blog Archive: March 2007

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Curl Up and Dye

 

I stopped dying my hair a while ago (Dec. of ’05 to be precise). Covered up the “Road Hazard Orange” with a color approximating my own, blogged about the experience, and didn’t touch the stuff again.

 

Until tonight. I keep picturing my hair as dark brown. And it mostly is. But the ends were getting sort of… well, lighter. My hair was taking on the reddishy tinge which was the impetus for me to start dying it back when I was 17 anyway. Two boxes of Brown, Cool & Collected and my last box of Copper Craze later, and… not bad. I like the effect of having the orange underneath, instead of on top, tho’ it inexplicably came out more muted than it has in the past. The brown is warmer than I had hoped, but it now gets darker at the ends (where the hair is older and therefore more damaged) instead of lighter. And the conditioner they package with dye is the BEST stuff. My hair feels crazy-silky right now.

 

And my peony is coming up in the front yard. Yay!

 

9:09 PM

 

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

SO frustrating

 

It wasn’t at all a terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad day. Plenty of worse things could have happened, but thankfully didn’t.

 

However… I am increasingly frustrated with certain people at the office who don’t seem to realize that the production/prepress/press/mailing schedule is a carefully crafted ballet between us, our vendors, and their other clients. When a VIP on my end decides that we’ll send files out a day later, or now two days later, it creates a potentially difficult scheduling shift that effects many people. And, an immediate concern to my own stress level, I spent three anxious hours making damn well sure that the files would make it to a FedEx dropoff last night, only to be called — at the moment during which I had sealed the envelope and was getting up to grab my jacket — and told that we wouldn’t be sending the files after all. Argh!

 

Now, I want the job to be right just as much as anybody else. Maybe more, because I’m the person who will be at fault if a typo or a factual error is discovered. But I respect the schedule, and I know that it isn’t set at random. It’s bad business, not to mention rude, to continuously tell our vendors that they have to do whatever it takes to accommodate us. As if it’s their fault that we keep screwing with the timing.

 

I have actually had a VIP suggest that I cancel a photographer, who had been booked for weeks, the day before a shoot. And to explain to him that we would not pay a kill fee. Instead of calling the photographer, I made the shoot happen on schedule.

 

And today, dammit, today I’m going to make it outside to appreciate the 73-degree day. Maybe go for a brisk walk around the pond. My narcissi have woken up and are stretching in the sun. They officially bloomed this weekend. Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the flowers is. Well, right in my front garden. If I leave for work early enough today, maybe I can pick up some daffodils at the store on the way in. That might be nice.

 

8:12 AM

 

Friday, March 16, 2007

when life hands you lemons

 

It’s time to make lemonade! Whoo-hoo! Organic lemons are on sale at Wild Oats, as are organic Braeburn apples. I already have some strawberries starting to turn in the fridge, so it’s time to haul out the fancy juicer and get crankin’. Mm-mm-mm-mm-mmm.

 

1:15 AM

 

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

 

The weather changed. The time changed. Okay, you could argue that time, such as it is, didn’t change; merely our interpretation of its passing. Fine, be that way. You know what I mean. The point is, I’ve been driving home from work during daylight hours, with my car windows open, giddy with Springiness. My narcissi are budding. My tulips have broken ground. The buds on the trees at the office visibly change from morning to evening. And I have found myself sifting flour twice in two weeks. Which seems unrelated, but I’m willing to bet that it isn’t.

