Datebook: Monday, March 26th ~ 2007

Editor's note: My apologies for not posting this on Monday.

My daughter is now looking for another place to live as her room mate is moving closer to another training facility. In the long run I try to console myself that it will be cheaper since I will only have to buy handbags for one now.

The search for a new apartment has not been easy.

My daughter has decided she cannot live with anyone else if it can’t be her now box-packing best friend.

My husband, as usual is not much help. “She has a great bedroom upstairs, let her come home and drive to the rink a few times a week.”

So, I convinced my daughter to make an attempt at looking for a place with new people. “It will be an adventure” I told her. “It’s an opportunity to find new friends who are not involved in skating, so you can find other things to talk about.”

She just looked at me.

“It’s a chance to find someone who won’t wear your shoes,” I added.

We looked on Craig’s List and found several promising listings.

“Female wanted to share large modern house. Low rent for “cool” room mate.” Great. We answered the ad and got the following response:

FROM: JAGUARBOB

Subject: House to share

Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007

Hi! Yes the house is still available. You would be sharing with just one person. I own the house and it has three bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 fireplaces, wood floors, C/A, a stainless steel kitchen and a huge room I converted into a Jacuzzi room. It is not far from the ice rink. You have an interesting name. It sounds sexy and exotic—where are you from? Call my cell so we can get to know each better. Thanks, Robert

Since this was not the type of adventure I had envisioned we continued the search.

The next ad sounded simple and sweet. “1 bedroom in prime location, hardwood floors, corner apartment with bay window. Modern kitchen, spacious bedroom with walk-in closets. Includes heat and utilities.”

Awesome. They had me after bay window. The problem was, after reading the ad, you saw some color photos peeking up at the bottom of the page. Nice, I thought, color photos of the apartment.

Wrong. The scroll arrows disclosed there were actually four color posters of Arnold Swartenegger in various aspects of his career. In order to answer the ad you had to include the term used in all four of the photos ( “Govenator” ) in the subject line of the email.

“Maybe this is a hoax” I told my husband who was watching a college basketball game with his bracket card in front of him, “maybe this is a fake ad put on by a psychology student who is trying to see how far people will go to find the right apartment.”

“Humppf” he grunted, which according to Dr. Phil is at least making an effort at direct communication, so I went back to the computer screen.

I hesitated a bit, but let’s face it, bay windows and walk-in closets in the plural do not come around very often.

I emailed back because my daughter would not put up with the Terminator role-playing very easily.

“Subject: Governator

Hi,

I am interested in the great apartment you listed. I would like to see it tomorrow if possible. Please call me, if I don’t answer leave a message and I’ll get baaack to you as soon as possible.”

My husband made a noise in the family room that sounded a bit like our cat when he eats flowers or too much deli ham.

“I hope this is legit and not a relative of Jaguar Bob’s,” I called to him.

“We’re out of this thing if UCLA drops the ball and can’t stay in the court,” he says shaking his head.

“Sweetie, that will never happen. Their Governor protects basketball teams and bay windows…”

He looked at me for a moment and then asked, “Is there any wine left?”

Mombo

Datebook: Monday, March 19th ~ 2007

The Ides of March—although not a particularly good day for Julius Caesar-- is actually giving me some breathing room.

The reasons are threefold.

As for the debacle regarding music selection, for the Free Dance, I think we are down to making the final decision between two songs or song groupings. (I use ‘we’ here just for affect as my preference will have no effect on the outcome, so I am, in a sense, talking about myself almost in third person, which is how I now see myself, third-person-once-removed from making any decisions regarding skating. Ironically, I am still first-person front and center for paying for said skating.)

My understanding for the OD is that there is some hope that the ISU will make some type of clarification before, during, or after Worlds. I’m not sure how this communication will occur—if it is in fact a written statement, a subtle pull of the ear lobe, or perhaps smoke signals designed to be emitted to the most prevalent folk beat. Somehow, we are assured, we will all get the mandate that leads to the selection of what promises to be the most annoying cadre of musical selections since Kermit kazooed the Hickory Hoedown.

The second reason I love the mid day of March is that we did in fact get a new puppy. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a good thing since we now get up at 5:00 and have tiny dog toys around the house like a F-1 tornado came through and distributed them at will, which in fact it did, in the guise of a seven pound white and brown Smooth Fox Terrier. She flew in from California which was actually easier than shipping skates as they have a special door for “Live Animals”. I think next time my daughter competes I will ship her skates in a small 100 Vari-Kennel. So Izzy (yes, Grey’s Anatomy won out over ‘Vanna White with the Brown Spot”) is here with all of her potent energy and colossal tongue.

The final joy of my triad is that now American Idol is down to only 2 nights a week. It has been a demanding time with the requirement of three evenings per week to watch the hopeful crooners.

Oh, I have tried to wean myself away. I have TiVoed the programs and then watched without the commercials which actually saved about 15 minutes from each hour. I have multi-tasked other projects while watching Simon work his charismatic charm on the naïve. I have eliminated watching duplicate showings of previous performances.

But, Fox is a very savvy marketing animal. They know how to woo and win their prey. So just when you think you have to give it up, you can’t commit to Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings anymore—they do an about-face and just have you watch an hour on Tuesday, and thirty minutes on Wednesday—it’s like two sessions at the rink!

But, I can’t help thinking, suppose that would be how we select our USFSA National Champions. Suppose the Top 12, or the sectional winners (and bye groups) compete around the country and the one with the most votes wins. The team with highest call volume wins.

Oh, we could change it and make it seemingly fairer.

Not just anyone could vote. No 10 to 13 year-olds could text message their votes for the skating equivalent of Sanjaya Malakar. The vote wouldn’t be influenced by the population of the state or city the contestant came, or who had the largest family or training rink, or worked for a company with a zillion workers.

