You totally get to be Farrah.
I swear, every time I am having a really good hair day--I am grateful that I took your advice when I went to the hairstylist. You were the one who told me to make sure I looked really cute, dressed nice and actually did my hair before my appointment with a new stylist so she would be sure to give me a cute, sassy do. I took to heart that warning that if I showed up frumpy looking at a salon, I just might leave looking even frumpier.
Now that I'm thinking about it...was that actual personal advice that you gave to ME, or was that a blog post? I take these things very personally.
Anyway. Love your hair, love your blog, love-love-love it!!!
Thanks, Courtney! So my first thought was really? I gave hair advice? Good hair advice? I thought about it for a bit and then it started to come back to me... I couldn't remember exactly but vaguely recalled that it had something to do with an embarassing story, as usual. Since I don't throw anything away, within moments, a quick email search turned up the letter that follows. To answer your question, Courtney, it was personal advice... well sort of... it was written just for you... the fact that you turned my embarassing story into words of wisdom well, go Courtney.
I was cracking up at how much my descriptions of almost two-year-old Amanda reminded me of almost seven-year-old Amanda. Her flair for dramatic story-telling started long ago, it seems. (Maybe she got that from you, Courtney.) When I noticed that I'd written the letter exactly five years ago yesterday. I decided, why not? I'm positing it. So here's a slightly edited version of the letter I wrote to my niece when she was in Kansas City. The photo is Amanda in my mom's yard, at almost two.
July 14, 2004
Dear Courtney,
I know, I know...you didn’t really expect me to finally come through with an actual letter after that last one, did you? Well here I am. How is life in Kansas City? Are you having fun? I think it’s so cool that you’re doing this! Did I already tell you I’m proud of you? Well I am. I sure hope you’re feeling better after your car accident. Let me tell you that hearing you’d been in an accident scared me just about half out of my mind. Like I told your mom, I only started breathing again after I heard you were okay and now that I have a kid of my own I’m trying to imagine how you can ever send your children out into the world without first wrapping them in a giant roll of bubble wrap. But thankfully, you’re okay...life goes on and you just can’t worry about this kind of stuff or you’ll go crazy.
So on to less scary topics, I can’t believe how lucky you are to have a guy in your building who will make you cappuccinos or whatever for $1. What a deal! Especially since you don’t even have to leave home. Scott makes the occasional mocha or frappuccino for me, but not nearly as often as he used to. And I’m still slightly traumatized over a somewhat recent coffee-buying incident. It was after the last time I got my haircut - and I was feeling very hip & cool (please note that I rarely feel this way in real life, but I read once that hairdressers will sometimes take their queue from how you're dressed, so I always try to dress well for my hair appointments because I have this secret fear that I will walk in dressed how I normally do and the hairdresser will make this immediate judgment, "Hmm... dresses like a geek so I will give her the geek haircut.") Anyway so I'm dressed in my best attempt to look cute and my haircut turns out cute (see, it works!) so I'm attempting to act like I'm hip & cool in real life and I walk out of the salon and go next door to this coffee place, Peets, where your mom and I used to go all the time during lunch when she worked in San Ramon.
There’s a very long line, which is okay because it gives me time to practice being hip & cool. Finally I order their version of a mocha frappuccino (a mocha freddo, but I probably don’t have to tell you that) and the guy piles it high with whipped cream and then hands it to me without a lid or a straw, both of which, I need desperately for the car trip home. The straw container is empty so I ask the guy at the counter for a straw and while I'm waiting I see that all of the lids are flat, which, as you might guess, is not going to work with the 2 1/2 inches of whipped cream, so I attempt to drink enough of the freddo so that I can get a lid on. Let me tell you, it's kind of hard to drink a full one of these things without a straw and still maintain the hip & cool charade. I end up with whipped cream all over my nose and can actually feel the hip & coolness rapidly draining from my body.
When I try to put the lid on I discover that I haven’t drunk quite enough of the freddo so it spills down the side of the cup and all over my hand forcing me to fumble for napkins, and even then, the lid doesn't fit. Can you explain to me how it can be so hard to find a lid that fits when you’re in a hurry at a coffee place?
