A bargain of a haircut, or was it?

One of the reasons not to abandon your old life and move 3000 miles to the west coast is so that you don't have to find a new hair dresser.  We have both dabbled in keeping our hair trimmed since leaving Lexington, but this week, Lynne took the plunge to try to find the right place.

In search of a truly cheap haircut, Lynne took the advice of one of our young friends and went to a beauty school in downtown Bellingham.. To set the picture, Bellingham, being the home of Western Washington University, close to Seattle and generally part of the edgy NW culture, is full of young people with weird haircuts. This particular beauty school is part of a chain called Toni and Guy's. Here's a link in case you want to find one for yourself: http://toniguyacademy.com/

Lynne had the feeling that this might not have been the right place when she looked around the salon with 30 or more students and all the student stylists and the instructors had colored hair, many tricolored. As in blue, or blue, pink and orange.  Lynne also didn't see any other customers. Most of the students were practicing cutting, rolling or dying the hair of maniquins. The young woman assigned to cut Lynne's hair had blue hair, and a low cut top revealing a full set of tattoes across her chest. I'll call her Student B.

Lynne had a clue about Student B's progress in her studies when Student B didn't know how to put the towel arond her neck, and then when she washed Lynne's hair by using only a smoothing motion as you might smooth a cowlick. Student B commented that she had been in the program for three months, but Lynne had the distinct feeling that this was her first haircut on a living person. It turns out that the Student B's life's dream was to go to Nashville and cut hair for the country music stars.  Apparently this goal was in the distant future, because she sighed and said that she would repeat the 11 month program if she didn't graduate the first time around.  For now, she concentrated on Lynne.

Lynne's sinking feeling grew more desperate as time passed. After an hour and 20 minutes, and frequent trips to consult with the haircutting book and the instructor, Student B had only cut the back of her hair, and seemed perplexed about how to do the front. At one point, fully wrapped in her robe, Lynne got up to go feed the parking meter, but another student intercepted and insisted on doing it for her.

Thinking of the list of errands that she had been planning to run, Lynne was silently hoping that the instructor would finish the haircut. At two hours, when most of the other students had left, Lynne insisted that she had to go too.

As demonstrated by the videos running on the huge plasma tv, the salon's style of finishing hair is to make it look like you've been in a hurricane. Lynne got a similar treatment.  She demonstrated to me at home later by sweeping the sides of her hair against the grain diagonally from bottom to top, and then the top in multiple paths until it looked truly chaotic.  The picture at the top of this page, taken from the Toni and Guy web site, gives you a good example.

Two hours and twenty minutes after she entered the beauty school, the haircut was done. Lynne called me in a very dispirited voice. She was completely worn out, and decided she wasn't going to stop in at Lowe's after all. She just needed to come home and recoup.  Now that Lynne's hair has had a chance to grow out a little, it's looking pretty good.  The experience cost $12.  A true bargain...or was it?

Note to our young friends:  we love you just the way you are.

Next time, I'll tell about our trip to Vancouver.  This picture is of a rose blooming in our side yard.

Hello to all,

Love, Sky

Listening to Obama from the upper left corner

So much of my life has changed, yet I treasure the parts that have not. Many miles and three time zones away from Kentucky, I still search the radio dial for an NPR station, and cook our favorite recipes using the same familiar pots and pans, now nested in a new kitchen. Last Tuesday afternoon, Lynne was still at work and I was chopping vegetables for our dinner, listening to the familiar voices on All Things Considered. I have listened to ATC since I lived in Durham (NC), "lo these many years" (about 34, to be more precise.) Now I listen on KPLU out of Seattle. And instead of listening to Obama's speech at 8:00 p.m., it was on at 5:00 pm.

In the context of new things and old, President Barak Obama falls in between. Going to his inauguration with Lynne and Pat and Anne was a highlight of my life, and makes a good story here where travel to Washington DC is such a distance. But Iman, one of our neighbors across the street (Adbullah's mother) came over and introduced herself because of our "I was there" Inauguration 2009 bumper sticker. She and her husband, Monem, had gone to the Inauguration also, intentionally taking Abdullah so that he would be able to say that he was there. And Julie, another across the street neighbor, grew up in DC but has never been to an inauguration.

I've been praying for Obama's safety and sanity recently, worrying that the aggressive and vitriolic behavior of his opponents would be more than he could take, but after sitting at the kitchen table and listening to his speech on health care, I have only renewed admiration for his vision, intelligence and compassion. Lynne came home in the middle of the speech and asked if I were crying. That would be affirmative...it's just something about listening to a such a gifted speaker...I teared up when he proposed that no one be denied health insurance due to a pre-existing condition. My health insurance woes are abating, but one chapter of this summer involved being turned down for health insurance because of my artificial hip. That's a helpless feeling.