No. We would select a group of unbiased people and make sure they had specific knowledge to make informed decisions based on data analysis.

They would cast the votes. They would make the decisions.

They would be known as, “The Callers”.

Mombo.

Datebook: Monday, March 12th ~ 2007

Every six to eight weeks we get to experience a bit of luxury. This is typically how often we get our hair cut.

My stylist, like most, is a bit of diva. She wears shoes with impossible heels, white blouses with funky little skirts or pants and belts that probably go for more than a set of dance blades. She is always in full “competition” make-up and seems to use all of the hair products at the same time. The thing is, it works for her.

She carries her scissors in a little leather satchel and has a hair dryer that she tells is “not available to the general public”.

I suffer her lateness while she sips vanilla lattes and write a generous tip to the forty-five dollar hair-cut fee. This is my favorite outing that I enjoy six times a year—seven if I am in her good graces and warrant a holiday visit. And it is enjoyable not because she works some magically spell on my coiffure that makes heads turn for days to come—sometimes if I fall right to sleep and don’t muss it too much I might get a second day of “good hair ”, but usually by the third day my hair falls back into the same rut and pattern that it has for many decades –you can’t Chi that part off the side of my head.

No, the reason I love these salon visits is not because I long for a lasting transformation, a mirror somewhere proclaiming me the fairest one in all the land. It is not because I like to look at those glossy magazines filled with hair models who seem to have used Legos as some part of the process.

Let’s be honest.

The part we all love is the shampoo. That’s right; a top-notch shampoo girl is worth the price of a 45.00 hair-cut by a haughty snip with an Olympic sized ego. A good shampoo girl will shampoo your hair twice and give you a crème rinse and a conditioning treatment. She will massage and rub your scalp and cleanse your dead strands for almost eight minutes. You might be able to get ten minutes if you tell her you think there is a gel build-up and you have been a good tipper in the past.

For the rest of your visit you might be lucky enough to watch the other customers get lathered and rinsed in the mirror while Ms Snip-N-Heels cuts ¼ inch of hair from your head with her nine hundred dollar scissors and then blow dries it with some black market wind tunnel.

I know.

Someone told me you can get scalp massages.

But this is not the same. I can’t explain it but I think most are in my camp on this—there is some mystical connection to the smell of the secret ingredients in the shampoo and having it rinsed with water that is just above the ouch factor in temperature.

It is a purification ritual.

And so that is my secret pleasure.

I choose my hair salon by the shampoo station. Comfortable chairs, wash bowls with easy neck cut-outs, a stool to elevate the feet during washing are all pluses.

But quality shampoo stations always have a plethora of hair cleaning products by the tip jar—an array of shampoos, conditioners, neutralizers, and crème rinses. If you don’t see those large bottles it is just a front for a wetting and spraying assembly line.

Most people follow their stylist from salon to salon. I try to do this also, as long as they go somewhere with the same code of shampoo ethics.

They have me at, “Would you please put this smock on and go back to the shampoo room.”

Mombo

Datebook: Monday, March 5th ~ 2007

There is something psychologically soothing about having a March day with temperatures in the low sixties.

Since we live in a region that typically has winter temperatures in the teens, February electric bills that average about 500.00, and winter foot wear that is boxed at L.L. Bean, we look forward to the sound of the northern migration of the geese.

It also means that it is almost sandal weather, or in young-speak, the start of the annual parade of flip-flops.

My daughter and her room mate have between them about 800 pairs of shoes at their apartment. This does not take into account the shoes they each have at their real homes. Yes, they could each stock a Pay-Less shoe store, which is an example of verbal irony as neither have ever shopped there. They shop at stores that for marketing purposes have passed on their literal monikers of Pay-More.

Yet half of their shoe library is actually stocked with flip flops, or what we would typically call flip-flops. This should seem to be a good thing since these rubber thongs used to cost 1.99.

Jimmy Buffet even chronicled a typical problem with these molded treasures in his famous song.

Unfortunately Auntie Em, we aren’t in Kansas anymore and Ruby slippers and be-ribboned flip-flops now cost on average about forty or fifty dollars at some of the trendier stores.

So the melting of snow, the singing of birds, and the honking of geese not only signals the budding crocus, the approach of tax day, and the start of choreography for the new free dance and OD—it signals the call for crisp new white flip-flips, some with flat bottoms, some with a bit of heel, some with straw tops, and some with colored piping.

And then we move on to the other colors of the spectrum.

Oh yes. There is summer white, and then there is ice-white.

And then it is a mere footprint away to beige, which we all know is cousins to tan.

And, since we are being honest here, we also know that in addition to the color factor, there is the noise factor.

Flip-flops must have that sluupp-pul sluupp-pul sound that heralds the walking progress of all wearers.

Sometimes we want a muted, respectful sound, like when we use a Kleenex in church, and sometimes, well, we want that marble mall corridor clamor that only comes with a pair of new flops and a two-hour old piece of Dentyne gum.

So one day with the temperatures in the middle of thermostat and the girls were strutting in their modern Grecian footwear.

This brought on a whole new self-awareness.

“We need to get pedicures.”

“I know, but one day in my skates and the polish is chipping off my toes”.

“I know, mine too. What do you want to do then?”

“Let’s get pedicures. Which shoes are you wearing?”

“My black Reefs, what about you?

“I think it has to be the black reefs, I don’t think you can wear a color before Easter. Wait, maybe that’s something else and it’s Labor Day…anyway, I think I have to get some new ones because mine are showing the indent of my toes.”

Ah, the warm blush of spring.

Birds gathering artifacts for building nests, daffodils popping through the softened earth, and girls tossing flip-flops that have survived blow-outs but have been defeated by the impressions they made the previous season.

Mombo