Hair

For years I have needed to dye my hair every three to four weeks. I use the box dye that I put in my hair myself. The salon is too expensive and they often don’t get it right. About four years ago, I went in on Senior Discount Day and got my hair cut and colored. I had taken a picture of what I wanted it to look similar to. The haircut was wrong and the color she gave me was not the deep brown with a touch of red. Instead, it was all red…like not hair red but crayon red! I had to cover it up when I went back the next day so they could fix it. Then three years ago I treated myself to a haircut and color treatment for my birthday (which is also Christmas and I wanted it to look nice when the family was together). It turned out great. I was quite pleased until she gave me the bill to pay. It wasn’t the price she had quoted. It was more than twice the price. I almost passed out right there in the mall. So no more salon jobs for me. I buy a box of color for $6 to $10, depending on whether it is on sale or not.

However, because money has been so scarce (and continues to be) I haven’t colored my hair since before Thanksgiving. It is now about fifty percent gray. It makes me look about ten years older than without the gray. At least ten years older. I almost didn’t care because this was also a time when I was depressed and just didn’t care what my hair looked like or what age I looked like. Then I started to feel better when my diabetes started to get better (the wonders of medication!) and all the gray started to bother me. I wanted to look my best. I have been really busy with doctor appointments and trips to the lab for tests, to the hospital, to the pharmacy, and all of those other busy-making things so I had not had the chance to dye it. It kept getting more and more gray and I kept noticing it more and more.

Then I got my diagnosis and although I’ve not been to the oncologist yet, I know it’s not going to be a walk in the park. The biopsy, while I don’t have results yet, showed that the tumor is not only in my gall bladder but in my liver, as well. So if we come up with a treatment plan, it’s not going to be fun.

That’s when I decided to dye my hair. I was not going to wait another minute. I went to the closet where I keep extra boxes of hair dye when I get them on sale. I didn’t have any. There was one box of black that I bought for my sister but black is too severe for me so I couldn’t find any dye in the house. Finally, I found a box I had bought at the Dollar Tree. Yup, hair dye for a dollar. I was reluctant to use it because it was a no name brand with poor spelling on the outside of the box and it was old. But I figured, what the heck. So that’s what I have in my hair now. And it isn’t bad. I didn’t get all the gray but that’s okay. It looks more natural that way.

Now I want a haircut but I’m thinking I might want to leave it long for as long as I can because it might not be too long from now that I won’t have any at all. So that’s the inner debate right now. Of course, I have no money for a haircut and I won’t do it myself, so that will probably be the deciding factor in the endless hair decisions.

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Drop Dead Diva

I recently accepted a Comcast offer to try out their “digital starter” package.  With this package I get a lot of channels that I had not seen previously.  I have developed some favorites that will be tough to get rid of when my trial offer is over.  Yup.  I’m hooked.

One of these shows is called Drop Dead Diva and airs on the  Lifetime Channel.  It’s new this season.  In the first episode of the season, Deb is a 24 year old blonde model who is pretty self-centered.  At the beginning of the episode Deb is speeding off some place and talking on her cell phone while driving.  She gets into an accident and is killed.  Don’t worry, it’s a comedy.  When she is at the gates of heaven, the Gate Keeper sits her down and looks at his computer screen to review her life.  He finds that she has not one single good deed on record for her entire 24 years.  The Gate Keeper says he can’t admit her to heaven with such a record.  He’s saying she’ll have to go back down to earth to try to improve her record but Deb is impatient and sticks her hand on the Gate Keeper’s keyboard and pushes a button which immediately sends her back to earth, to the hospital where she died.  There’s just one problem.  There is another woman dying at the hospital.  She’s a lawyer, named Jane, who took a bullet when an angry husband came to shoot his wife’s lover who happens to be Jane’s boss.  So Deb’s soul ends up in the body of the lawyer who comes back to life!

This would be great, normally, but there are a few problems.  First, Jane is not 24.  She’s 32.  And Jane is not blonde.  She’s a brunette.  She’s not shallow.  She’s intelligent and has a brilliant legal mind and a heart capable of compassion.  But what Deb is most shocked with is that Jane is not a tall, slim,  size 2 model, she’s a short, plump size 16.

The episodes since then have been filled with comedy but also with some thought provoking moments when the show explores some of the public’s prejudices toward intelligent and  physically “less than perfect” women.  The cast is filled with characters that challenge our perceptions of various types of people.  And they do this in a fun and humorous way.

The cast includes Brooke Elliott as Jane; Margaret Cho as Teri, Jane’s secretary and assistant; Kate Levering as Kim, a seemingly heartless female attorney who is constantly competing with Jane, although she is slim and attractive; Josh Stamberg as J. Parker, the managing attorney of the firm where Jane works who is also a less than competent attorney.

There are others who round out the cast but this was just supposed to be a quick post to share this new show I discovered and point you in the right direction should you choose to check it out.  It really is quite worthy of the one hour a week (Sunday evening) that it takes up over the air waves.  (I guess maybe their not air waves any more now that we’re digital.  I don’t know.  If you do, let me know.)

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