Thursday Randomosity: Hot Sauce and Gravel Edition

We are cartwheeling down the last grassy hills of summer – exhilarated, off-kilter, trying to soak up as much summertime fun and relaxation as possible before school begins (Fifth grade. FIFTH. GRADE. Eeep.) while also dealing with all the chaos of moving. My mind is going in a million different directions, which calls for some Randomosity.

We finally told our neighbors that we were moving. I don’t know why we waited, but we did. But we thought we should give people a heads up before the realtor stuck the for sale sign in our yard. The ones we told were a gratifying mix of sad that we are leaving and excited for us. One neighbor seemed genuinely distraught, but when I told her that we’ll be moving to a neighborhood where there are other ten-year-olds on all sides, she visibly relaxed. “Oh, I’m so glad,” she told me. “Every time a house on our block went up for sale, I used to pray that the new family would have someone her age to play with.” I found this so touching – that she would not just think about Carla, but that she would go out of her way to pray for her. This is the kind of neighbors we have. This is why I have such mixed feelings about moving away.

Our house has never looked better. We cleaned and tidied our house to the hilt for the realtor photos and it looks SO GOOD. It has never looked this good. It is impossible to keep this way. Poor Carla. She has been enjoying a TON of screen time because she can’t do anything to make a mess. So much of our stuff has been put away for the sake of tidiness, too. Our realtor specified that we needed to clear off the counters as much as possible, so in the kitchen I had to hide my tea kettle away along with the paper towel holder and the dish scraper and the hand towels. In the bathrooms, we have to put all the shower items (shampoo, conditioner, face wash, razors) under the sinks and swap out our normal towels for “pretty towels” (which I interpreted to mean The Guest Towels, because I am not buying new towels for the sake of aesthetics). All of our chargers have been relegated to the nightstand drawers. Makes normal day-to-day living a little awkward. 

Never have I been so thankful for my zooper. It is getting SUCH a workout. Potential buyers seem to completely ignore the sign we put up inside the front door that says “please remove your shoes or wear these foot covers.” I can tell because none of the shoe covers have been used (although I suppose people could be removing their shoes). And there is constantly grass and bits of dirt and other debris all over the floor. I am zooping all the time. Plus, I shed CONSTANTLY. I knew this about myself, but now that I have to tidy everything ALL THE TIME I am newly aware of how hairs seem to leap off of my skull every time I move. Thank goodness that my beloved zooper seems to have no problem sucking up the rogue hairs. 

It is also good at sucking up gravel. Yes, gravel. I picked up our paper towel holder (similar to this one, if you want to picture what it looks like) to move it from the counter into the pantry where all the shameful things go and the bottom sort of dropped out. Later, when I told my husband what happened, he said, “Oh, that’s probably because I dropped it the other day.” The weird thing was: it was full of gravel. GRAVEL. Like, that’s the weight that the manufacturers used to fill the base. I guess it makes a sort of sense? Maybe gravel isn’t particularly expensive, and maybe it’s easy to access, and it is heavy. But what a weird thing to put inside a paper towel holder, amirite?!?!?! And the gravel got all over my kitchen. Everywhere. Fifteen minutes before Carla and I were supposed to leave for a showing. 

One of Carla’s favorite birthday gifts was a dinosaur mask. I can’t remember if I told you this already? If so, you will just smile and nod through the retelling while you think of other things, yes? My husband and I got her these Therzinosaurus claws because she had specifically requested them. I guess a friend of hers had them? And she was excited to have them, but kept asking, “What about the mask?” (This friend apparently had the mask, too.) So we went to Target and she was able to spend some birthday money on the matching mask. The mask and claws come as a set, too; not sure why we didn’t get her the whole set to begin with. To be completely honest with you, I thought it was kind of a dumb present. But she asked for it, and I’m not sure how much longer she will want to play with toys, so we indulged the request. And I was WRONG. It is an awesome gift. The mask attaches to your face in such a way that the jaws open when the wearer’s jaws open. And the claws go on over top of the hands, so your fingers are still free to do things. It is VERY cool and I think any dinosaur loving kiddo would love it. 

