April 5, 2004 - A Spring Deferred

When I was I a particularly whiny mood about the cold, back in, say, February, I asked The Gryphon if he would please make it warm. He said he could do it but it would take a couple months. I'm still waiting.

My dog, Una, doesn't seem to mind the chilly weather. She's just as anxious to go on walks.

The cold weather doesn't keep the loonies off the street. This morning, walking past a bus stop, a woman saw Una and said, "Is your dog friendly?" I said yes.

She bent down to pet Una. There was just something slightly off about this woman. She was wearing a flower in her hair and a puffy winter coat, garish colors peeking out from underneath it. There was just a hint of dried saliva in the corner of her mouth.

"Kiss, kiss," she says to Una, and Una sniffed her dutifully but refrained from kissing.

As we were walking away, I said to Una, "Don't worry; I wouldn't have kissed her either."

We do have plenty of birds right now, and between them and the kids playing basketball it's been a challenge figuring out where to park on my street. You see, I have a new (to me) 2002 Ford Focus, and it's important to me to keep it in good shape.

I used to park in a spot that was very close to my apartment, but then these kids set up a temporary basketball hoop nearby. This made me nervous, because of the prospect of wildly careening shots bouncing off my car.

So I moved to another spot, but as it turns out that was right under a tree birds like to frequent, so they can whitewash the cars below. I moved still further away, until the kids decided to set up a second temporary basketball hoop down that way.

After some creative shuffling, I've discovered two possible spots. The closest has no trees, and the one further away has a tree so small birds do not hang out there.

But I digress.

The cruelest thing about the weather lately is that the sun seems to come out in the middle of the day when I'm too busy to get out and enjoy it. Lately, I've been picking up a lot of afternoon work.

Thursday, I had a brief chance to enjoy the afternoon sun because of a hair appointment. This was a makeup appointment, since I missed one three weeks ago. Whereas my hair salon usually calls me to remind me, this time my machine had been turned off.

For the transgression of missing an appointment, I had to pay for the appointment I'd missed, as if I'd had a haircut! I was annoyed about this and called them back to question it, but it was an immovable policy.

As I tried to explain to The Gryphon, the thing about hair salons is that once you find a good one, you want to stay with them regardless. I can't tell you how many hair stylists I went through in this area before I found someone who'd listen to me and give me something I liked.

Usually, when I get back from my hair appointment, I have to was my shirt right away because of stray hairs dropped down my shirt, making it itchy. For this reason, I usually just wear a T-shirt.

But this time I was cold, so I threw on a sweater set which is a little too formal for my daily work-at-home life. My hair stylist asked me if I was going somewhere afterwards, since I looked dressier than usual.

Of course, how was she to know that after she went to all the trouble of styling my hair that I would go home, with no one to see it but my dog, and then take a nap a couple hours later, waking up with it all flat on one side?

I was interested in trying something a little new. We'd talked before about letting some of the shorter layers grow out a little, so we're doing that. She also suggested a new technique she learned for longer layers, for use with curly hair. I said sure.

The difference is so subtle that few people are likely to notice. Still, I like it.

I could probably deal with the cold water better if we hadn't had such relentlessly gray skies. It reminds me a bit of State College, Pennsylvania, which as everyone knows is second only to Seattle for the number of overcast days in a year. So much for Happy Valley.

A couple pop culture observations now.

I just learned that Jan Berry of the surfer rock duo Jan & Dean died, after suffering difficulties breathing. As you might know, he has suffered from lingering brain damage following a 1966 car accident. But after a long recovery, he returned to writing songs and performing with his partner, Dean Torrence.

Jan was a very sweet man. My family saw him perform at the Bloomsburg State Fair in about 1987, and despite his obvious difficulty with controlling his muscles, he stood at a table after the show and signed hundreds of items, the proceeds of which were going to a children's hospital.

I've never forgotten that amazingly bright light that shone out of this man who would not let a tragedy keep him from offering his creative talents and using his celebrity to do some good in the world.

All I can say is, he'll make a truly wonderful angel.

And in other pop culture news, the new liberal radio talk show network, Air America, has been engaging in a media blitz this week, and talk show host Al Franken has made the rounds.

Yes, he has been using some of the same jokes over and over again (like acknowledging that yes, his time slot is up against Rush Limbaugh, but his show will be drug free), but he gets laughs every time

I think it's some indication of Franken's future success that he's appeared a couple times during this media blitz on shows facing off with conservative talk show host G. Gordon Liddy, "G.," as Franken likes to call him, he says.

As it turns out, Liddy is actually a friend of Franken's and wishes him well. This makes me think that, while Rush gets reluctant listeners who feel they must know what he's spouting about now, Franken is likely to appear those listeners as well as those who might or might not agree with his political views but who find him funny.

I wish him the best, of course, because if this new network succeeds, perhaps they'll be a space one day for me on Air America. Well, I can dream.

Moral:
Cold weather chills the body but not the mind.