Beauty is in The Eye of The Beholder

Today was hair color and cut day, but it didn't go as well as planned.  I arrived at the salon at 10:15 for my 10:30 appointment, confirmed with a phone call yesterday, only to find out that my stylist had made a mistake and my appointment was at 11:30.  Not a big deal.  I was hungry, so I asked her if there was a café nearby, and there was, so I walked over to it and decided that a spinach omelet was just what I wanted.  No, no potatoes, no bread, no hot sauce: just a regular spinach omelet.  When it was served, it looked okay, but when I took a bite I discovered that there was no cheese, so it was quite dry and chewy. I went back inside (I had been told to sit outside as there was no single seating inside) and asked the waitress if she could put some cheese on the omelet as it seemed to have been omitted. She said yes, but there would be an extra charge. I declined, went back outside, took a few more bites, and decided I'd had enough--and walked back to the salon wishing that Sparkle was with me to eat the rest of the omelet.

When it was finally my turn in the chair, I showed the stylist a picture of a heavily-layered style that I really like and asked if she could cut my hair into that style. She said "Of course," but then warned me that it would take me some time each morning to fix my hair--and I'd have to use product and tools.  I told her I was willing to chance it as I really  like the style, and she set to work.  Color first because NO ONE in the desert of the female variety is allowed to have GREY HAIR! Whatever: it's only money to get the whole enchilada.

After a thorough rinse of the color processing, she began cutting and I asked her what style she had decided to cut.  She said she was going to "heavily layer" my hair, cutting into the natural curl, which is what she's done in the past and I really like.  She kept snipping and cutting, stepping back to check her progress, then doing some more snipping and cutting.  When she finished, I still had hair (which hasn't been the case in my past), but it was cut kinda funny and was quite straight: no natural curl evident.  It's a bit longer, which I like, but the top is really short (which I don't like), and I HAVE FRIGGIN' BANGS!  No woman of a certain age should have bangs!  They aren't flattering and they sure aren't cute, but there I was, staring at short straight hair with bangs.

Well, I have several cuts from Mary that I have loved, so I guess I'll have to give her this one. Tomorrow morning I'll wet it, walk the dogs, and see what nature and the winds do to style it. I already made a follow-up appointment for the Monday before I leave for the East Coast, so I'll wait to see if I want to keep that appointment based on the intervening month of me doing whatever the heck I can do with what I've got to work with.

Productivity

Sometimes it's hard to self-motivate, especially when there's no one here to see my efforts and/or appreciate them, like, for instance, cooking meals.  Why bother? If I go to the Oriental take-out, a meal lasts me 3 days that I don't have to cook and/or think about buying, prepping, and then cooking a meal. If I get a $10 pizza from KMart, it not only tastes really good, but it also lasts me for about 4 days of meals. But I've had some wake-up news in my life recently, so it's time to get off my ample ass and do some things that haven't been done in far too long.

Today is Day One.  I emptied 6 drawers in my headboard bureau, one of which was filled with socks. Now how many pairs of socks can one person wear?  Evidently, I 'd need a pair of socks and without rummaging through the existing socks in the sock drawer, I'd go buy a new pair -- or six, since they come in nice big economy packs these days. End result:  I had enough socks to make it through an Ice Age!  I decided to keep 4 dozen assorted,  including whites and colored and patterns, some with just feet and others with tops, and the rest are in a huge plastic bag in the back of the RAV to donate to Angel View. I can't remember the last time I wore a scarf, so I kept 4 assorted scarves and put the rest into a box to donate. Ditto the rest of the drawers, which are now almost empty.

I'm not sure how many days I'll be able to face this daunting task, but it gives me time to ponder what is coming next in my life, as well as listen to "my" music from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, as well as one of my favorite groups, El Divo, and one of my favorite female artists, Norah Jones, whom I had forgotten as her CD was way down on the pile.  I've already listened to Elton sing "Electric Boobs," as it was sung in that wonderful movie about the girl getting married and her sister has to do all kinds of errands for her and she and the fiancé get a little tipsy in the bar and they sing Electric Boots at full volume… yeah, not all memories are coming all the way back!

Tomorrow, I'm going to face my other dresser, and then I'm going deep into the closet, which will be a two-day task.  I have things in there from when I was in college (whisper) 50 years ago.  I have one dress I bought for work (whisper) 25 years ago and never wore. And the beat goes on … .

I figure that once I make progress with one room, I'll be more inclined to do another.  I have a neighbor who comes in every couple of weeks to do a deep clean, and she said she'll help me in the kitchen as I'm not even going to contemplate standing on a step-stool to empty cabinets.  If you think the things in my closet have been there awhile, I have stuff on the top shelf of the cabinet that has probably been there for at least a decade!  Yeah, really.  When I broke my back, I gave up standing on things to reach high shelves, and that's been quite a while ago.  I'll just bring the trashcan into the kitchen and make it a two-step process: she climbs and hands me things and I toss them into the dumpster.

Deep down inside me, I keep thinking that maybe if I get a handle on this place, maybe I won't have to relocate. If moving isn't such a daunting task, maybe I won't feel as if I have to move to get out from under what it's taken me quite a while to create: one big MESS!

So, rest and relax and then work on Day Two. Meanwhile, I wish the dogs could dance with me as "our" music has a beat and a lot of pep. Not like that crap kids listen to today.  Aahh, that felt good!

