cue: chirping birds

What a weekend!

Spring truly is a fabulous time of the year. My little world is so full of life right now. We’ve been planting like crazy, and when the sproutlings and seeds began to take over the kitchen, we got a greenhouse and put it on the upper deck. All the baby sunflowers, poppies, morning glories, basil, dill and whatever else was in the dozens of tiny pots were nestled safely into their new warm and sunny shelter. There were a few casualties when 30 mph winds blew the greenhouse over, but a little twine should remedy that. I found two new wind chimes, one of which is very Asian and has a rubber mallet that makes the brass bells sing. The tone is earthy and deep. The other wind chime is celestial themed with little stars and suns on springs. I also acquired several strings of lights, including steel dragonflies and beautiful opaque globes hand painted with stained-glass flowers, and eight brightly-colored Chinese paper lanterns. I’m tres excited to get started decorating.

Lunabelle Violet is still quite ill, so she did not come home from the shelter on Saturday as planned. The kitten may also now have calicivirus, since her next-door neighbor in the sick ward has it and it’s highly contagious. It is also resistant to sterilization and lives in the environment for up to 10 days. So you can wash a bowl and use it a week later and it will still have the virus on it. Awesome. To complicate the issue, she is in mad, rolling-on-the-floor, tail vibrating estrus. A cat in heat is a terrifying thing to behold. When I was visiting with her on Saturday, she was face-butting me so hard and got so carried away that she bit my chin. Purring, of course. Loving me. Dancing around on skinny little hind legs with her rear end held high in the air, pleading. It was difficult to leave her, but me being there was just making her worse and she’s clearly uncomfortable. As of Saturday, her spay surgery was rescheduled for today. But that was before the vet witnessed the excessive drooling – supposedly a sign of calicivirus... though I imagine it could also be a sign of a young cat in heat. Poor Lunabelle. When she finally comes home, she is going to be so thrilled.

As the season demands, it is time for me to throw out all my furniture. I don’t have any furniture, so I cut off all my hair instead – more than a foot of it. Whenever I have short hair, I think I want long hair, and spend years growing it out. Long hair, especially when it’s as monstrously thick as mine, is like having a pet. You have to feed it, and bathe it, and spent quality time with it or it gets unruly. It needs to be tamed, taken in for check-ups, and you have to buy all sorts of supplies and accessories for it. So may daily wrestling match with my long black hair was beginning to dominate my schedule. And it’s spring. So off with her head.

I went to Hair Masters on Broadway in Capitol Hill, mainly because it’s exceedingly cheap, and also because it’s the only place I’ve ever gone to in Seattle and they accept walk-ins. They never do an exemplary job, but it is consistently decent, and the stylists there don’t take creative license over your head without your consent, like they do in posher salons around here. I don’t need an uberkool hipster with violent magenta bangs implementing her agenda on my scalp. I’ve done the punk thing. I’m growing quite utilitarian in my old age. Make it short, and cut it so I don’t need a brush, hairdryer, styling aid or product. I’m not going for hip. I’m going for an extra hour of sleep every morning.

The no-nonsense self-proclaimed Suburban Housewife who cut my hair pulled it from the massive clip and combed it down my back as I held a hand level with my cheekbone to show her the length I wanted. She snapped her gum. “I saw you kissing a boy out there,” she nodded toward the enormous window framing the sidewalk. “Does he know you’re doing this?” I laughed. “He does. He promised he'd still like me.” We're talking about the boy who says makeup on a girl is at best unnecessary, and often overkill. “Take it all off!” I announced.

It reminded me of the exhilaration of standing in my bathroom a couple of years ago with my head over the sink as Bee and Ruby supervised the removal of serious baggage from my skull with #2 clippers. Funny, too – now I remember Ruby and I going out for sushi right after I shaved my head. And Saturday the Boy and I went out for sushi as well. There must be something about ditching your locks and consuming raw fish. This requires further investigation.

I took much delight in disposing of the millions of elastic bands and scrunchies that lurk all over the house on every surface. And I will surely be enjoying my newfound sixty-minutes daily. Perhaps I'll even use it for writing.