 

I cannot keep asking my mother to cook her specialties for me, and she has left me her hand-lettered, hand-illustrated cookbook in her will… but not a minute before she dies. Which I am wholly not prepared for, and the cookbook will be of little consolation to me at such time. So I am trying to fake my way through some of her standards. Now, the black bottom cupcakes that I made last week (or the week before? I am actually so busy that I have lost reasonable track of t
ime) I actually do have her recipe for, but it calls for a box of cake mix and I don’t play that. People really seemed to enjoy the version that I came up with, but in my own mind (mouth?), it wasn’t right. I’ll have to keep trying (I can almost hear the cheers of glee from certain friends). Tonight’s recipe, identity withheld until clear of potential disaster, is most definitely off from my mom’s. I had a feeling going into the oven that the dough/batter was too wet. It looked generally right-ish, and the kitchen smells right, but a quick peek in the oven just now has proven to me that the dough was certainly too wet. I’m sure it will be mostly fine, but tweaking shall ensue. And this being a possible surprise gift (and here, a number of people hope that they are the surprise recipient, most of them being wrong), I may have to tweak the recipe, say, tomorrow. Mmmm, more flour-sifting. Coworkers will reap the rewards of recipes slightly amiss. And if this comes out even half right, I may have to screw the diet for another day.

 

Okay, I have just removed the experiment from the oven. Perhaps not a disaster, but my mother, were she here, would be giggling herself silly at the result. Of course, if she were here, she likely would have offered some assistance in the first place. Tomorrow is Test #2. Maybe I shouldn’t sift the flour. Have officially left voicemail for mom, asking advice.

 

I have caught Erin’s “fitness” bug, as much as my personality can. Suzanne Deason’s BalanceBall workout has left my entire body oh-so-lightly ache-y for a couple of days, but Wii Boxing kicked my upper body’s ass. Then pinned me down, and kicked me some more. And just when I thought it was going to leave me alone, it beat a little more crap out of me. I played for four rounds, and hurt for four days. So it’s more BalanceBall tomorrow. Erin, you are literally and figuratively a stronger woman than I. You’ve been spending an hour(?) three times a week with a personal trainer who is trying his hardest to paralyze you with pain, and I am spending half an hour on those days bouncing a giant playball around. But at least it’s half an hour that I’m not spending glued to the laptop.

 

Turns out that I won’t feel like I’m missing anything by skipping the Louvre while I’m in Paris this Spring (there’s a phrase I could say over and over) because “Selected Treasures from the Louvre” will be at the Denver Art Museum this Autumn. No ‘Mona Lisa’ I’m sure, but I’ve had the distinct pleasure of seeing ‘Starry Night’ in person, and I like that painting better anyway. Sorry, Leonardo. I mean no disrespect. VanGogh is just a little more my style.

 

8:51 PM

 

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

my coffee shop

 

Okay, it’s not MY coffee shop. Plenty of people go there. But it’s the one I consistently go to, and I consistently go in the morning, so I always see the same two baristas. Roland and… the girl. I’m sorry I’ve never noticed your name, Girl.

 

The other morning, there was a customer ahead of me as I was approaching the counter. She had caught Girl in a conversation that Girl was trying to cut short, without being outright rude. Roland, who had caught my eye and nodded recognition, was bustling around behind the counter. By the time the friendly customer finally left and Girl was able to take my order, Roland was handing me a steaming cup. I looked at him curiously, and he said,

“Non-fat cinnamon latte, right?”

“Half the syrup?”

“Well, not HALF, but LESS.”

“You are so sweet for remembering my drink. Or, I’m coming here way too often.”

“I prefer the former.”

 

I think I only go about once a week, but I’d better start keeping better track. There are 230 calories in a full-syrup flavored latte, 160 in a no-syrup… mathematically, my drink falls in around 195 empty calories. Mmmmmm, empty calories.

 

7:54 AM

 

Friday, March 02, 2007

bloodletting

 

I gave blood on Wednesday. I failed for one reason or another the last three times I tried, so it was a relief to pass the entrance exam AND get a good stick. What a rush. Many thanks go out to the rock-star nurse person who was in charge of me and my needle action. Good job. You did such a good job, in fact, that I don’t even have a bruise. No lightheadedness, either, which I attribute to the two hot cocoas I drank before heading in. Yay, sugar! But boy oh boy, climbing the stairs back to my office afterwards took the wind right out of me.

 

If I don’t get my ass in gear with this next tattoo, I’ll probably be able to give again before I have to keep my tainted blood to myself for another year.

 

11:04 PM