ShoeSense

You know you've let your home renovation project take over your life when ...

I went to a new hairdresser the other day; he had blond highlights, and a white flowy shirt with the top two buttons open, worn casually over jeans. He announced me in a mild-mannered way that I had fine hair, not as much of it in the front as in the back, and that a bunch of my otherwise gold-red locks were irremediably fried. After the pleasantries were over, he proceeded to give me an otherwise nice haircut, and recommended that I condition the bejeesus out of my fried clump of hairs by using whatever conditioner I had available under a shower cap (he generously provided two of those) for as long as I could, whenever I had an idle moment. "Not the sexiest of looks," he warned me, "but it's going to be good for your hair." He then regaled me with stories of his threesomes with his young girlfriend's hot girlfriends (oh, I wish I were kidding!), of his dabbling in poetry (published in an anthology), and his father's plumbing business next door (oh good, we need an extra plumber, I thought).

All randy talk aside, his conditioning advice seemed rather sensible, so this Sunday when my husband announced that we needed to organize the shelves downstairs, in our (still unfinished) den, I said to myself, "Great! a most propitious moment indeed for hair conditioning, while cleaning and organizing in sweats and a raggedy t-shirt. Perfect!"

So I poured a half-bottle or so of Nexus grapefruit conditioner onto my head, rubbed vigorously for a minute or so, and covered the messy result in the shower cap. Ready for action, I got out of the bathroom.

Upon my exit, I met my super-duper mini-bull terrier. In case you forgot him, allow me to reintroduce him to you--the world's most loving, most mommy-attached, most affectionate dog:
My dog looked at me for a split second, and almost without hesitation started barking at me furiously, the way he barks when he senses strangers are about to enter our house and possibly attack me with a 5-foot stick, therefore robbing him of any hope for a decent Greenie in the near future. The more he looked, the more he barked, undoubtedly saying something like, "What did you do with mommy, hideous shower cap? I demand you return her at once, or otherwise get lost!"

"Geez, this thing is uglifying," I thought. My husband entered on cue and had a slight jolt.

"What on EARTH is THAT?" he demanded to know.

I blabbered something about deep conditioning, fried roots, and threesomes, not particularly in that order. He winced, looked skeptical, and said, "I guess you're not out to seduce me today."

"Um... I thought we were cleaning and organizing the shelves," I said rather weakly.

"Yeah, whatever," he said dismissively and proceeded about his business. Whenever he looked at me from then on, he had a slight twitch he struggled to control. "Not the sexiest of looks," I grumbled to myself. "Indeed!"

But I stoically trudged along--I mean, anything in the name of beauty, right? I tried to stay out of the way of the two disapproving men of the house (husband+dog), and by mid-afternoon the shelves were brimming with well-organized office supplies and miscellanea. Determined to redeem myself, I took a long shower and cleared off that conditioner, prettified myself, and put on a dress, just for the heck of it (a Banana Republic navy dress with short flutter sleeves, satin back tie, and light blue and purple floral print). The hair also looked much better at the erstwhile frizzy ends, and so I descended upon the living room, where my husband was fiddling around on his laptop, dog firmly tucked under his left arm.

I sat down on the couch next to him and the dog immediately changed camps, eager to give me puppy kisses and wagging his tail. "A-ha, you recognize your mommy now, don't you?" I said. "Mommy's back!"

My husband stared at me and agreed that this was MUCH better, an opinion which he sealed with a "yum!"

And then, after further contemplation, his inner turmoil readily visible in his furrowed brow, he asked,

"So, what IS it that you are wearing?"

"A dress," I responded. "It's called a dress."

"Ooooh, he said. Nice."

You know you've let your home renovations project take over your life when your husband cannot recognize a simple item of clothing because you had no opportunity or desire to wear it in so long.

Two more weeks. Just two more weeks....

posted by Cristina Hanganu-Bresch @ 8:33 PM