And to think that I roll my eyes when Scott yells from the kitchen that he can't find the correct lid for the correct random Tupperware container of which there are approximately 50 zillion... "Where's the lid for the white bowl with three sections?" Yes, I know there are 50 zillion possibilities, but I still feel the need to be kind of snotty when I reply, "Umm... probably in the LID Drawer, where we keep ALL of the lids. It’s the hot pink one with the round handle thingy." And again I roll my eyes. DUH!
It’s been a really long time since I’ve taken a math class so I’m not sure how to figure out the number of possible combinations you would have to try before you just accidentally happened across the correct lid, but it reminds me of one of those pop quizzes your Grandpa Nelson was always throwing at me when I was a kid...There are 26 sheep and one dies... or, I guess the one that applies here is the one about getting dressed in the dark. If your drawer contains 10 black socks and 12 blue socks, how many socks do you have to take out of the drawer before you know you have a matching set? So if you have 50 zillion containers and 50 zillion lids, how many do you have to try...?
Yes, it humbles me when there are only three sizes of lids and three sizes of containers at the coffee place and I still can't make any of them fit my drink. I fumble for what feels like an eternity, wondering if anyone in the very long line is watching me and snickering thinking, hmm... I can't believe I thought she was hip & cool.
I never do get the lid to fit, but I want out of this place badly, so I head for the exit and as I open the door, a hard wind hits me and in an instant my hip & cool hair style is gone and I know I'll never get it to look hip & cool again despite the overpriced hair products I have purchased in my hopefulness. My hair is whipping around my head wildly now and it briefly impairs my vision. I stumble slightly trying to move out of the way for someone and spill the freddo down my leg... And this is why the idea of $1 coffee drinks without leaving home sounds like such a dream come true to me.
Anyway, we had a good time at your grandma’s house last week. After spending four days in Berryessa during which her cousins attempted to teach Amanda how to dance the “cool” way, we headed to Grandma’s where we listened to a chicken-dance polka CD pretty much non-stop for almost a week. Please note that though, as I have already explained, I am not cool, I have a fairly good idea that flapping your wings like a chicken is probably not cool and I’m thinking that polka music is most definitely not at all cool or even remotely hip. Please tell me if I’m wrong.
The week started out with Mom noting that it seemed like maybe Amanda was ready to switch from sippy cups to regular cups. Amanda spent the rest of the week making her eat her words. Constant spillage goin' on... let me tell you, and this was our drinks not Amanda's...cuz no way do I think she's ready for a grown-up cup. But she was forever asking for a "Sipppppp!" from ours. Yes, she has definitely mastered the art of drinking from a cup. But she also enjoys washing her hands in cups... submerging spoons or whatever happens to be available into cups... splashing happily in cups... watching the liquid flow out of the cups as she pours them onto the floor... and then watching us clean up the wet mess from the cups... frequently somehow managing to find more liquid from the cups to spill on the newly-dried floor.
Grandma also caught her dipping her hands into Hannah's water bowl and then licking her fingers... and later dipping her toothbrush into Hannah's water when she was ready to brush. Yes, I know...Gross! Grandma agreed that it was gross too but also immediately commented that she was worried about Hannah’s water being contaminated! I’m not totally sure that she was kidding either.
Amanda is really starting to talk more and more too. I’ll try to teach her how to say “Courtney” by the time you get home. She imitates everything we say and comes up with the occasional 3 or 4 word sentences. This still floors me every time! She says "Where did cat go?" or "Daddy is asleep." and I just fall all over myself thinking how unbelievable it is that she's talking like this when we only brought her home from the hospital for the first time like, you know, three days ago or something. How can she be almost TWO?
Unfortunately her new favorite phrase is "Oh gawd." After all my years at El Sobrante Christian School learning how awful it is to say this, I still cringe...and I spell it differently so I can feel less horrible but it doesn’t work. Apparently it’s something she must have picked up last week from either Mom or me. (Oooops!) And now she walks around saying it as if she's raging with emotion when anything even slightly bad happens. Like I'll swoop down to move my soda out of her reach a millisecond before she gets it... or the toy she's playing with falls to some place out of her reach and suddenly she's crying like a little old lady, "Oh gawd...oh GAWWWWWWWWWWD!" as if it's the most horrible thing that's ever happened to her. And I keep trying to suggest, “Oh boy” or “Oh gosh” as a replacement.
