Potatoes in the Mist

This will be a short, somewhat incoherent post b/c I'm tired, but I wanted to jot a couple of things down... 1) Went to visit Rainer (I saw him a few times recently but didn't blog about it, because while it was fun to see him, nothing unusual happened). Today he was kind of jumpy and actually nipped my hand when I was talking to DG. It may have been a bid for my full attention...but I was annoyed! He acted like he didn't do anything wrong, and stayed on my lap. I got up shortly thereafter because my legs were asleep, and honestly...I was a little mad! Then he prowled around the bookstore, lay down so I could rub his belly, and got on my lap again. He acted like nothing had happened - purring, rubbing his head against my sleeve, etc. But still....why did he nip me? It wasn't hard enough to break the skin, or leave a mark, or even hurt really...but it was bad! Now I feel like I'm in an abusive relationship. I should've said, "No, Rainer. BAD!" 2) On the...

We had dinner last night with a couple of friends, T and A (I know, I know ;). The waiter, whom I've known for a while, suddenly had wild, red bushy hair; the look was not unflattering, but made him seem like a mountain man. As he brought our dishes, he said, "You're the special nuggets, you're the five treasures, etc.," referring to us by our entree names. This sparked a memory for him, which he shared. As a child, he was eating out with his family, and they all ordered sodas, which was a rare event, he said. They were all excited. The waiter brought them their drinks and said, "You must be the Coke, you must be the ___." Then he contemplated the youngest, who was small for his age, and said, "You must be the squirt." Everyone laughed and the poor kid was traumatized. The thing was, he actually did order a squirt. I think it was a grape soda of some kind. I also got thinking about T's hair. She's worn it short for a while, and I though...

I love Pert Plus. It's such a mundane, pedestrian shampoo, but it makes my hair so silky ;) I got a trial size when we went to Providence, and now I'm hooked.

It's funny how a touch of henna can make my day better. (Side note: my mom told me she used to do a "henna rinse" to make her hair reddish. "Rinse" is a euphemism; you are actually creating a vaguely gross-looking paste to spread on your hair and leave on for a couple of hours.) However, it works magic. If I go too long between applications, I start to feel like a grey-streaked beast and my self-esteem plummets. After I've put it on...ta-dah!...my hair is dark brown ALL THE WAY TO THE ROOTS and I no longer feel like a grandmother. (Not that there is anything wrong with grandmothers, I'd just rather not feel like one when I'm 31 and don't even have any children.) D and I hit the Strand tonight, where I got a bunch of books (all half-price), including Posh by Lucy Jackson, The Yummy Mummy by Polly Williams (complete with a preening author photo that proclaims, " I am a yummy mummy!" but I just thought, "Good for her!"), and Ask...

The answer is: hair. This year was our turn to have Thanksgiving with the in-laws (next year we'll be in Massachusetts with my brother's mother-in-law's fabulous pumpkin pie, with brandy in the filling). Anyway, D has two male cousins. One of them has told us in the past, "It would take a weed whacker" to cope with his body hair. So both of them took off their shirts and we compared. It was determined that M was hairier than J; M's chest and back hair was denser, while J's was more artfully distributed. J even had "eagle tufts," small puffs of hair on his shoulders. How hairy is your man? (Or woman.)