Sir Sam-a-lot

This morning I awoke to my cat Samson pacing back and forth across my head. 

Meet Samson:

I guarantee that if my hair starts thinning, it’s because my orange tabby is pulling it out.  Every morning he somehow manages to press my hair into the pillow with all of his body weight.  (I cringe to think where his paws have been.)  My alarm clock has been quiet for ages thanks to this morning routine.  Most cats, if they wake you up, do so because they’re asking for breakfast.  In our case, however, half of the time Samson doesn’t need food.  He needs me to show him his food.  The cat will not even check his bowl without my escorting him.

Samson was my birthday present when I was 13 years old.  Even though he was a kitten, I knew he would grow into his name.  He’s a little skinnier now that he’s elderly.  There was a time, however, when vets referred to him as the “linebacker.”  He was the pudgiest, cuddliest, heaviest cat you’ve ever seen.  You think I'm joking?  Meet Samson's belly:

 Not convinced?

How about now?

Do to our unique bond, I was convinced that I was a cat person… Until I got dogs.  And it’s not that I liked my dogs better than my cat.  It’s that I realized that my cat is really a dog trapped in a cat’s body.  Follow?

And in this household, Samson is the top dog.  Literally.  If my dog Esther is occupying my lap, Samson isn't inclined to wait his turn.  He'll just sit right on top of her.  And I remember when Beauregard, our other basset hound, first met our cat.  Beau cautiously inched closer and closer until they sniffed each other, nose to nose.  I’m still not sure what Beau sniffed that day, but he then timidly backed up and avoided all eye contact with Samson for the rest of the night.

Consider yourself warned.

The Miss Piggy incident.

The last week and a half has been the longest amount of time I’ve ever taken away from the salon.  In about an hour I’ll once again be knee deep in hair appointments, fully invested in catching up with each client.  Currently I feel like I’ve got one foot in the real world and another in la-la-land.  (Have you ever been to la-la-land?  It’s divine.)

It’s critical that I focus, and fast.  I’ll give you an example of the sort of thing that can happen when I’m distracted:

When I was an apprentice, I spent a lot of hours using our nail technician as a guinea pig.  She enjoyed having hair services and I enjoyed having nail services.  I chuckle to think that she and I would exchange the exact same $5.00 bill after every service, just to acknowledge our thanks.  Neither one of us got rich off of each other; but I feel that I benefitted the most in technical understanding and moments of hilarity.

Take a highlighting service, for example.  Nowadays most stylists use foils to highlight the hair.  But for a long time highlighting caps were the means to a sun-kissed end (I believe this method possibly originated as an ancient form of torture).  If you’ve ever had a “cap highlight” you know that a tight, plastic bonnet is secured to your head.  Once snug, what looks like a teeny crochet hook punctures the bonnet to grab a few strands of hair at the scalp and pull them through to the other side.  (If you want to know what you’ll look like in 50 years when all your hair falls out, the end result of all this hair-hooking is a good preview.)  All the hair on the outside of the bonnet gets slathered in bleach while all the hair underneath the bonnet remains untouched.  Old terminology refers to this effect as “frosting.”  (I affectionately refer to it as the “struck by lightening” effect.) 

Well, our nail technician wanted to be frosted, so I grabbed a plastic bonnet and proceeded to secure it to her head.  There is a finesse – an art, if you will – to doing this.  In order to get all the hair moving in the best, slicked back direction you begin at the forehead, even though you’re holding the backside of the bonnet, and slide the bonnet back to the nape of the head (much like you’d probably put on a swim cap).

Unfortunately my eyes were fixed on the back of her head as I tugged and pulled and tugged some more to get this plastic bonnet as snug as possible.  The nail technician cried, “no… no.. No.. No.. NO!”  When I looked up, I realized that I had accidently hooked her nose into the bonnet.  The more that I tugged down the back, the higher her nose lifted.  Not only did it look like I had plastic wrapped half of her face, unfortunately this also ended up resembling Miss Piggy.  Tears of laughter streamed down my face as I started over, this time being sure to avoid her nose.

Here’s hoping for a focused day!

When I outsmart myself.

We’ve all been there. 

You need something.  You walk to the room at the other end of the house to get it.  And upon entering that room, you come to a screeching halt.  Wait, what am I doing here?  I know I needed something…

You might not believe it, but I have a terrible memory.  Give me about a year and I’ll probably be reblogging the same stories I’ve already posted.  I come up with many ways to describe my limited memory.  Sometimes I like to say that I’m “losing my marbles.”  On my most optimistic days, however, I decide that it’s not that I’m losing my marbles; it’s that I’m already at full-marble capacity.  Anything extra just spills over the sides.

