Operation Silver Fox

I read about Anne Kreamer's book Going Grey in either Time or Newsweek. Then 2 weeks before that, my local paper carried a story about the same book.

So I took that as a sign.

I had a hairdresser appointment scheduled on Halloween. My original intent had been to have my roots covered over with a color rinse.

But then, when the newspaper story came out, I took it as a sign that I should give in to the little niggling in the back of my brain and seriously consider going back to grey.

I had never been one to be swayed by the dictates of vanity or even current trends. Sure I colored my hair. But while many women were camouflaging their grey, I was off in other territories having my hair colored in ways that were immediately obvious that I was not interested in concealing my true age.

After all, what woman approaching 50 would be interesting in getting bright pink highlights in her hair?

I wasn't interested in obscuring from the world my real age. I could not care less. If anything, I wanted to flaunt the fact that not all women my age choose to stick to safe and normal colors and look as though they leaped out of an L.L. Bean catalogue.

There were some of us who didn't give a rat's patootie over age. There were some of us who wanted to have fun ~ 50 be damned. We did not believe that once we reached a "certain" age that we all of a sudden had to act in way that society expects of that age.

Whose society was that anyway? Certainly not mine!

But still, every few months I would hear these words, "Mom, you gotta do your roots."

Well, roots be damned as well!

As much as I loved my extreme hair color, getting those damn roots taken care of was a bitch. And even though I would let months go by in between hair appointments, it was still an expensive undertaking ~ especially to get the color that I was interested in having.

Let's face it. I'm an artist. One-dimensional color is oh-so-boring. It does not speak to my creative side.

So finally, I decided (thanks to Anne Kreamer) ~ once and for all ~ I was going to let it all hang out. I'm going to go grey.

And why not?

If I can pull off having bright pink hair, and if I can pull off having my hair buzzed to 1/2" length, I can most certainly pull of having grey hair.

So, on Wednesday ~ Halloween ~ the first phase of Operation Silver Fox began.

And who would have thought that that would have cost me far more than it would have cost to just have my roots covered over.

I suppose that I could have avoided all that cost had I simply decided to let my roots roots grow out and have Ariana buzz the rest of my hair with dog clippers. After all, it wasn't the first time that I had Ariana buzz my hair.

But no, I did not want to give up the length of the hair that I had. After all, my hair was getting close to my being able to have a "pob."

I did not want to set myself back several months from achieving that goal by buzzing my hair down to half an inch ~ that is not to say that I haven't done that before.

Despite my desire to keep the length of my hair, I had an even greater desire to get down to the "root" of the matter.

So just before I started my new job, I did indeed have my hair buzzed down to the roots.

Let the pob wait and unleash the silver fox!

Skinky, Stinky, Stinky

I had to have a plumber over today because there was this HUGE hole in the pipe under our kitchen sink. It was so large that I could actually put my finger through it. (Not that I wanted to.)

How could I have gone so long not knowing that there was this huge hole between the elbow joint and the garbage disposal? (At least that explains why I had so many fruit flies after I got back from Arizona.)

And the odd thing is that I would have not known about it. It was only when I was looking to grab the bottle of Sal Suds under the sink that I discovered that something was wrong.

I didn't grasp it right away.

I grabbed the bottle and noticed that the bottom was wet. Wet? Why would it be wet?

Then I looked under the sink and noticed that the basin in which I kept the Sal Suds had about 3 inches of water in it. Not just any water. But very stinky, gaggingly smelly water.

Greatly restraining the urge to gag, I pulled each sopping item out of the basin. Bottles. Jars. What have you.

There were even rubber gloves and a couple of sponges that had deteriorated. Can you imagine what it was like to reach in with naked hands and grab those things?

If there was a direct connection between my hands and my brain, I would have surely barfed.

But I didn't.

However, that doesn't mean that I did not experience my fair share of disgust and want to throw up. Believe me, I did. But I maintained great self restraint.

And the smell! Oh! The smell! For once there was something in the kitchen that stunk worse than the gigunda litter box underneath the parrot's cage.

It was Sunday. And there was no way in hell that I was going to pay premium price by calling the plumber on a Sunday. It wasn't an emergency like the time my pipes froze in the winter time on Super Bowl weekend.

So come first thing this morning, I gave Roger the plumber a call and left a message on his voice mail. (I would have been VERY surprised had he answered the phone himself.)

So many hours later, Roger called back and said that he would be at my house in 5 to 10 minutes.

What was interesting was that Roger did not even have to ask for my street address. That's the advantage of living in a small town and using a local guy.

(We knew Roger. In addition to his son having gone to the same school as Ariana, Roger was also the same plumber who came to our rescue when our pipes had burst in January.)

While waiting for Roger, I decided that it would be a good idea to clean out the litter box. Not because it stunk (not that you would noticed the smell over the standing water in the basin under the sink)~ because it did ~ but because it was rather full.

Roger came before I was finished with the cat box. And he was done just minutes after I finished. I was amazed how quickly it took for Roger to replace the rotted out fitting with a brand new brass fitting.

It took all of 15 minutes for Roger the plumber to take care of things. And it took much longer for me to bail the smelly water out from the basin under the sink.

I told him to send me the bill in the mail.

But at least now the kitchen doesn't stink any more.