I have a book waiting to be sent to someone I promised two weeks ago. I already messed up by putting the wrong zip code and getting it sent back to me as undeliverable. I was all prompt, and I screwed it up anyway. Now I'm procrastinating a trip to the post office for some strange reason, and I decided I am doing it today. I don't know why today, but it needs done. The book isn't the only thing that needs sent. I have a box of stuff to send to my sister, including two shirts she left here when my family visited in August. Yes, that was two months ago. I could stand to send my dad a birthday card too. Last year, I said I'd get one to him on time this year. See how well that turned out? I'm the worst at getting cards to people on time. At least I send them. I suppose that's better than nothing at all, but it still seems thoughtless. Three important things that need to be sent seem to make the post office a high priority.

Later, Hammy needs a haircut. The poor boy always ends up getting shaggy because we forget. And forget. And forget. Every morning he gets up and complains about his hair, pasting down all the rooster tails that form overnight, and every afternoon he comes home and wants to play, and I don't think a thing of letting him. By night, we both remember. Why his appearance doesn't jog my memory is beyond me. I'm determined to remember today. I already look like a bad enough mom without having a child that looks like Cousin It.

I do have the same problem with Booie, but since I cut her hair, it's not so bad. If I let her hair get too long I can usually whack off the bangs quickly enough that she will be able to see her way to school in the morning. It almost always gets in her eyes before I whip out the scissors. I've been quite lucky that I haven't made too many bang-cutting errors on her and sent her off looking like she was playing in the bathroom with a razor. She has a cowlick that gives me fits though. It often looks like I cut her hair crooked when really I just don't know how to compensate for her cowlick. The few times she's had a professional cut, the stylists never seem to do any better job in dealing with it than I do, so I save the money and torture the poor girl with at-home service.

Getting haircuts is not just the problem of children in this house. John and I put them off as well. We aren't just putting our kids through the misery. My last hair cut was documented here. John finally broke down and had his mom cut his. She has actually been trained as a stylist years ago, so he looks very nice. He just hates to bug her to do it, because she's a manager at a PR firm who does computer work. She didn't become a hair stylist, because she didn't really like it. I, on the other hand, have never been trained, but I've cut John's hair a couple times too. I also bleached it once and dye my own hair all the time. I'm a hack, but everything turned out fairly well so far. I only had one bad incident with my own hair when I had to go to a salon and have my color fixed. That mistake was the reason I went blonde for the first time. I hope to never have to be blonde again. I don't want to make any more mistakes, and I don't like being blonde. Maybe it has something to do with those Glamour Shots photos.

My friend, Dena, had some kind of gathering to get made up and have pictures taken. It was advertising in disguise as a fun makeover party with your friends. I had nothing better to do, because my life has always been just as exciting as it is now. I went to see what kind of horror those makeup artists and hair stylists could come up with. If one of them tried to touch me with unsanitary tools, I vowed to run screaming from the store. Last thing I needed was a nasty eye infection or a case of lice. Thankfully, there was no screaming to be had, even after I was glamorized. I did come close to wrestling the curling iron out of the hair stylist's hand and had to demand a good brushing to get rid of the poodle-like curls, but that's about as scary as it got.

I tried to pick out some non-gaudy outfits, but I don't really think I succeeded all that well. There wasn't much that fell in the non-gaudy category. Even if there were, the goofball poses the "photographer" had me do would have rendered any tasteful outfits ridiculous anyway. I chose the two least goofy poses I could find to put here. All had a what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here smile or a stiff pose. One shot had my hand in my hair that made me look like I was scratching for the lice I was worried about catching. All shots containing hands made me look like the mannequins I so despise. I did one set of shots with a fake fur stole just to be a dork, and of course, those are the ones John liked. The man has no taste. That confirmed it.

I didn't order pictures, but I did get the proof sheet. I didn't want evidence of this experience sitting on John's office desk, and I certainly didn't want any of them hanging on my walls. It's funny to pull them out every so often. I really didn't look that bad, but I'll take candids over those any day.

How did I manage to get from needing to go to the post office to Glamour Shots pictures? Very strange. But I do need to go. Besides the post office trip, I also have to buy four more two-liters of whatever is cheap, so I can dump it out and take it into Booie's school today for pop bottle bowling. I wasn't insane enough to volunteer to be head room mother this year, but I did volunteer to help. I got bowling, which is incredibly easy, but leave it to me to put it off until the very day of the party. So I have to get more pop bottles and decorate them in some cute, Halloween way and also get a couple gourds and small pumpkins for bowling balls. Think I can manage that by 1:30 PM?

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One Year Ago Today:

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