vacation

It's vacation week in my house and you know what that means:

The laundry is still in a heap in the basement;

The kitchen sink is piled high with dishes from who knows what meal or midnight snack;

The floors are crusted with sand so that it's like walking on the beach;

The refrigerator is completely empty except for take-out containers and week-old leftovers;

The garbage is begging to be taken out;

And the dog keeps looking at me as if to say, "when will you people leave so I can get a little shut eye?"

But

We played games and watched movies until the wee hours;

We walked along a real beach;

We ate breakfast in a diner and sipped cappuccinos in a cafe;

Daisy made a "Happy Thursday" cake complete with rosettes;

The dog got more love and attention than she's had in weeks;

And we laughed and laughed and laughed.

All in all, I would say that's a pretty fair trade.

a good day

 One day a week I attend a Twelve-Step program for people whose lives have been affected by the alcoholism of a friend or loved one.  From there I make my way down two blocks to a good old-fashioned diner where the talk invariably turns to cards and ponies and gambling.  In both places I mostly listen, laughing occasionally, smiling often.  At night, when my husband asks if I had a good day, I always smile and say, "As a matter of fact I did."  And I did.

how do you shampoo?

Have you been down the shampoo aisle lately? When you go take plenty of refreshments with you because you're going to be there a while.

I can remember when we used to buy shampoo based on the way it smelled, the goal being to find the one that was most likely to get the guy who sat behind you in geometry class to notice you (when I discovered Herbal Essence I flicked my hair so often I got a crick in my neck).

These days, however, there are so many more things to consider when making your selection. First is the look you're going for. Do you want sleek and shiny hair or full and voluptuous? Straight or curly? short or long? Then there is the condition of your hair. Is it dry? damaged? (And really what is the difference between the two?) Color-treated? Frizzy? Fine? And what about the color? Are you brunette, blond, red-head? There's a shampoo for that. I've often wondered what would happen if a brunette used a shampoo for blonds. Would her hair turn green? Or would the shampoo police step out from behind the two-way glass at Target and tell her to put down the shampoo before somebody gets hurt?

The craziness, however, doesn't stop with shampoo and conditioners (I hope someone else out there remembers when conditioner was a novel concept). There are heat protectors and clarifiers and, if those don't work, restorative masks to undue the damage that's been done. There are also curl boosting sprays and volume maximizing mousse, spike creams and sculpting gels and, of course, good old fashioned hairspray (in varying levels of "hold"). Yikes.

So how do you choose which one is right for you? For me it all comes down to one thing: which bottle will fit best on the side of my tub given the hundreds of other hair care products I once thought I needed.

a pen and a cup of coffee

The other day, I was listening to an interview with Jason Reitman about his new movie Up in the Air (which I recommend highly-both the movie and the interview). In it, he said that among all the unemployed people he interviewed for the film, the biggest concern was not money but meaning. "When I leave here," they'd say to him, "where am I supposed to go; what am I supposed to do?"

I guess that struck a chord with me because those are the very questions I have been asking myself since losing my job nearly a year and a half ago. Because most of what I do on any given day goes wholly unrewarded and largely unnoticed, it's hard for me to feel I have anything of value to contribute; anything that would be of worth to anyone else.

"Do you know what I miss most about working," I said to a friend not long ago. "Dressing up and walking around the office with a pen and a cup of coffee."

"A pen and a cup of coffee?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "The pen means that there was something in my day worth writing down; something worth remembering."

"And the coffee," she said.

"The coffee means there was someone--in a meeting, around a conference table, in the break room--who might remember what it was."

conversation hearts anonymous

I've done it again. I've burned my tongue on conversation hearts. You know what I'm talking about: those painful little white bumps you get on your tongue from eating too many heart-shaped candies that say things like "sweet talk," "let's kiss," and "say yes."

Every year I promise myself I won't let it happen again; I will practice moderation and self-control. And every year I wind up back in the same place. The really sad thing is, I have a handful of hearts next to my computer even as I write this!

I'm thinking of starting a Twelve-Step group, Conversation Hearts Anonymous. I can just see the introductions now. "Hi, my name is Kelly and I can't stop eating hearts."

groundhog day

Six more weeks of winter. Need I say more?

why is it?

Everyday, in the hustle and bustle to get out the door, my children inevitably leave the front door open. I'm not talking a little bit open; I'm talking wide open. I'm talkng you could drive a semi through my front door open.

What gets my dander up is not the draft of cold air that wraps itself around my ankles as I settle into the first cup of coffee of the day, it's the fact that if that door is going to be closed at all I am going to have to do it myself. And what can really get my panties in a twist is the thought that that was why they didn't close the door in the first place. Because they knew I would!

Which makes me wonder: Why is it we are willing to do "whatever we can" to help the people of Haiti pick up the pieces after a devastating earthquake but we go ballistic if we have to pick our children's socks up off the floor one more time? And why is it we will clean for a neighbor in need but if our husband leaves the dishes to soak in the sink we fly into a rage? I wish I knew.