taught me how to make cheese sauce with no cheese. And this, my friends, is one of the main reasons I loved her and continued to wish we had kept in contact over the years. I woman that makes cheese sauce with no cheese because money is tight but you can’t taste the difference?? Do you hear me?? These kinds of friends are invaluable.

I tried to look her up every so often. I thought I remembered she went to Texas or something and on a late night after David Letterman, with sleep avoiding me, and running low on cheese, I would attempt to find her through top secret channels on the internet that promise to find your long-lost-loved ones just to find out they really wanted $29.99 to complete the deal. If I had the $29.99, I would just buy the cheese. Hello?!

And then a few weeks ago, she emailed me. She found my site because someone that linked to her blog had a link to my blog right underneath. You can read about this life-altering discovery in this post.

I missed you, Les.

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Customer Service

Hellothankyouforcallingsprintmynameislisaanditismyplea
suretoserveryouwhatcanidoforyoutoday.
(I can’t believe how hard my life sucks)

Uh…hi?
(I’m glad I’m not you but yea my phone is here)

How can I help you today?
(I SOOOO don’t want to help you)

I got my new phones and I’d like to unlock them please. Do I just need to hit the ‘un-loc–
(I’m a pretty intelligent person is my phone on yet?)

Ok? First thing I need to tell you is don’t touch any of the keys except for the ones I tell you, ok?
(All ya’all people out there that call me? You are idiots)

Ok.
(Huh?)

Ma’am – when I tell you the code to enter, please only enter those numbers and/or keys. Do NOT touch anything else or we will have to start all over with this process or worst case scenario, make you go into an Sprint store and have the phone reset. But only some of the Sprint stores can do it for you so you might have to drive quite a ways to find the right one, ok?
(If I wasn’t here to tell you what to do, you’d get all tangled up in the toilet paper when you took your morning pee and they’d have to send in a rescue crew)

Ok.
(I’m beginning to not like you) Continue reading “Customer Service”