Other times I’ll address this issue by saying, “I’ve outsmarted myself.”  In these instances, I realize that I’ve forgotten a brilliant moment that I’ve had in the past, but from which I am presently benefitting.  In fact, that happened just yesterday.  Brian and I had intended to drive home from vacation on Monday and arrive in the middle of the night.  Instead we got a late start and ended up needing a hotel room so that neither of us fell asleep driving.  Brian could sense my disappointment.  This would have been the first time we’ve returned from vacation while giving me 24 hours to regroup before heading back to work.  But rather than arriving on Monday night, we arrived on Tuesday afternoon.  *sigh*  I had to be back to work on Wednesday and had about 8 loads of laundry to do, not to mention all sorts of camping gear to put away.  I called the salon to see at what hour my first appointment was scheduled on Wednesday.  The receptionist informed me that, much to my surprise, I was marked OFF for Wednesday and would resume work on Thursday.  Really?  When did I do that?  I must’ve known we’d probably run behind.  But I definitely don’t remember giving myself that cushion.  Then I patted myself on the back for being so forgetfully wise.  Yet another case of me outsmarting myself.

But there have been attempts to get this under control. 

Once I heard on the radio that ginkgo biloba can sharpen your mind and improve your memory.  I was already in my car, so I immediately steered myself to the nearest drug store and promptly purchased a bottle of the supplements.

*ahem* 

It does NOT improve your memory if you Can’t.  Remember.  To take them.

One strategy that I have to manage this condition is to always be honest.  What a hassle it is to keep up with lies when you’re forgetful!  Another strategy is to always be true to myself and to my God.  This helps me maintain consistency in relationships and in life.  I never have to remember what face to put on in any given environment.  Not everybody I meet necessarily prefers the regular me, my everyday face; but thankfully this prevents me from wasting time developing relationships that are shallow and ingenuine (which I’ve just discovered isn’t really a word, but I’m making it one today).

By the way, I forgot to blog yesterday.

Did I mention the part about losing my marbles?  Oh, yeah.  That’s right…

Vacation, day 9. Our Independence Day.

Watermelon, fireworks, independence.  Traditions have a way of etching the Fourth of July into a certain shape in our minds.  Our shape does not include watermelon.

Today marks our third consecutive July 4^th holiday returning home from Cornerstone Music Festival.  We always embark on this journey with a week’s worth of experiences and interactions to process during the 14 hour drive.  And by process, I mean scheme.  We attempt to brainstorm all the ways in which we can hang on to that vacation feeling (and prepare our defenses against the daily grind feeling).  Do you know which feeling I mean?  I suppose it depends on the types of vacations you’ve had.  Suffice it to say, the overall longing in our hearts is to be caught up in what matters, and to never mind what shallow distractions might threaten to drain our energies.

Our holiday tradition also involves a lot of laughter.  As the sky grows darker and fireworks mark every town that lines Interstate 70, we remind each other of which moments proved to be medicine to the soul.  And even though you weren’t there, I’ll do my best to recap some of my highlights:

·         Seeing our friend Andy play the electric guitar for his buddy who raps… all the while wearing 'rapper shades.'  This would be similar to seeing Woody from Toy Story wear a heavy, gold chain around his neck with the word ‘THUG’ on it.

·         Hearing band mates recount the horrors of having to sleep in very close courters while on the road.  Let’s just say that someone we know is a very heavy sleeper and accidently mistakes people for mattresses in the night.

·       Witnessing a friend discover that she’s pregnant; then watching her husband perform on stage in complete ignorance as she waited to tell him until after his show.  What a thrill to know that there would soon be a different story behind his eyes!

·        Brian and I finding ourselves deep in an argument over cake and ice cream; and being so heat-stricken that neither one of us could remember how we even got there in the first place.

 

·       Enjoying the shopping tendencies of a new guy friend who takes as long as I do to make up his mind; then - after his extensive deliberation – witnessing the worry in his face as he  fell for and believed us telling him that he, in fact, should NOT have gone with the white shirt because it *gasp!* didn’t “go with his skin tone.”

·       Discovering that there’s a pleasant band named Gungor; then having more fun with all of the ways that the name ‘Gungor’ sounds like it belongs in the Lord of the Rings.

·       Witnessing Brian describe boredom with the words, “It made me want to drown myself in a porta potty.”

Happy Fourth of July!  Just five hours and 22 minutes until we’re home!

Vacation, day 8. Ross' leather pants.

