Hair, Eggs, and Treadmills

I would rather change dentists than hairdressers. If I went to the dentist, that is. And while I may neglect the professional care of my teeth, I am much more attentive to the professional care of my hair. I only wish our insurance company would allow me to apply what I am NOT spending at the dentist towards the care and maintenance of my mane. Don't you wish there was hair-insurance? I can just imagine sitting down in the salon chair for "triage:"

"Well, Jenn, our professional opinion is that you are in dire need of highlights."

"Is the treatment painful?"

"No, but it will require follow-up appointments. We'll have to monitor your hair growth closely so that we can avoid the negative side-effect that plagues all our hair-color-alteration patients. The curse of the untouched roots."

Oh! Oh! And products like mousse and gel could be "prescribed" and therefore also covered by insurance. I think I just hit on a fantastic business idea. I could build an empire on the promise of hair-insurance.

But alas, since I am an un-hair-insured American, I had to choose between cut and color this month, as my budget certainly could not stretch to cover both. Given the darkness of the drab days of winter, I went for the highlights. This was a risky decision because my beloved hairdresser, Kara, has recently moved away (sniff, sniff) and I was having my first appointment with my new gal. Getting highlights on a first hair appointment is almost like proposing marriage on a first date. I mean, highlights are a commitment! Nevertheless, I went for it. I actually went all the way, and got some lowlights, too. You know, to mix it up a little. But enough about my hair....

On a completely different note, egg flipping has become like an Olympic sport in our house. Ever since we rented Julie & Julia and I learned that I simply needed to approach the eggs with confidence, I have been an avid egg-flipper. My boys were impressed at first, but not to be outdone by mom, immediately decided they had to try their hands at it. I think we are now cooking eggs just so that we can flip them. Until today, there had been no misses. Sadly, this morning Graham flipped his eggs directly onto the burner of my glass-top stove. He somehow managed to salvage his egg, yolk and all, and I reminded him: "Better to have flipped and flopped, than never to have flipped at all."

And now a word about treadmills. I have been running outdoors for years, and never taken a spill. Mind you, I have always kept it simple. I don't even run with an iPod. It's just been me and the pavement. But now that I have ventured into the world of treadmill-running, I am beginning to fear for life and limb. At the gym, I notice that many of my fellow treadmill trotters are aerobic multi-taskers. They read books or magazines while listening to music and occasionally glance at big screen TVs that glow before them with closed-captioned writing.

The thing is, if one gets distracted, the treadmill keeps rolling. There is no way to slow it down or stop it without pushing buttons, and, well, that can prove dangerous for some. I knew that reading would be beyond my limited coordination abilities, but I thought that I could review my memory verses while running. I thought wrong. On Tuesday, 3x5 cards slipped off of the magazine holder on my treadmill and flew in every direction. I instinctively bent down to pick up my scattered note cards, and was instantly conveyed backwards, spilling off of the end of the belt and joining my memory verses on the floor. The treadmill, however, continued dutifully working out without me. I gathered my 3X5 cards, and tried to figure out how to get back on a moving treadmill, when I noticed a bright red STOP button on one of the side bars. Stop it, I did. Fortunately, I don't think anyone noticed. Who could, with iPods blaring, magazine pages gleaming, and TVs flashing?

In the meantime, I completely blocked this incident from my mind. I didn't mention it to David or the boys. I conveniently forgot that it even happened. A couple of days ago I showed David a painful bruise that "mysteriously" appeared on my calf. Together, we wondered where in the world this bruise had come from. Today, it dawned on me. The bruise is undoubtedly from my treadmill accident. Man, I miss pavement.

Tweet