I need to find a new favorite hot sauce. There has been a sriracha shortage for more than a year now, and I ordered a few bottles of my favorite sriracha sauce (Huy Fong) every few months while they were still available online, hoping to wait out the weather conditions that devastated chili crops and stopped production. But I am now on my last bottle. I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I will need to find a new favorite hot sauce. It’s sad, because it is really the perfect hot sauce. Sriracha is by far my most-used condiment. I eat it on tacos and salads and put it in stir fry sauce. This doesn’t convey just how dependent I am on sriracha sauce. We eat tacos pretty regularly, and I cannot eat a taco without hot sauce. Hot sauce is an essential ingredient. Although I haven’t been looking very hard for a replacement, I have tried some store brands of sriracha with no luck. Now that I’m on my last bottle of the real thing, I need to step up my search. I think that I need something that is not pretending to be sriracha.  El Yucateco is my go-to hot sauce for enchiladas and nachos, but it’s too intense for me to put on tacos. Cholula is wonderful on burritos and black beans and rice, but I don’t like the way it tastes with ground beef. The Ortega and Old El Paso taco sauces are okay in a pinch, but not my favorite. Before sriracha came into my life, I used La Victoria hot sauce on my tacos. I suppose I could return to that, even though it’s not as spicy. But maybe this is an opportunity to try NEW hot sauces. I have read a few “There’s a sriracha shortage, try these alternatives” articles and none of them has been helpful. (It turns out that I am extremely choosy about hot sauce. Chile crisp and sambal oelek are textured, not smooth; Tabasco is thin and vinegary. None of these are adequate sriracha substitutes, even if they have their place.) But hot sauce is expensive and it’s hard to know where to start. Do you have a favorite hot sauce? 

What non-essential-for-nutrition-or-life food item, if suddenly unavailable, would leave you feeling most bereft? Sriracha is mine, I think. My husband would probably choose peanut butter. My daughter would probably say ketchup – I don’t think she could live without ketchup. Do you have something you use ALL the time, or love so much that you would feel lost without it?

Speaking of food, as I usually am, I have reached the stage of packing where food preparation is becoming slightly tricky. I have been trying to pack away non-essentials, and have already put together several boxes of kitchen items. This came back to bite me this week when I tried to make paprikas and realized that I had packed the potato peeler. Hmm. Why did you do that, Past Suzanne? True, this is probably the one meal (besides Thanksgiving) that requires a potato peeler, but still. So I had to peel potatoes with a knife and it was not nearly so easy. Then I decided I was going to make muffins for my writing group. (One writing friend has moved to the city for the summer, so my regular writing buddy and I invited him to join us.) But… I had already packed away the muffin tins. THEN I looked for Carla’s dinosaur taco holder for taco night, and… I had already packed it. Womp womp. I wonder what essential non-essential cooking item I will need and be unable to use next. 

My hair is driving me bonkers. It’s been nearly four months since I last had my hair colored, and boy can you tell. The grey is really insidious, creeping in around my ears and in patches at the crown of my head. The worst part, for me, is that the way the grey grows in, it makes me look like I am balding. My hair parts naturally on the right side of my head, kind of at the outer edge of my right eyebrow. But the hair on the bottom side of the part is so pale that it looks like scalp. I don’t think it IS scalp, although it could be that my hair is also quite thin in that spot (gulp!), but whatever is going on, it doesn’t look good. I have been increasingly self-conscious in photos, to the point that I have begun parting my hair on the other side of my head. This is WEIRD. It looks weird, it feels weird. My hair flips up where it shouldn’t. But at least I look less bald, I guess. 