Cognitive Misfires

I have been having trouble with my memory for about two years, little lapses that have increased in frequency and import.  One of my dearest friends had a chat with me as she has really noticed that I lose my place while engaging in conversation and often repeat what we've already discussed. I also have a tendency not to remember specifically how to do tasks, such as putting the choke chain on Sparkle the correct way so it doesn't hurt her.  I literally had to take a photo with my phone of the correct placement so I can use that to make sure I hook her up correctly. My friend made me promise to talk to my doctor when it was time for my next appointment, and to write down what needed to be said/covered, which I did.

Today was the dr. appt. with my favorite doctor. I told him that my friends had concerns that I'm starting to forget things, repeat things, claim no knowledge of ever having something as a part of my life.  He laughed and, after looking at my chart to check my birthdate, said that happens to a lot of people in my age range and has become part of the "new normal" as we age.  He double-checked medications to see if any of my prescriptions could be interfering with my cognition, and told me to stop taking the daily aspirin as that "may" have a cognitive link.  He also told me I no longer needed to take the milk thistle as my bloodwork  no longer has a link to a possible liver issue.  He did a couple of little tasks with me and was ready to bring me up to speed.

He strongly doubts that I have early dementia, but he's going to put me through a series of lab tests to see if anything is going on.  He says that "cognitive functioning" naturally diminishes as we age, and he's leaning toward that as a catch-all diagnosis.  He's going to prescribe Aracept as a precaution after he gets back the lab work I'll be doing tomorrow, lab work that includes a check for syphilis (really) because that can cause the symptoms of Alzheimer's.  We already have another appointment scheduled for 7 weeks from now to touch base again and he told me he's convinced I just have normal loss of cognition, and nothing serious or to be worried about.

I feel better for speaking up about the cognition issues and am especially relieved that he sees my lapses as typical loss of cognition, rather than early onset Alzheimer's Disease.  I'm not totally sure what the medical difference is, but one is a natural progression of aging while the other is a specific physical condition that can, and does, affect people and their quality of life.

Good Neighbors and Fences

Robert Frost once wrote about good neighbors and fences, but his point was in asking who is walling one in and who is walling one out.  If we truly are good neighbors, we don't need a fence.  I have a chainlink fence around my property, including the long side of the property I share with a 3-unit rental. The entire length of the fence is planted with oleanders that serve as a privacy barrier.

My dog trainer is also a botanist (retired), and when she saw the half-dozen young children next door playing in the oleanders, she told them to stay away from the plant because it's poisonous. The kids heard the word "poison" and ran to get their mom, who then engaged in a confrontation with me because I shouldn't have poisoned plants coming through the chain link fence, where the children can touch them and get sick or die.

Yep, we went from zero to sixty in about 5 seconds flat.

I calmed her down and told her the children would have to chew on the leaves/branches to get sick, and she responded with the fact that they are just children and may do that.  She told me I had to take the plants off "her" side of the fence or she would call the police.  I assured her that I would take care of it as quickly as I could, but Nancy told her to tell her children not to play where the plants are. That was like adding fuel to a fire, so I quietly told Nancy to cool it and assured the woman that I would go see my gardener right then and see when he could take care of this issue for me.

I walked down to my gardener's home and left a note for him to call me, which he did.  I explained the issue to him and he shook his head that the woman would have been threatening me. I told him that I needed to have the removal of the oleander as soon as possible, so he set aside today (Monday) to take care of the problem.  He was able to speak to the woman in Spanish and tell her that the plants would not "kill" her children, but she was still freaked out.

Antonio, my gardener, just finished clearing "her" side of the fence, so the oleanders are trimmed back.  We'll keep an eye on it and hope that this satisfies the neighbor.  Antonio will add trimming them to his monthly gardening to-do list, which is fine with me.

The answer to Frost's question about neighbors and fences remains elusive, but cutting back the oleanders is now a part of my being a good neighbor.

OH, BOY! Did the rain come down...

The Coachella Valley is ringed with mountains, ranges that get snow in the winter and are considerably cooler in the summer than the desert floor.  From these mountain ranges in winter, we get rain run-off, as well as snow melt later in the year, that flows through the washes that cross the desert floor.  Yesterday, we had horrendous amounts of rain in the desert and mountains, and the run-off  raging water through the washes that attach to the mountains has caused significant damage and road closures.

There are major thoroughfares that cross Interstate 10 between Desert Hot Springs and the plethora of little cities on the western side of 10, including Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Cathedral City, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Indio, and others.  The rain combined with the run-off to turn those washes  into raging rivers that simply are not passable.  For all the workers who live either "up the hill" in the Yucca Valley area or in DHS, their access to their jobs was denied by the raging water and the debris it brought into the washes.

Of course, there are those who think they are smarter than the forces of nature and, thus, tried to navigate the swollen rivers. There were many rescues of people who made bad decisions, but their vehicles will have to be replaced once the waters recede and the debris fields, which now include their vehicle, are cleared off the roadways.  I'm not sure why people think the numerous travel warnings not to engage with the fierce run-off doesn't apply to them, but there are always people who think they can make it when no one else can.

The roads will be back open as soon as the crews can make that happen; however, until the roads are clear, people are going to be backed-up in long, slow lines of cars going one at a time through the limited access to the other side of the freeway.  Yesterday, many of the students throughout the Valley were sent home for safety, and I'm pretty sure they are staying home today, too, which makes this weekend a long one as Monday is also a holiday.

Don't mess with Mother Nature is still good advice.  Too bad so many individuals don't heed that advice.  Live and learn, but there's always a price tag associated with that lesson.