This week I made two blackberry cobblers, an obvious choice since we are surrounded by blackberry bushes laden with ripe fruit. Blackberry bushes line one part of the trail that Winnie and I walk on, and our neighbor lets them grow on the steep part of his back yard. Lynne came home from work on Wednesday with blackberries that she had picked on her lunch hour. I do see people pausing on their walks or bike rides to eat blackberries, but I don't see people harvesting bowls of them like we did. It's true that the thorns are very effective deterrents when reaching to get the ripe berries that are hanging on the inside of the bush. The good news is not having to worry about chiggers or mosquitoes...

Our house is improving daily. We are approaching the "getting settled" but have not quite achieved the "settled in" state of living. We took advantage of a 25% off Re-Store sale last Saturday and bought a new (to us) Kohler bathroom sink for $3.75. The big bathroom is a dreadful combination of outdated swirly counter top and Italianate wallpaper with tarnished gold fixtures, so any bit of updating goes a long way. I'm sure Lynne would rather spend her days off relaxing (as in playing Spider Solitaire), but here she is, installing our new sink. Also, here she is, napping on the sofa after its done. Lynne has started working for OptionCare, doing home health in Skagit County, a 30 minute drive south of Bellingham. She says she would rather not be commuting, but that it is a beautiful drive through the mountains.

I have applied to substitute teach in three school districts plus a local Episcopal school, and to tutor at Bellingham Technical College, but I haven't worked yet. Its a new experience, waving Lynne off to work and staying home. I distributed compact fluorescent light bulbs in our neighborhood for Project Porchlight, and I will volunteer for them again on Sunday, exchanging incandescent light bulbs for CFL bulbs. I'm planning to take a class on making documentaries, but I am waiting to see if enough students sign up for it to fly.

I will plagiarize Garrison Keillor, by saying, "That's the news from the upper left hand corner..." I hope that everyone is enjoying fall and eating local crisp apples. Even the greenhouse tomatoes are not yet ripe here in Bellingham--that's one thing that we have had to sacrifice for all this beauty. Our new friendships have not ripened either, which is why I say, "Thank God for old friends." I send love to you all, Sky

News flash! Sky had just been called for her first substitute teacher stint to fill in for the music teacher. She will show "The Sound of Music" to the 6th and 7th graders at the Episcopal School here in town.

Winnie's new house

Some people just like to create order out of chaos (like people who play Freecell), so maybe that explains why I have loved living this week in our new completely disarranged home. Its Friday afternoon; we arrived here from the park on Monday morning. Just a sample of how things went--we had to prune an overhanging dogwood tree and an azalea before we could back the trailer into the driveway, and it took Lynne three turns around the block before she could get the trailer started at the right angle (if you have experience backing anything that is hitched to your vehicle, you will understand.)

Since then, besides making headway on the 80 boxes which were waiting for us in the garage, Lynne, our endlessly talented miracle worker, has installed a new kitchen sink and faucet (two times for the faucet, since the first one leaked like a sieve), installed our gas/electric range and replaced the terribly difficult and corroded bathroom faucet. She has learned a shortcut to the local hardware store--hey did I mention a local hardware store? This is the hardware store of your dreams--two floors packed floor to ceiling with every little plumbing washer or small base light bulb or tape measure you could ever want, along with knowledgable people to help when you need it. Its a family owned business, something that Bellingham is full of. So far we have had really good work from local craftspeople: the floor refinisher (Ken) and the tile installer (Dave) and the woman who sold us the tile (Kathleen) and the fence builder (Andy). In another week, Greg, the electrician will install radiant ceiling heat in the whole house, sold to us by Jeff from his local business Heating Green.

We have been warmly welcomed by the neighbors, who of course have opinions about our new fence and about the overgrown yard. Winnie has found a friend in Abdullah, the 4th grader who lives across the street, and his sister Selene. The three pugs who live next door (owned by Ron and Nancy) have terrorized Winnie (not difficult to do), so I was happy to see her romping around with her toy duck once the fence was in. Our yard has beautiful landscaping, but actually, too much of it. We have done lots of pruning already, and I see lots of weeding in our forecast.

I've included some pictures from our last Sunday afternoon at Larrabee State Park. Lynne took the picture of the underwater purple seastar at the top. The orange seastar with 20 tentacles is called a sunflower sea star, pychonopodia helianthoides. I found it on the beach at low tide. The two legged barefoot babe is me, playing with Winnie, who loves to climb around on the rocks but doesn't like to go in the water. The last picture (below) is Winnie running after her duck in our front yard now that the new fence 90% complete.

I hope you all will have an enjoyable Labor Day weekend. Its been a perfect sunny NW day today and as I write, the sun is on its downward path over Bellingham Bay, making a show of the city and water as it does every night. I look forward to sharing this peaceful and beautiful place with you. As always, thanks for your emails.

Love,

Sky