In other aging news, I have a new wrinkle. Wrinkle is kind of a charming word – that bright cheery i, the fun tongue-trip of nkle. But the object it refers to is less charming. This one is kind of like a double frown that bridges the inner corner of each eye over the top of my nose. I do not care for it. Also, I can’t figure out what facial expression is CAUSING it. If I knew what face I was making to develop this wrinkle, I would STOP DOING IT. I have sort of decided that it has something to do with my daily 3:00-5:00 am wakeup, because the wrinkle sometimes stretches over my eyelids into the portion that is swollen from lack of sleep. But I can’t correct THAT, lo how I’ve tried.

My husband and I have discovered a sad truth: we should have done a lot of these home improvements EARLIER, so we could ENJOY THEM. We have been enlisting a lot of professional help to get our home into selling shape, but we have also pulled out the old DIY artillery as well. He and I are GOOD at DIYing, and by “he and I” I mean that I am good at persuading him we can do a thing and then he is good at executing it. (DIY projects require a lot of skills that I lack, like patience and the ability to paint/cut/hang a straight line.) (I am, however, extremely good at driving to Home Depot and buying supplies.) One thing we did this weekend was to replace nearly all of our window screens. I am embarrassed to tell you the state of our screens, but they were ROUGH. And I have no idea why we never even EXPLORED the option of fixing them. Never! I mean, four or five years ago when I was determined to replace our windows, I guess I figured we’d replace the screens too… but beyond that, I never once thought about them except to lament the fact that if we wanted cool, fresh air in our bedroom at night we would also have to welcome a few bugs. The thing is, replacing screens is SUPER EASY. And inexpensive! I have gotten many, many quotes for screen replacement and they range from $42 per screen on the high end to $25 per screen on the low end. But we did it ourselves and it took maybe three hours and about $60 to replace seven screens. This has been the case for EVERY IMPROVEMENT we have done. Why did we wait until the literal last minute?!? When we move into the new house, I have vowed – to my husband, and now publicly – that we will fix things right away, not let them fester for a decade or two until we plan to move out. 

Do companies ever listen to their own hold music? This question is brought to you by being on hold for 26 minutes with the electric company as I waited for a human to help me transfer our service to the new house. My local hospital system has a pretty decent hold line – music, regularly interrupted by brief ads for critical health services, like “make sure you get your colonoscopy!” or “regular skin checks are a great way to identify skin cancer early!” That kind of thing. But the electric company’s hold music is NOT good. It vacillated wildly between normal volume and way too loud. When it got loud, it was full of static. And the “song” that kept playing on repeat would stop abruptly as though a customer service agent were finally going to answer my call, and then start playing again from the beginning. 

Have I mentioned how much I hate the idea of strangers TOUCHING my THINGS? Every time we get home after realtor showings, I feel like I should Lysol every possible surface people might have touched. Yuck. 

Okay, that’s it for now I think. What’s on your mind today?

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Grocery Store Report; Doubly Awkward Encounter; Dinners This Week

I don’t have any new shortages to report, although Lunchables, which seemed to recover briefly, are once again non-existent and frozen pancakes remain highly elusive. But I had to rush here immediately to alert you that iceberg lettuce at my grocery store is currently selling for $3.50. That’s U.S. dollars. THREE DOLLARS FIFTY CENTS. Iceberg lettuce. 

I am well aware that prices of many items are creeping ever upward, but this seems like a GIANT LEAP. Usually, a head of iceberg lettuce is somewhere between $0.99 and $1.50. So the increase feels rather dramatic. 

It wasn’t even a particularly large head of lettuce, either. Smaller than usual. 

I find it so curious that the label says “2 for $7” instead of “$3.50 apiece.” Does 2 for $7 sound BETTER? Because it doesn’t sound better to ME. When did ICEBERG LETTUCE become such a hot commodity?!?!

Well. The other types of lettuce seem to be holding steady at their normal egregious pricing, so I’ll just forego my beloved iceberg for something more nutritious and less delightfully crunchy, like romaine. 

