The Day I Let My Hair Down

My sister and I were having a conversation the other day about Dippity Do. I’m not sure how we got started on the subject, but I’m sure we must have spotted someone with a gravity-defying hair do and that probably led to speculation about how to achieve the same look ourselves, which in turn led to us wondering if Dippity Do still existed. Well, my friends, it does.

When I was a kid Dippity Do was something that I’m fairly certain everyone had in their house. I remember having the green version, but apparently there was a pink one too. The green was the “extra hold” version which explains why I probably never saw the pink one: my family has very stubborn hair. Just a little dab in your hair, roll your hair around some rollers and presto! Curly, shiny, crusty hair. If you rubbed your crusty curls in your fingers you would eventually break down the Dippity Do-ness and then your hair would just look shiny and greasy. Magic!

Back then, my mother was forever playing beauty salon with my grandmother. This always involved perms, rollers, Dippity-Do, trimming, teasing and, of course, Roux hair tint to give Nana’s hair that soft blue sheen. One day as my mother was distracted fixing Nana’s hair, I picked up the hair razor and began to “comb” my hair with it. In my defense, it rather looks like a comb and the blade is encased inside of it, so to my young eyes I thought it was a cool shiny comb.

Luckily these things don’t take off a lot of hair. I’m sure I expected to smooth my shiny locks into some semblance of order and when that didn’t happen I stopped. I’m not sure how much hair I cut, but I don’t recall my mother noticing anything unusual about my new hair do. That is until we decided to go to the lunch counter at Fernandes. It must have been cold out because I wore a hat, and when we got to the counter my mother took my hat off and a large quantity of my hair came with it and spilled all over the floor. I’m sure she was horrified on many levels not least of which was why was my hair falling out? I don’t recall if I fessed up or if she found the evidence in the razor at home. In any event, I don’t know what happened to all my hair that wound up on the floor at Fernandes either. I doubt we took it with us. I wonder what the guy who swept the floor was thinking?

And the drummer was nearly naked

A couple of weeks ago I went down to Quogue NY because the restaurant my niece works at was closing for the season and they were having a bash called Drink Dockers Dry. At least I think that’s what it was called. It was what I called it anyway.

My partner in crime for this little jaunt was my sister, The Interrogator. We caught a 9 o’clock ferry from New London and got to Quogue at about 12:30. We had some time to kill before the party so we went to the Canal Café and had their killer lobster roll. We had manicures then checked into our hotel. We got to Dockers around 6 o’clock.

There was tons of food, plenty of people and a band. The Interrogator and I sat at the bar because it’s usually way more fun. And as a bonus, you can make friends with your bar-mates. This crazy woman was sitting next to my sister for half the night. She was dressed in ratty sweat pants and kept her cell phone in her bra. I think it was on vibrate, because she kept taking it out every so often to send text messages.  Maybe she was sending them to herself.  She seemed to be having a good time anyway because she was doing the shake, rattle and roll to the 70s music.

Also present was the Tomboy. She was a teeny-weeny woman who loved to dance. I couldn’t stop staring at her because she appeared to be in her 50s but had the body of a 10 year old. She had perfected the chicken-head-bob dance and spent much of the night on the dance floor in a crouch position with her arms flailing around. The Interrogator thought her dance was similar to Elaine’s on Seinfeld.

The band was pretty good. They played a lot of 70s and 80s music, which was fun. I was sitting only a couple of feet from them and at one point tried taking a movie with my point-and-shoot camera. They were playing Play That Funky Music and I thought my other sister (who was supposed to come with us) would like to see what she was missing. Unfortunately, point-and-shoot cameras apparently don’t take the best videos because it came out kind of stinky. Lots of background noise. The lead singer, who introduced himself to me as Bobby, wanted me to email it to him but the file is too big. Not to mention that I’m not sure I want Bobby to have my email address.

The Interrogator managed to get the lowdown on the band and everyone sitting within a 10 foot radius of us. She spent a lot of time gushing to the band about how fabulous they were. I think she was laying it on a bit thick, because they weren’t THAT good. She found out that ratty-sweat pant lady was actually a very successful real estate broker, despite the fact that she wears ratty clothes and apparently doesn’t place personal hygiene high on her list of priorities. And she’s pretty sure she scared away a couple of young men who were friends of one of the bartenders because she was asking them too many questions.

Despite the fact that it was a cool October night, and the restaurant is open to the outside, it was plenty hot in there. By 11:00 or so I noticed that the drummer was a little hot.

I don’t know much about being a drummer, but apparently you can work up quite a sweat. And I think he wanted his pants off too. After the band played their last song, he gets up and proceeds to button and zip his pants up.

And one final note. What’s up with New York drivers? Everyone says that Boston drivers are one of the worst, but I would say that in Boston we drive with purpose. We know where we want to go and everyone else is just in our way. I can’t tell you how many times I was behind someone in New York that drove as if they had no idea what they were doing or how they came to be the master of 3,000 lbs of metal on wheels. Stopping in the middle of the road was a fairly common thing. Good thing I had decent brakes.

The Amazing Trailer Transformation Part V

Well folks, it's been a while since I reported on the construction project going on next door.  The construction people seem very diligent about showing up for work at 7:00 am sharp and I could see some progress over there.  Finally on Monday I got around to taking a few photos.

This is the side of the house that faces mine.  So when I look out my kitchen window this is what I'll see.

This is the front of the house facing the street.  I've just realized looking at this photo that although this house looks like a cape, it might be a colonial where the first floor is actually below grade.  All I know for sure is that there are two floors below the one you see here and the bottom one looks like a typical cellar.

This is a shot of the first floor that is below grade.  I was mystified by that hole in the floor in the middle/right of the picture.  When I reached the back of the house it became obvious what it was.

It was the stairway to the cellar.  Duh!

This is the photo of the back of the house.  I think this fairly represents the slope from the street to the back of the house.  All I can think of when I walk around this property is "thank God I don't have to push a mower HERE!"  It is quite steep up that incline to the street level.

I hope my new neighbors (whoever they are) will appreciate this journey on the construction of their new home!