Here I am with my new highlights!I whacked all my hair off when Buckaroo was tiny (tinier than he is now), and all of the blond was whacked off with it, so my hair was this boring non-color for a long time. I'm terrible about making appointments, so I usually just walk in any old place and have them chop chop, sometimes with horrifying results. I tried twice to highlight my hair myself, once with R's help, but both times my hair came out the same wet sand color. And I don't mean wet Hawaiian sand. So yesterday I finally went to see Heidi.
I met Heidi when I wrote a story about microderm abrasion for the newspaper. She also works on hair and waxing, so she insisted on trying to doll me up, and I called her my fairy god mother. Heidi has an accent like Zsa Zsa Gabore and calls me Baby and Sweetie and Darling. She lives near me, too, and I always feel guilty when I see her walking her little dogs, because I always look less than stellar, and Heidi always comments-- "Oh, Sweetie, you come see me, and I fix your eyebrows." Or, "Oh, Sweetie, why you wear that ugly hat and cover your hair?"
The first thing I told Heidi was that we were moving to The Woods. She was less than happy and promised me that it was a huge mistake, and we'd never be able to sell the house.
"But we don't want to sell the house," I said.
"Well, that's good because nobody gonna buy it. Nobody wants to live in the snow."
I was sitting in the salon chair, and she was whipping up the goop for my hair. The salon is a warm yellow inside, and the stylists all love dogs, so their friends and customers are forever bringing their dogs in to say hello. Somebody came in with a wolfy looking dog, so I told Heidi how we gave up Sam the Cat to save him from being eaten. It was maybe not the best conversational choice.
"Why you don't take him to The Woods?" she asked. She was wrapping my hair up in those little foil pieces.
"We don't want him to be eaten by the wild animals."
"You could just keep him inside," she argued.
"And we can't truck him across the country. He'll be happier here."
"No he won't. He's traumatized. Every time a cat goes to a new home, he's traumatized."
Ack. I know she just doesn't want me to leave. She loves me. When I was single she tried to set me up with her godson. I'd have to really like a gal to set her up with my godson, especially since he's only four.
And then I realize that Heidi is one of those people I'll probably never see again, like Casey the crossing guard and Smoking Tom-- our old neighbor who told kept us up on all the gossip-- and maybe even my Italian friend Renato because he's eighty-three, and every time we make a lunch date, he says, "OK, see you then, but you better check the obituaries in the morning to see if I am dead."
And I don't want to think about that anymore, so I say, "Heidi, Did you know that my dad died?" It's not my favorite topic of conversation, but I know this will make her forget about my cat.
"Oh, Baby, that's terrible," She says, "I'm sorry."
We talk about my dad for a while, and Heidi uses the word stupid a lot. Then (this is Obo's favorite part of the visit) she asks where Obo goes to school, and I tell her, and she says, "Oh, those kids so bad. They always walking past my house and dropping trash everywhere. So I run out there and tell them, 'You kids pick up your trash!' and they say 'F-You!' and I say, 'I'm going to call your principal!"
When I told the story to R and Obo, Obo asked, "Did she say F-You? Or did she really swear?"
"She really swore."
Then he had a fit of giggles. Now he runs around the house giggling and saying a very dramatic, "F-You!"* to nobody in general, with this big tilt of his head from side to side. We asked him if he was one of the littering kids, and he said, "No, and besides, I walk on the other side of the street."
*Obo would like me to add that he actually says "F-You," and not the actual swear word.
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