I was so gobsmacked that I mentioned the price increase to the checker. He commiserated and said that the shock waves of the pandemic were causing very strange cracks in the system. Even though I haven’t noticed a big difference in staffing – I see the regular staff members I’ve come to know over the past decade – he said they are really struggling with understaffing issues. 

He was the only checker open – which didn’t strike me as too strange; it was eight in the morning after all. But there was a guy behind me with two items to my full cart, so I let him go ahead of me. Then a woman got in line behind me, also with two items. What was I to do in that situation? Let her go ahead of me, too? It would have taken five seconds but then what if the next person showed up and only had two items? Or five items? I told myself that I had done the nice thing, letting the one person jump ahead of me in line, and that I didn’t have to do it again. But she had SEEN him go ahead of me, and I didn’t want her to think I was a jerk. So I told her I thought that the customer service desk would check her out, since she had so few items. She thanked me and headed off to buy her muffin and juice at the customer service desk. 

The whole interaction was super awkward already, but then it became doubly so when I realized she was my old hairdresser. 

I swear to you that I blogged about breaking up with this hairdresser, but I rummaged around in my archives a bit and couldn’t find the post, so you will get a small recap: I went to this hairdresser for several years and liked her. But then she started outsourcing things to others so she could work on other clients. Not just the shampooing. But like… “Oh, I’m going to send you over to Dean to do your color while I cut this other person’s hair.” Or… “Kelly’s going to trim your ends and then I’ll be back to do your color.” I did not care for this. First, it was a salon that charges more based on your stylist’s level of expertise, so I felt a little miffed that I was paying for HER level but getting half of my hair done by Dean or Kelly, and who knows WHAT level they were… plus, I wanted to see HER because a hairdresser/hair-haver relationship is very intimate and based largely on trust. So after this happened a few times, I went elsewhere for my haircare needs. 

It’s so AWKWARD, though, to dump a service provider. I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine having an end-of-relationship conversation with a hairdresser. “It’s not you, it’s me” sounds even more insincere when it’s directed at your stylist, right? So I just… ghosted her. (I did the same to the next hairdresser, too, which is even MORE awkward because she remains my husband’s hairdresser.) (Then my next hairdresser ghosted me, but that was because she didn’t return to work after the pandemic and who can blame her.) I have seen the old hairdresser out in the wild a couple of times, but on those occasions I spotted her from a distance and I think I was able to slip away before she saw me. Or if she saw me, it was as I walked speedily away, head down, eyes averted. Yes, I am very mature.  

But this was the first time I have seen her face to face. Not only that, but I SPOKE to her. I was wearing a mask and glasses, and I am several years older by now. Sure, I remember her name and her daughter’s name, and the type of books she likes to read, but I was one of many clients that she’s had over the years. So I’m hoping she didn’t recognize or remember me. 

There’s nothing to be DONE about this very small, very fleetingly awkward interaction. Even if she did recognize me. Even if she did think, “Wow, there’s that person who ghosted me half a decade ago.” Even if she reacted with anger or hurt feelings. I can’t change any of it. It will likely be years before I run into her again in public. And yet I AM STILL THINKING ABOUT IT, and may continue to do so for hours/days, twirling and twirling the interaction around itself, trying to reshape it or make it less awkward by perseverating on it. Why is being a human so rife with these little inescapable twinges and pains? 

Let us now change subjects abruptly to meal planning.

I went to the grocery store with one meal in mind, and while I was there I came up with several possibilities. So now I have a full fridge and a nice list of dinners to make for my family this week.

Dinners for the Week of November 15 to November 22

WAIT A SECOND IS THANKSGIVING NEXT WEEK WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TIME WHERE HAS IT GONE?

