Salon Expectations

Queen Noor

Tomorrow is salon day.

I was reminded of my high expectations when I mentioned the appointment to my 12-year-old son, Aidan.

We were departing his basketball practicee whereby the coach had them playing shirts and skins. (I texted Bob to ask if it's appropriate for boys to play shirts and skins because I thought it was weird.)

"Tomorrow you will have a new mother," I said, after settling the fact that the coach gave the boys a choice whether to be shirts or skins and Aidan had chosen to be on the fully clothed team.

"Oh, what happened to the queen?" he said.

"Huh?" I was confused. Was the tween boy being a smart aleck by implying that my long needed salon appointment was making me an diva mother? Was he making fun of me? Should I cancel the appointment?

"No, remember your last hair-do was that queen," he said, sincerely. He wasn't being a smart mouth, he just had a really good memory. He was right. Last time I went to the salon I took a picture of Queen Noor's hair. Straight the shoulder, layered on top. I was confident that my hair magician could transform me into the former first lady of Jordan whose husband died in spite of long stints at the Mayo Clinic, purple Royal Jordanian Airliner parked at the Rochester, Minnesota, airport for weeks and months. Noor means "light" in Arabic.

"Oh yeah, you're right," I conceded. "I did go for for the queen. I think this time I'll go for the Diane Keaton." A whispy, whimsical bob. You may remember her as the bad parallel parker in "Annie Hall." Bob and I still laugh at the line when she parks in Manhattan and her date, Woody Allen says, That's OK I'll just walk to the curb from here. Bob and I actually say that to each other fairly often, when one or the other of us parallel parks.

"Oh, what's that hair like?" Aidan said.

"I'll show you a picture," I reassured him. I got the feeling that he was afraid that I might actually do something really outlandish.

You see, lately, I've been sporting the recession hair-do. Long, thick, stringy, often pulled into a severe bun. That's when you avoid the cuts and costs of the salon and do the best you can with your cheap shampoo and hot flat iron. If you're lucky, your natural color blends with the color of gray, until your daughter one day discovers your secret.

"MOM! Holy cow, you've got a ton of gray hair!" my Zena-like, statuesque 15-year-old daughter, Amanda, informed me the other day when she hazarded to lift my hair and look underneath. But that's another story. Back to my salon appointment for tomorrow. . .

So anyway, my Queen Noor do worked fairly well for a long time. A loooooong time. I had thought that my next plan would be the Talia Balsam, otherwise known as George Clooney's ex-wife, look. One elegant length, straight the the chin. That's before my hair turned into the recession do, and to be honest, I think it has transformed kinda Michelle Bachmanish. Or maybe it's the serial killer mother eyes. My daughter, who happens to be a varsity cheerleader, says that I tend to evoke serial killer mother in pictures. Sadly, she's right. For some reason when I'm in a picture, I try to present a happy smile and I end up looking menacing, in a middle class kind of way. I get those crazy Michelle Bachman eyes. I'm not crying in my soup about it, I'm just saying all the more reason for a salon appointment.

Diane Keaton

Goodbye recession hair. Goodbye liquid assets for this pay period. Hello high expectations.

I wish my salon medicine woman all the best. You're invited to do the same.

Bob hasn't texted me back yet regarding the shirts and skins dilemma. And just in case you're wondering, this blog post is actually a cleverly disguised yet elaborate procrastination tactic to avoid writing my cumulative annotated bibliography due soon and very soon.

Thanks much for coming over! Hair prayers welcome.

With love, T