She also walks around repeating phrases over and over again. It makes me giggle because she reminds me of a tiny little actress running her lines...and she changes things up slightly each time. Yesterday when I thought I heard his truck pull up, I asked her if Daddy was home and then immediately answered my own question...No... And for several minutes she repeated the scene with different tones and timing..."Is Daddy home? No? Is --- Daddy --- home? No! Is Daddy --- Home! Noooo---oooooo!"
I’m enclosing a few pictures of Amanda watering Grandma’s plants (and herself) last week. Grandma always makes it sound like it’s such hard work. Maybe if she stripped down to her underwear she’d have as much fun as Amanda did. Got a good mental picture going? Okay, now I have to run. Thanks for your letters. You’re a sweetie!
Love you lots,
Aunt Dione
Dear Courtney,
I know, I know...you didn’t really expect me to finally come through with an actual letter after that last one, did you? Well here I am. How is life in Kansas City? Are you having fun? I think it’s so cool that you’re doing this! Did I already tell you I’m proud of you? Well I am. I sure hope you’re feeling better after your car accident. Let me tell you that hearing you’d been in an accident scared me just about half out of my mind. Like I told your mom, I only started breathing again after I heard you were okay and now that I have a kid of my own I’m trying to imagine how you can ever send your children out into the world without first wrapping them in a giant roll of bubble wrap. But thankfully, you’re okay...life goes on and you just can’t worry about this kind of stuff or you’ll go crazy.
So on to less scary topics, I can’t believe how lucky you are to have a guy in your building who will make you cappuccinos or whatever for $1. What a deal! Especially since you don’t even have to leave home. Scott makes the occasional mocha or frappuccino for me, but not nearly as often as he used to. And I’m still slightly traumatized over a somewhat recent coffee-buying incident. It was after the last time I got my haircut - and I was feeling very hip & cool (please note that I rarely feel this way in real life, but I read once that hairdressers will sometimes take their queue from how you're dressed, so I always try to dress well for my hair appointments because I have this secret fear that I will walk in dressed how I normally do and the hairdresser will make this immediate judgment, "Hmm... dresses like a geek so I will give her the geek haircut.") Anyway so I'm dressed in my best attempt to look cute and my haircut turns out cute (see, it works!) so I'm attempting to act like I'm hip & cool in real life and I walk out of the salon and go next door to this coffee place, Peets, where your mom and I used to go all the time during lunch when she worked in San Ramon.
There’s a very long line, which is okay because it gives me time to practice being hip & cool. Finally I order their version of a mocha frappuccino (a mocha freddo, but I probably don’t have to tell you that) and the guy piles it high with whipped cream and then hands it to me without a lid or a straw, both of which, I need desperately for the car trip home. The straw container is empty so I ask the guy at the counter for a straw and while I'm waiting I see that all of the lids are flat, which, as you might guess, is not going to work with the 2 1/2 inches of whipped cream, so I attempt to drink enough of the freddo so that I can get a lid on. Let me tell you, it's kind of hard to drink a full one of these things without a straw and still maintain the hip & cool charade. I end up with whipped cream all over my nose and can actually feel the hip & coolness rapidly draining from my body.
When I try to put the lid on I discover that I haven’t drunk quite enough of the freddo so it spills down the side of the cup and all over my hand forcing me to fumble for napkins, and even then, the lid doesn't fit. Can you explain to me how it can be so hard to find a lid that fits when you’re in a hurry at a coffee place?
And to think that I roll my eyes when Scott yells from the kitchen that he can't find the correct lid for the correct random Tupperware container of which there are approximately 50 zillion... "Where's the lid for the white bowl with three sections?" Yes, I know there are 50 zillion possibilities, but I still feel the need to be kind of snotty when I reply, "Umm... probably in the LID Drawer, where we keep ALL of the lids. It’s the hot pink one with the round handle thingy." And again I roll my eyes. DUH!
It’s been a really long time since I’ve taken a math class so I’m not sure how to figure out the number of possible combinations you would have to try before you just accidentally happened across the correct lid, but it reminds me of one of those pop quizzes your Grandpa Nelson was always throwing at me when I was a kid...There are 26 sheep and one dies... or, I guess the one that applies here is the one about getting dressed in the dark. If your drawer contains 10 black socks and 12 blue socks, how many socks do you have to take out of the drawer before you know you have a matching set? So if you have 50 zillion containers and 50 zillion lids, how many do you have to try...?