• Fire Fry: We haven’t had this in a long while, and I am craving crunchy veggies in a fiery sauce. My husband made me promise to drastically reduce the amount of spices I add to the yogurt though. He is no fun at all. 
• Chicken Paprikas: Another meal we haven’t had in far too long. And I have a bunch of cooked, shredded rotisserie chicken in the freezer just waiting to be added to a rich, creamy, potato laced sauce and poured over noodles. 
• Asian Chicken Salad: I think my husband will appreciate this meal, as it is neither tacos nor chicken/zucchini stir fry, both of which he is tired of. I will probably make some teriyaki dressing as well since I don’t care for the peanut dressing listed in the recipe.
• Chicken/Zucchini Stir Fry: Oh yes, I love this stir fry. It’s so easy and so tasty and all the zucchini makes me feel so virtuous. And despite my husband feeling like we have it all the time, we do NOT and it has been many weeks since we’ve eaten it and it is time once again. 
• Thai Red Chicken Curry: Am I in a stir fry mood or what? 
• Red Wine Braised Short Ribs with Polenta: Why yes, this has been a recurring bullet on my dinner posts since October 25. I STILL have not made this meal, but the short ribs are in the freezer waiting to be immersed in red wine until they collapse in drunken ecstasy and the polenta is very calmly waiting on the shelf and I have a nice package of inexpensive-compared-to-iceberg-lettuce romaine waiting in the crisper, so perhaps THIS is the week it will all come together.

What are you eating this week, the last week before THANKSGIVING, which is somehow nearly upon us?

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Tuesday Randomosity: Mainly About My Second Vaccine Edition

We are expecting SNOW this week – bookending April with winter, I guess – and I am recovering from my second Covid vaccine (woo hoo!), so I am NOT going to the grocery store and NOT thinking about meal planning, which is sure to bite me in the butt. Oh well! La la la going to type some randomosity instead! 

