My Marvelous Experience at the Posh Hair Salon

I had my appointment today to get my haircut. I knew going in that it was going to be posh – to my standards, anyway. Online it says that the prices are inclusive of shampoo, cut, finish (styling), and refreshments. Free refreshments!

I got there at 11.15 on the dot. They called upstairs (on a phone…they didn’t yell) and said to Cat, “Your lady’s here.” All of the staff were wearing black and white. Mostly black trousers with cute white tank tops. There was one male stylist – he was in all black and was bald.

After I parked Julie and had a brief consultation with Cat, the shampoo girl shampooed, massaged (my head), and conditioned my hair. Then I sat down in “the chair”. Julie was beside me the whole time and was, as usual, being a chick magnet. Cat trimmed the back a little, trimmed the bangs a little, then used a blow dryer to start straightening it, then used a flat iron to straighten it the rest of the way. I didn’t have my glasses on, so I could only see a little at this point. All I can say is that I was thinking “my hair sure looks flat!” After it was all straight, she got out her scissors and “took the weight out” – she thinned and texturized it. During this whole time in “the chair” I was enjoying a vanilla latte and some carmelized biscuits. Very posh.

And this is the finished product: (if there's no picture, I'm still working on uploading it - grrr)

A few thoughts:
1 – I love it, so don’t tell me if you don’t. I feel stylish.
2 – I think Steve won’t like it, but oh well.
3 – I think the style cries out for some highlights.

Speaking of feeling stylish, I’m now going to ramble a bit about British style vs. American style. To sum it up: Americans, on the whole, are sloppy. Or maybe just those in Los Alamos, in which case, the rest of you lot can ignore that “sloppy” comment. I’ll even get more specific: my style was sloppy. The women here rarely wear jeans. Maybe that’s just because it’s still so warm (only up to 32 earlier as opposed to the recor-breaking 36.3 yesterday). Most moms in the schoolyard picking up or dropping off kiddos are wearing skirts or trousers of some sort. Not many shorts and hardly any denim trousers. Lots of Capri-length pants. Lots of natural, “wrinkly” type fabrics. Lots of what they call gypsy skirts in all lengths. Lots of tank tops. Very feminine sandals.

So I gave in to the undertow of fashion.

Did I mention that I went shopping on my b-day? I bought some stylish clothes. A denim skirt, a couple of gypsy skirts, knit coulottes (which are fashionable), and some linen/cotton Capri pants. The Capris are low-rise (sit below the belly button), which is comfy, but they are always threatening to fall down. After I wear them for about 30 minutes, they are sufficiently stretched out to not want to stay up. So I had to go to a charity shop (what we call thrift store) and bought a belt for £1.50. Now I don’t have to worry about flashing the village as I walk to Park Lane to get Caleb. I also bought some thong sandals. They are a copper color with lots of sequins. Audrey loves them and is always trying to wear them.

So now with my hair and clothes, I don’t feel like such a slob. And Steve isn’t fussing about the cost because I keep telling him how girlie I feel. So when the fall/winter clothes come out, expect me to get more!

Shall I go on about the driving now? I shall. It’s only 2:31 as I write this and the girls and I still have 30 minutes until we go get Caleb.

People park wherever they want over here. As long as there isn’t a double yellow line on the street running parallel to the curb, people will pull over and park. With traffic or against, it doesn’t matter. If there’s room for your vehicle, the philosophy is “go for it.” Very different from home. I got a ticket once for parking facing the wrong way on the street in front of our house. That was irritating.

So we have all these people who have parked their cars along the sides of streets. The streets are only about 2 ½ car widths, so the parked cars cause problems. You either have to squeeze between a parked car and a car coming from the other direction (who is trying not to scrape the curb), or you have to wait until oncoming traffic stops so you can go around the parked cars. This particularly causes problems when buses are involved.

And roundabouts. Where to start with those gems of traffic engineering? Well, you yield to the right, as you are going to the left. But if you meet someone head-on at a mini-roundabout and they are continuing straight on and you are wanting to turn right (across traffic), you have the right of way. Which is opposite of home. When you meet someone when you want to turn left (across traffic) at home, you yield to them.

Then we have the pedestrian crossings: zebra crossings, humped zebra crossings, toucan, and puffin crossings. I have no clue what they are, so I will only mention their names so you can laugh at the Limeys.

The motorcyclists are hated by all. They feel the right to drive wherever they want – between cars at lights, beside cars on 1-lane roads, up the stripes in traffic jams. Everybody loathes them. And bicyclists are just plain annoying. They cause the same sort of problems as parked cars, but they’re mobile to boot.

I saw a big van take the side mirror off a parked car yesterday. Actually he just peeled it towards the front of the car. It was pretty wild. That’s what you get when you park your car on the street!

On a semi-related note: the movie “Cars” comes out a week from Saturday. We can book our tickets now to go see it. That’s weird to me – booking tickets for a movie. And you get a specific seat, too. Like going to the theatre to see a play. I guess it makes sense, though. The kids are very excited and have been playing with their little “Cars” toys from the Cheerios and Chex cereals we’ve been eating.

And speaking of eating – Caleb is turning into a little chowhound! I send a piece of fruit with him for morning snack at school, then he eats the school lunch (which sound really good), then the school gives each kid another piece of fruit in the afternoon. Then he comes home “starving” and gets another snack (or “tea” as they call it here), then dinner. He usually cleans his plate at dinner, and sometimes has seconds – especially if it’s Indian food.

I know that I still need to write about Sports Day – I forgot until Mom reminded me this morning, so after school today, I’ll try to get Caleb to tell me about it.

I’m going to go now so I can play a game of “Bouncy Symphony” before leaving in 14 minutes.