Monday

[susandennis]

The bathroom mirror has declared that today is haircut day. To be fair, it first made the declaration last week but I argued. And argued. And argued. But, today, I give up. Time to get it done. I am amused by how much I am annoyed by the whole hair cut thing. Every single time. At least this time I have instructions with pictures. And, hopefully, I'll get a non-chatty cutter.

So after coffee and breakfast, I'll head out. There's a Trader Joe's semi near the hair cutter so I think I'll stop in there.

Yesterday I did all of the laundry in the house. Clean, folded and put away.

While I was swimming today, I was remembering Christmases as a kid. I have so many wonderful memories. It's fun to take them out now and again, dust them off and enjoy them. Then when I got home, a guy from upstairs got in the elevator with to tall, skinny boxes - 'new skis' he said.

When I was in my early teens, the place we loved in the mountains and the place where we spent lots of Summer weekends - Blowing Rock, NC - opened up a ski slope. My parents knew the folks to opened it and we got to try it early and often. We loved it. When I was 14 or 15, one year, we got skis for Christmas.

Mother and Daddy hid them at a neighbor's house. Then, on Christmas Eve, they discovered that the neighbors had apparently forgotten about the skis and had gone out of town. Daddy pulled off his first and last B&E and Christmas was saved and a family story grew and was embellished and lived on far longer than those skis even did.

Comments

[rsc.livejournal.com]

hopefully, I'll get a non-chatty cutter.

This attitude apparently has a long and honorable history. In Mary Renault's biography of Alexander the Great, The Nature of Alexander, she notes that Alexander's father, Philip, is reputed to be the originator of "the classic put-down of a chatty barber: 'How do you like your hair cut, sir?' 'In silence.'"

the place where we spent lots of Summer weekends - Blowing Rock, NC

I have a friend who lives in Blowing Rock.

[susandennis]

1. OMG - Now I will be quoting Alexander the Great! I did actually get a minimal chatterer yesterday. Whew.

2. Blowing Rock used to be an amazing mountain village. The weekly newspaper - the Blowing Rocket - once ran a front page story about the new fire engine. It carried a sidebar plea to the community... Now that we have 2, please wait until the second fire engine passes before you follow to the fire.

I love that town. I wonder what it's like now.

[waitingonsunday.livejournal.com]

I've only ever been to Blowing Rock in the fog, so I've never been able to get a complete picture of the area (no pun intended), but what stands out to me are the confusing, forever curving roads and way, way, way, way, way too much traffic, even on a crappy, fogged-out winter day. We'll plan stops there as part of an extended weekend mountain trip and it's always foggy the day we set aside for Blowing Rock. It's become an in-joke for us. It's also always foggy when we visit the Linn Cove area of the Blue Ridge Parkway. And! It's always raining in Asheville, the only exception being if we're going through it at sunset, in which case, it's clear and sunny and blinding as we try to figure out where the hell anything is in that town.