• While literally no one else I know has had ANY ISSUES with their second Covid vaccine, I was one of the lucky few who had some side effects. I mean, I guess I’m glad it was me and not my parents or my husband, right? And FOR SURE it’s better than having Covid! All day yesterday, I had a fever of 102, which is Deeply Unpleasant, and full body aches. My fingers ached. My knees. My back. My skin. My eyeballs. I was so achy I could not sleep the night after receiving the vaccine, nor during the day. But! Like magic, I am all better now! Not better enough to want to go to the grocery store, though. 
• My second vaccine experience was QUITE different from the first, even though it took place at the same location. There were far fewer cars this time, so I didn’t have to wait at all. I simply pulled up close to the building, walked in, got my temperature taken by a volunteer, gave my insurance card to a staff member, and got my shot. Easy peasy. The atmosphere through it all was also significantly different from the first time. During the first vaccine – and this could be purely projection – there was kind of a nervous energy. Like, people were excited, but also anxious. This time, the overriding feeling was of pure jubilation. Everyone, from the volunteers to the nurses to the vaccine recipients, was cheerful and friendly and talkative in a giddy sort of way. For example, while I was waiting with others for our little 15-minute timers to go off so we could leave, one of the men called out to the nurse in charge that his timer had only zeros on it. She teased him about it, and the rest of us laughed. And then another vaccine recipient said she’d come in roughly the same time as he had, so he could leave with her, and then someone called out that he should pay her for her service, and there was some more laughter and back and forth. And the nurse in charge carried on kind of a one-sided conversation with all of us, telling us about her trip to Florida, and how no one wears a mask there, and how she was both delighted by that (because she hates wearing a mask) and deeply uncomfortable. It was just a cheery, friendly experience. 
• Oh – my second “stop” (after getting my temperature taken) was at the intake desk. This was a long table, populated by staff/volunteers on one side, each with a computer in front of them, and chairs on the other side for the vaccine recipients to sit in. When I sat down, the staff person gave a huge, dramatic gasp while looking at her computer screen. The type of reaction you might have to, say, a news report of an asteroid destroying Idaho, or the discovery that you somehow deleted the entire database of vaccine information. I asked her, as one does, “Are you okay?” and got no response. She kept her eyes on the disaster unfolding onscreen and motioned me to sit down, then asked, in a very calm voice, for my ID and insurance card. Then, as she was inputting my information, she gasped AGAIN. “Is everything okay?” I asked. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m watching a movie.” Oh. Okay then. 
• The other notable aspect of my second vaccine experience is that I FORGOT MY VACCINE CARD AT HOME. I mean. Really? REALLY? Sigh. The nurse who gave me my shot was very nice about it. She copied down the information from the photograph of my original vaccine card onto my NEW vaccine card. And I have photographed them both and keep them together just in case. I guess I am telling you this so you know it is not the end of the world if you forget your vaccine card. 
• The first thing I did after I scheduled my Covid vaccine appointments was to schedule a hair appointment. I have been coloring my hair myself this past year, and while I HATE DOING IT, the outcome has been acceptable. But I need a professional to cut my hair. I have hacked some side bangs into my hair a couple of times, with disturbing but hidable results. But my hair is lank and too-long and uneven and I just want someone to shampoo it and shape it into something manageable and aesthetically pleasing.   
• When we drive home from school, Carla and I have noticed that one of the homes we pass has a Roomba-type device for their lawn. At least, I assume that’s why a bulldog-sized machine is roaming across their grass. At first, Carla and I referred to it as a Mow-ba (like Roomba). But she came up with a MUCH BETTER NAME, so much better that if the actual device is not called this then it has missed a REAL opportunity: Mowbot. Like a robot that mows. It doesn’t seem to be particularly efficient, in my opinion; I see it often in the mornings, too, and multiple days per week. Whatever it’s saving in lawn-care fees or the homeowner’s time, I suspect it’s certainly losing in gasoline/electricity. Maybe it isn’t a Mowbot at all, though, and has some other purpose. 
• Along those lines, I walked past the church the other day and the wolves are back. 
• Did I tell you I got a new bike? Like many, I developed a compulsion to own a bicycle when the pandemic began. Like many, I was unable to get one because they were all sold out. As of a few weeks ago, FINALLY, I have a bicycle in my possession! But I have not yet tried it. You see, I have never been much of a cyclist. I had a bike when I was a kid. I used to ride it up and down our mile-long gravel hill of a driveway. I used to ride it out past the barn and up to the duck pond. Once in a great while, I would ride the three miles to my neighbor’s house. (She was a year older than me, and my best friend for many years.) But after middle school, I stopped riding my bike. The next time I attempted to use a bicycle was after grad school. My at-the-time not-quite-husband and I rented bicycles in Copenhagen and rode them through the streets. This was not a good choice for someone who hadn’t been on a bicycle in a decade. Copenhagen was very busy, the streets congested with lots of traffic and hundreds of other bicyclists, all of whom were much more confident astride their metal steeds and much more impatient to get places than I was. I wobbled along and managed not to die from either accident or stress, but I had NO DESIRE to bike again. Skip forward another decade and a half to last summer. We met up with another family for a biking date. (They brought bikes for me and my husband because they are ANGELS.) It went okay. Okay enough that I thought I was ready for my own bike. And here we are. I have one! And I am too afraid to ride it! 
• (I did have to ride it the day I picked it up from the bike shop. The staff person who sold it to me wanted to see me ride it, in case he needed to make any adjustments. While I was wobbling my way across the parking lot, trying valiantly not to fall in front of this stranger/bike expert, the staff person anxiously asked my husband, “Does she have a helmet? She needs a helmet.” Which is not really the level of confidence in my abilities I was hoping to inspire.) (I do have a helmet.)
• Do you experience a springtime clothes-buying frenzy? I feel like I am in a frenzy right now, and it seems like this may happen annually. Or semi-annually. The I-Have-Nothing-To-Wear syndrome has hit and hit hard. I have ordered a trunk from Trunk Club with no success. I got a fix from StitchFix, which arrived with only athletic clothing in it; fine, but not exactly what I was looking for. I tried on a bunch of clothes from Nordstrom and only bought one measly tank top. I have added MANY THINGS to digital shopping carts at Loft and J. Crew and their various factory stores, but have held off on buying anything else because I sense I am going a little overboard. What I want is The Perfect Summer Dress, which may not exist. And The Perfect Non-Skinny Jeans, which may not exist. And The Perfect T-Shirt, which also may not exist. SIGH. I may need to take up sewing just to design clothes that I like. Or, worse, wear some of the vast collection of clothing I already possess.
• Speaking of sewing, I am getting up the nerve to alter something. I bought two dresses for Carla and they are adorable in every way except for the arm holes. The arm holes are too roomy. I finding them wanting in the chestal modesty department, if you will. My mother found me a very clear video of how to adjust the armholes of a garment, and it seems simple enough and doable, even though I have never once operated a sewing machine. But I feel wildly uneasy about the whole thing. Maybe I will make Carla do it. 
• This is the first week in awhile that I feel overscheduled. I have a freelance project for the first time in a year, which is great, and satisfying, and invigorating, but requires several meetings this week. And I have plans to go walking with a friend, which is also great. And a twice-monthly video chat with another friend, which is always great. And, weather depending, maybe plans to get and eat takeout with some family friends this weekend, which would be lovely. But that is enough to make me feel overwhelmed and panicked and like doing a complete 180 and holing up in my basement with some books for a month. I mean, how am I going to come up with enough words for all these interactions? What am I going to wear? And my hair is so bad! 