I couple days ago I found relief within the four walls of a porta potty.  (Shade.)  Yesterday was another story.  You see, yesterday was ‘jean shorts day’ for me.  But with the temperature getting to be around 100° and the humidity being at 78%, well, suddenly these shorts vetoed all hopes of comfort.  This could have been foreshadowed by the fact that all of my rings have been feeling very tight around my swollen fingers.  Why didn’t I realize that my fingers aren’t the only parts swelling in this weather?  Upon making my morning run to the porta potty, with all the sweat and stickiness that comes with this heat I could hardly get my shorts down.  Well, you know what that means.  If you can’t get them down, good luck getting them back up.  There I was wiggling and writhing, desperately trying to get the shorts up past my knees.  The problem was that with every unsuccessful second that passed, my body was only getting hotter in the porta furnace.  Couple that with the fact that this particular porta potty isn’t exactly on level ground… if you know what I mean.  Unstable porta potty +swollen body + jean shorts that will barely scrape up past the thighs… Well, that equals a very nervous moment for me.

And if you don’t quite get the picture, perhaps you remember the episode of Friends in which Ross can’t get his leather pants back on.  That’s right.  Now envision that entire clip within a porta potty and you’ll begin to sense the appropriate panic. 

With the exception of that moment, I can see how God is actually using this weather for good in my life.  Even though I might feel like I’m wilting and withering all day, the heat is forcing me to change my normal tendencies.  For instance, yesterday morning we invited several friends to join us for “dinner for breakfast.”  (Because, honey, it is WAY too hot to make dinner for dinner.)   Normally I prefer a quiet morning to myself; so I probably would have never initiated an early get-together if it hadn’t been so daggone hot.  Well, I am sure that I enjoyed yesterday’s breakfast fellowship on a level that my usual, antisocial morning time can never achieve.

Another tendency I have here at Cornerstone Music Festival is to carry around an alphabetized list of bands to check out every half hour to hour.  It’s a pretty impressive list drawn up after hours of research.  Discovering new music is a pleasure of mine and I’ve gotten quite good at blazing a trail from one end of the festival to the other.  (Brian is so gracious to keep up with me.)  This year, however, the faster I go, the hotter I get, forcing me to stay put and engage more with others.  This is not normal Cornerstone Suzy.  This is Vacation Suzy.  This is Sit-A-Spell Suzy.  Thank God for the heat or I’d probably be buzzing around exhausting myself - like a horse with blinders on - missing out on what important things are moving in the lives of my friends.  Perhaps the relentless sun is putting me in a place where I can learn how to slow down and be a better friend, how to be less interested in my agenda and more focused on the ways that life is happening all around me.

Vacation, day 7. When music happens to you.

I just witnessed an artist sing a song with the urgency of a man who might never sing again, might never speak again, might never feel again, might never move again.  His whole body and spirit were moving in unison to this message, this beat.  I’m left with few words.  It doesn’t feel like I just watched a show; it feels like a show just happened to me.

His name was Josh Garrels.  His song was ‘The Resistance.’

Vacation, day 6. All my rainbow colors.

This week has been a week of firsts for me.  Shortly after waking up yesterday morning I was intrigued by a small group of protesters standing just beyond the gate of the music festival.  Protesting Cornerstone Music Festival?  Really?  Upon encountering them, the most hostile one declared that I looked like a “whore,” was like all the other “sodomite lesbians” in here and that I “have the devil” in me.

…giving you a moment to process that information…

Rest assured that I will be blogging about that as soon as I get my hands on the (yes!) video footage.

Another first for me happened this morning: I was actually happier inside a porta potty than outside of it.  Don’t be silly, not for the regular reasons.  I stepped inside and basked in the relief of the sun not beating down on my already sunburned skin.

And it’s not that I intended to get sunburned.  I supposed I could have applied more SPF, but I simply cannot get past that fact that this never happened so easily when I was a child!  When did I go from having my dad’s Italian skin to my mom’s Irish skin?  In vain I keep retesting the same waters.

You know that prickly skin feeling you get when you’ve probably been in the sun 30 seconds too long?  You don’t necessarily look burned yet, but you’ve got that sinking feeling.  No, the looking burned part happens a little while later.  And you know that it’s happened because a random stranger will look at you, inhale sharply and get a pained expression on their face, like they’ve gotten a leg cramp or just saw the driver in front of them nearly miss a squirrel.  Or maybe that’s just how people look at me when I’m burned.

So Brian graciously whisked me to WalMart for a little bit of AC relief.  And it wasn’t until I stepped into their restroom that I looked into the mirror and made all those same faces at myself.  Yowza.  I am a rainbow of shades of tan and red right now.

I stepped out and looked at my husband who was waiting for me on a WalMart bench.

Me, “I.  Look.  Ridiculous.  My body is red.  My face is white.  You know what I look like?  I look like a pimple.”

Brian, never looking up from his phone, put his body into his quiet chuckle and simply said, “Yep.  Yep, you do.”