Hair Today...

When I was a little girl I had white-blonde hair, and Jim did as well. Yep, we were towheads.

(Do you know where that term came from? When making Flax into cloth, the short fibers that need to be removed from the long threads are called tow, and apparently are really white. So blonde colonial children got the nickname towheads, and it's stayed in our vocabulary.)

Many women wish they could keep their blonde locks, and pay a lot of money to keep the dream alive - and Clairol and L'Oreal just love them for it. When I was about 9 my mother taught me to help her frost her hair, a process that involved a shower cap with holes all over it. I would stick a crochet hook through and pull out strands of hair which she could then bleach. It is a MUCH more sophisticated process now.

(I considered inserting a photo of a head of hair with several dozen foil pieces sticking up all over, but I think everyone pretty much knows just how dorky that looks.)



But when we were girls, we couldn't just run get highlights like you can now. We resorted to using whatever product we were told would work. I remember putting lemon juice on it when out in the sun, but that didn't seem to lighten it much; tho the way it turned our hair to straw told us it was doing something.

I got my hair done the other day, and during a discussion of such coloring techniques, my hairdresser, Judy, confessed she'd tried all the same weird things girls try to make their hair lighter. She laughed as she remembered how she and her sister had an epic fail when they experimented on their little sister. They'd bought Sun-In, and not wanting to risk their own hair, they took her outside to spray it on her BROWN hair. They watched in horror as it started getting redder and redder, becoming quite copper just as mom was coming home, and they caught it for that one. When she was a little older and expressed desire to be a real hair professional, Judy's mom made it clear she could NOT come near her head until she had plenty of training!

Nichole told me that when she was in beauty school, an older lady came in who admitted she'd had plenty of product put into her hair lately, but wanted now to have new color put in. They tried to explain to her that there was NO guarantee of how it would turn out since they didn't know what had been done previously. But she was okay with that, so they continued. They even tested a little strand first and there was no strange reaction, no smoke coming off of it like COULD happen with some bizarre chemical reaction.

It turned out GREEN.

Dark avocado green. Nichole saw her the next day and could totally pick her out from the crowd across the street when she came down to lunch - that's how well she now stood out. She was a classy lady, always wearing suits and working in the capitol building in SLC... but she loved to be adventurous with her hair, so she was just fine with the green!

I was sad when I was 11 and still thought I was blonde, only to realize I really wasn't any longer. My hair just kept getting darker; my grandmother even accused me of coloring it.
THAT didn't start until I was in my 40's. And of course, I'm working at keeping it dark nowadays. I pay for product and services so that I can keep the gray at bay. I'm just vain enough to put up with the dorky foil strips every 5 weeks or so. Maybe when I'm older and really facing being a towhead again, I'll try out avocado green!
Think I could pull it off?

Letter to an Atheist

This post is an answer an atheist's commentary in the paper, printed Nov 2007; I wrote the following letter to the editor and it was published. (I found this copy in my journal)
The fellow (an engineer and author,) was commenting on a piece by a religious lady, and made his atheism clear. At the end he tells us he is a member of Humanism, and invites her to join him. He also says somewhat mockingly, "Tell us, in your most humble opinion, what does a god do with his time? Create hurricanes? Manufacture drug-resistant viruses? Bless serial killers? Where does evil come from in a world totally controlled by a loving god?"
It was his insinuation that religion is just ancient superstitions exposed as manmade fabrications that bugged me the most, and I hope he read it. (He was a guest writer, not an editor.) There were be comments on MY comments, other people piped in as well.

I can respect Charles Lesher's lack of belief in God, especially if he hasn't had any spiritual experiences to help him understand there is a living God/Creator. If he doesn't want God in his life, then God will indeed stay out.
But for those of us who invite God in on a daily basis, we DO have spiritual experiences. I know that for myself, I've prayed mightily to have my asthmatic daughter be able to breathe (late at night in a foreign place where I had no access to medical help,) and her breathing became completely better within minutes. I have prayed for help solving a problem and had pure, NEW, information put into my mind in answer, something that I hadn't thought up on my own.
When this happens time and again throughout one's life, it is impossible to NOT believe in God. So while Mr. Lesher states: " ... in world where science has increasingly exposed the ancient superstitions as manmade fabrications.," I take exception to the idea of lumping all 'ancient superstitions' with my current belief system. My faith is in a God who lives now, and answers my prayers often immediately, and helps me cope with a sometimes lousy world... there is nothing ancient about it.
Mr. Lesher hints at an assertion I hear from many atheists, that a loving God wouldn't allow people to suffer. It assumes one knows completely why God created us and put us on this world. Personally, I think he created us first in a perfect place, but wanted us to have experiences away from perfection, so we grow up on an imperfect, disease-ridden world, where even the weather can get out of control and cause death. We have to deal with microbes that maim and kill, parasites that sicken us, wild beasts that eat us, and other humans that hurt and destroy for the sheer pleasure of it.
I can't say I agree completely with Linda Turley-Hansen's statements as I think some sound a little odd. I think I prefer Einstein's explanation: "The deeper one penetrates into nature's secrets, the greater becomes one's respect for God." And, "We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations."