That’s all I have for you, Internet. What’s happening with you this week?

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Great Mysteries of the World

How is it that every day – Every. Day. – I find myself tortured by a single hair that has affixed itself to my side? It’s always in the same place – on my left side, within reaching distance of my left elbow, but just out of eyeline, so that I can only catch tiny glimpses of the hair if I contort my body in just the right sunlight. It does not seem to matter which shirt I am wearing – the hair is always there. Always grasping for the delicate skin of my inner arm, yet darting nimbly out of the way when I start feeling around for it with the fingers on my right hand. It’s tricky, too, pretending to retreat when I brush at my side. Only to pop up again when I am doing things like unloading the dishwasher or trying to make pancakes. (Don’t get excited. I am merely putting pre-made – by Eggo – pancakes into the microwave and then flipping them once.) Eventually, I get so mad at the hair, I wage all-out war, plucking at my shirt, my arm, my head, until I FINALLY extract the offending strand. It is typically, somehow, through the mysterious magic of hair, lodged INSIDE my shirt, as though the fabric had developed hair follicles and sprouted its own lush if single-stranded mane.

Today, I was attacked from both sides: the ubiquitous hair on the left was joined by a rarely-but-not-never-seen hair on the right side. Why am I dancing in the kitchen before my first sip of tea, you ask. It’s not dancing but the writhing gyrations of a creature enduring ticklish agony from an unseen enemy.

Every day I struggle. Every day. I have long since given up asking how. And why. But, if there is a way to prevent this from happening (Ponytails: doesn’t work. Vigorous morning hair brushing: nada. Going nude: haven’t tried it, but I’m rapidly approaching it as an option.), I am all ears.

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Hair Fret

Well, the world seems about ready to spin off its axis entirely and every time I even so much as glance at the news I start hyperventilating, so let’s talk about MORE FRIVOLOUS STUFF.

At some point last spring, I decided I wanted to Mix It Up a little bit with my hair. For me, a person who avoids change at all costs, this meant asking my hair stylist to add a little red to my normal brown hair dye.