Yes, it humbles me when there are only three sizes of lids and three sizes of containers at the coffee place and I still can't make any of them fit my drink. I fumble for what feels like an eternity, wondering if anyone in the very long line is watching me and snickering thinking, hmm... I can't believe I thought she was hip & cool.
I never do get the lid to fit, but I want out of this place badly, so I head for the exit and as I open the door, a hard wind hits me and in an instant my hip & cool hair style is gone and I know I'll never get it to look hip & cool again despite the overpriced hair products I have purchased in my hopefulness. My hair is whipping around my head wildly now and it briefly impairs my vision. I stumble slightly trying to move out of the way for someone and spill the freddo down my leg... And this is why the idea of $1 coffee drinks without leaving home sounds like such a dream come true to me.
Anyway, we had a good time at your grandma’s house last week. After spending four days in Berryessa during which her cousins attempted to teach Amanda how to dance the “cool” way, we headed to Grandma’s where we listened to a chicken-dance polka CD pretty much non-stop for almost a week. Please note that though, as I have already explained, I am not cool, I have a fairly good idea that flapping your wings like a chicken is probably not cool and I’m thinking that polka music is most definitely not at all cool or even remotely hip. Please tell me if I’m wrong.
The week started out with Mom noting that it seemed like maybe Amanda was ready to switch from sippy cups to regular cups. Amanda spent the rest of the week making her eat her words. Constant spillage goin' on... let me tell you, and this was our drinks not Amanda's...cuz no way do I think she's ready for a grown-up cup. But she was forever asking for a "Sipppppp!" from ours. Yes, she has definitely mastered the art of drinking from a cup. But she also enjoys washing her hands in cups... submerging spoons or whatever happens to be available into cups... splashing happily in cups... watching the liquid flow out of the cups as she pours them onto the floor... and then watching us clean up the wet mess from the cups... frequently somehow managing to find more liquid from the cups to spill on the newly-dried floor.
Grandma also caught her dipping her hands into Hannah's water bowl and then licking her fingers... and later dipping her toothbrush into Hannah's water when she was ready to brush. Yes, I know...Gross! Grandma agreed that it was gross too but also immediately commented that she was worried about Hannah’s water being contaminated! I’m not totally sure that she was kidding either.
Amanda is really starting to talk more and more too. I’ll try to teach her how to say “Courtney” by the time you get home. She imitates everything we say and comes up with the occasional 3 or 4 word sentences. This still floors me every time! She says "Where did cat go?" or "Daddy is asleep." and I just fall all over myself thinking how unbelievable it is that she's talking like this when we only brought her home from the hospital for the first time like, you know, three days ago or something. How can she be almost TWO?
Unfortunately her new favorite phrase is "Oh gawd." After all my years at El Sobrante Christian School learning how awful it is to say this, I still cringe...and I spell it differently so I can feel less horrible but it doesn’t work. Apparently it’s something she must have picked up last week from either Mom or me. (Oooops!) And now she walks around saying it as if she's raging with emotion when anything even slightly bad happens. Like I'll swoop down to move my soda out of her reach a millisecond before she gets it... or the toy she's playing with falls to some place out of her reach and suddenly she's crying like a little old lady, "Oh gawd...oh GAWWWWWWWWWWD!" as if it's the most horrible thing that's ever happened to her. And I keep trying to suggest, “Oh boy” or “Oh gosh” as a replacement.
She also walks around repeating phrases over and over again. It makes me giggle because she reminds me of a tiny little actress running her lines...and she changes things up slightly each time. Yesterday when I thought I heard his truck pull up, I asked her if Daddy was home and then immediately answered my own question...No... And for several minutes she repeated the scene with different tones and timing..."Is Daddy home? No? Is --- Daddy --- home? No! Is Daddy --- Home! Noooo---oooooo!"
I’m enclosing a few pictures of Amanda watering Grandma’s plants (and herself) last week. Grandma always makes it sound like it’s such hard work. Maybe if she stripped down to her underwear she’d have as much fun as Amanda did. Got a good mental picture going? Okay, now I have to run. Thanks for your letters. You’re a sweetie!
Love you lots,
Aunt Dione
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