To believe in a greater power that created the heavens, us and this earth is to me more logical than the idea that life here evolved without some direction. Life seems to decay when left alone, not evolve into a higher life form. I've yet to hear a good explanation of how something as complicated as the eyeball, or our heart, or mammary glands could evolve without management by a higher power. I really can't fathom a fish saying one day, "I am so tired of bumping around in the dark, I hope my offspring have a way to focus and see clearly." Not all God-fearing people feel that a God/Creator and evolution are mutually exclusive.
Some religions have indeed gone overboard in imposing morals and laws to the detriment of society. And some teach some pretty wacky things. But it doesn't mean ALL religions and faiths are wrong or that God does not exist. I take exception when Mr. Lesher suggests I need to "accept reality as it is instead of how our primitive ancestors thought it should be." My faith isn't based on primitive belief systems as much as it is based on my reality here and now, my spiritual experiences I have been having for 40 years, since I 'found God' as a teen.
- Robin Reeder 16 Nov 2007

Pa'i - qui' 排球

I commented back in October on how Chinese restaurants are handing out

Advice Cookies

nowadays instead of telling us our fortune.

The cookie I received last week follows suit and with not such remarkable advice:

"Forget those things that aren't worth remembering."

Okay, I guess that is great advice for people harboring anger or resentment.

However, it was the back of the 'fortune' that caught my eye. Above my lucky numbers was this:

LEARN CHINESE - Volleyball

pa'i -qui' 排球.

I am guessing one would say this Pie-key.

That will REALLY come in handy when I am next in Hong Kong! Hopefully the other cookies have more helpful words, like taxi or subway or hotel. Maybe if you buy enough Chinese food, you could string together a sentence with the words you get to learn... something useful like, "Please, where might I find a restroom?"

Instead with my luck, I'd learn to say, "Your mother is an ugly volleyball."

Storing Veggies

When Dani was here for Christmas, we bought this spinach at Costco -I balked because that was a LOT of spinach and I really didn't think we'd eat it all and make it worth the cost. I was SO wrong.

Well, not about not eating it. The holidays were so busy and we were always out and were not eating regular meals, especially not big salads. I certainly wasn't eating any, and she didn't make all the smoothies she thought she would, yada yada....

So I've ignored this bin of spinach in my fridge, dreading getting it out and cleaning out the slimy leaves. It's been in there 3 weeks and I'm imagining the very worst - like the time my mother MAILED me some flowers she'd picked from her patio planter. She was SO PLEASED at how pretty they were, so as a surprise to me, she put several into a baggie, popped them into a manila envelope and sent them off. I open the envelope and find this baggie of brown GOO - it seriously looked like something your doctor might ask you to bring in to the lab. UGH!! (and no note of explanation, so I truly wondered at its contents!!)

But NO! I got brave and opened the plastic container to find great looking spinach! As in, many edible leaves! Yes, there were some slimy ones and the rest of it is actually heading out to the mulch pile this morning. But this is after we made a decent sized salad last night.

Since my previous experience with pre-packed spinach and salads from the grocery store has been rifling through the bags looking for the one with the latest expiration date, in hopes they MIGHT last more than a few days in my fridge, and then they go bad anyway if we don't eat them in like two days; well, this organic spinach - NOT laden with some suspicious preservatives - was a wonderful surprise.

Then I thought the bin would be a great holder for the little toys the kiddos have strewn around upstairs, but Nichole pointed out that it is this magic plastic bin that makes the spinach last so well. She's asked the grocer, it is made of the plastic they use in Green bags, and inhibits the ethylene that makes food decay. (she said Sprouts has smaller versions of these containers, too. The veggies might seem expensive initially, but then you've got this great container for the fridge.) And lest you get really impressed that I knew HOW they worked, I'll confess I wrote oxygen first - but then I went here
Green Bags
to read all about Ethylene (the gas, NOT your great-grandfather's first girlfriend.)

And here is another site which Dani found - How to store fruits and vegetables

Well, now I'm going to use the bin in my drawer with other veggies; we'll see how well the celery or peppers will last in there.

And if it doesn't seem all that much of an improvement, it will instead go upstairs and store legos..... to make THEM last even longer than their million year lifespan.

Love the Clouds!

My sister-in-law keeps posting the most beautiful sky photos from their house up in Nevada - Corey and Debi live near Lake Tahoe in one of our favorite valleys in the country! I'm always so jealous, since the common sky here is blue; Day after day, clear clear clear. Colorful sunsets are rare.

So when I headed out for my walk this morning and realized we had some real color up in our sky, I was SO glad I'd grabbed the phone/camera as I stepped out the door. I hurried around the corner to get a better view, aware that each step - each second - the rich purples, pinks and oranges were fading from the sunrise.

I met Nichole up on a corner and the first words out of her mouth were about the colorful sky, so I suggested we head further over to an open spot over the golf course that would afford a house-less view and a true vista.

I grabbed my phone to quickly snap a photo, but then realized I really don't have MY phone... my phone has cracks in the hinges and I've been using a similar phone we inherited from Jim's sister Linda last July. I am using it until I figure out if I want to get a new phone, but its differences vex me. And the camera, how do I operate the camera?! I'm hurrying, knowing that literally every second means the gorgeous colors are fading, and we can see that already.






Nichole is getting out her phone as well, and I'm fiddling with mine. I think I've finally done it and take a few pictures - here's the prettiest one. Not bad for unretouched out of a camera.







But we were interrupted by nearly falling down laughing when I took a look at my first shot. I'd been hurrying to snap the photo, trying to figure out even if there was a button to push, I thought I'd previously seen one over on the side of the phone. I find it and finally take aim at the changing sky and shoot.





And when I quickly brought up my first photo to see if it were even decent - well you can see why I nearly fell over laughing.

There's a reason this isn't a Photo Blog.