I think I was picturing something like Anna Kendrick’s hair… Dark, but with a reddish tinge…

(Photos, clockwise from Anna, from myhaircolors.net, pinterest.com, and ouchpress.com)

I liked the result okay. But it wasn’t anything like ANY of the above photos. It felt so BROWN. More like… Young Rory Gilmore. Or… Jennifer Garner without highlights. But… Less shiny.

(Photos, left to right, from worldhairextensions.com and allwomenstalk.com)

So I went back to her a few months later and told her that I wanted to change things up AGAIN.

“What was wrong with the last color?” she wanted to know. She was non-accusatory, not hurt in the least; she just wanted to know what the issue was so she could help avoid similar issues.

“It was just too… brown,” was all I could come up with. But she nodded like I’d been extremely explicit and detailed with my criticism and presented me a few alternatives.

She did so by putting together a little board of hair samples. A literal curl of hair in four different colors that I could choose from. The far left was my hair color of last fall. The far right was Really Red. The two center options were somewhere in the middle.

But here’s the kicker. She recommended one of the options. I can’t remember which, all I can remember is that she compared it to Hair of Last Fall and said something like, “This will go much better with your skin tone than what we used to do.”

I trust her and so we went with the option she’d recommended.

You see where this is going, no?

I do not like my current hair color. It’s fine. It’s not bad or anything. It’s closer, I guess, to Anna Kendrick Brownish Red. But it’s lighter than I like my hair to be, and it’s still too brown, and it’s different enough from my natural hair color (mouse brown interlaced with grey) that you can REALLY see the difference now that it’s growing out.

When my husband – who, bless his heart, doesn’t notice these things – not only agreed with my assessment that it was very clear my hair was in need of a color-update, but also said he’d noticed without my pointing it out, I made a hair appointment immediately.

But now I am fretting. I mean, it’s MILD fretting. Nothing on the level of School Stress or What If Writing a Book Is a Huge Waste of Everyone’s Time Worry. But I like to wring every last bit of anxiety out of every possible situation so here we go.

What I really want is to go back to my hair stylist and say, “Let’s go back to how it was last fall.”

Simple enough… Except that she has already expressed a preference for NOW vs. THEN.

It’s like when your friend breaks up with that kind of boring dude she’s been with for five years, and when she finally does it, you can’t help but say, “Oh, I’m so glad you aren’t with him anymore! He really wasn’t bringing out your inner sparkle!” And then a few months later she decides to get back together with him.

Only I’M the one who is getting back together with the dull boyfriend, you know? And my hair stylist is the one who has to reunite us.

I would almost rather find a NEW hair stylist. But it’s so hard to find a good one, and I really do like her, and she does do a good job, and I really like the way she cuts my hair. Plus, my husband goes to her, too. So if I quit, it seems like he would have to quit, too, just for the sake of awkwardness and I’m too tired to worry about any of this.

My husband helpfully discussed this with me (although I doubt he will engage in deeper or additional conversations on the topic) and agreed that a) my former darker hair color worked just fine with my skin tone and b) it was totally reasonable for me to have a different opinion from my hair stylist and c) I could very reasonably ask her to change the color back and all would be well.

But YOU understand my fretting, don’t you?

What if she does it, but clenches her teeth the whole time, so certain is she in the life-altering mistake I am making?

What if she does it, and then it turns out she is RIGHT and my skin tone is Totally Wrong for dark brown and I HATE IT?

What if I can’t think of any other disastrous outcomes?

In any event, I want to go from Reddish Brown to Dark, Glossy, Gorgeous Brown and completely avoid Just Plain Brown at all costs.

Maybe what I do is pretend that I am NOT going back to my old hair color… and ask for a NEW hair color?

Something like one of these?

(Photos, left to right, from pinterest.com, hairboutique.com, hairstyles123.com, and pinterest.com)

Yes!!

I could totally go in and say, “I want my hair to be a bit darker for fall. Let’s change it to Katie Holmes brown please.” And then see what happens.

Perhaps I will even bring her this photo as an example!

What do you think?

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