Because I made a promise to care for my Grandmother

I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed today.  I'm in an elder-care netherworld .  I'm caught in conflicting emotions, a myriad of choices and as usual a bit of family drama.
On March 3 of this year my Grandmother turned 83 years old.  Five years ago we lost my Grandfather and he made me promise to take care of her because as he said she had always been taken care of  and wouldn't be OK on her own.  We all promised him to take care of her but he singled me out the night before he died and asked me again. So I feel like I have a special duty to do this.
Fast forward to now and after her third serious fall and second serious break she is at the point where her home and being by herself just isn't feasible or safe anymore.  She picked me to be her power of attorney and to handle her financial business.  I have tried to keep everyone in the loop on my decisions and she still says what we do or don't do but there are a lot of things she says that she doesn't understand and deferred to my judgement
So now after months of going back and forth on whether or not she'll be able to be home like she wanted we now know that "going home" isn't an option.  Now we have a semi empty house to deal with..  My youngest cousin used it as a flophouse while my grandma was there and with her blessing he continues to use it even though he breaks her rules of not smoking in it and having strangers inside it. I look at it that while family heirlooms can walk out the door it does provide foot traffic in the now crime ridden neighborhood that the house sits in. I used to get more angry and worked up about it, but since my grandma won't tell him he can't stay there is not much I can really do so I had to just let it go.
However there is the matter of the stuff inside it. Grandma had a plan for me to distribute out the items she had marked to go to certain family members to them and then sell the rest of the items that have no value as family items. This should have been easy however , it hasn't been.  There are three of us designated to get stuff . Me , my dad and my aunt.  Split the big stuff in thirds.  Not so hard except that my aunt is to get the house upon my grandma's death. That is until the financial situation hit me.  With $5,000 a month in care costs I am burning through the tiny bit of savings she had like wildfire.
I mentioned this to my family that we couldn't continue this way she couldn't afford to support two households and that we would have to seriously look at either someone else taking over the house insurance and utilities or it might be best to speed up getting the family stuff out and speed up possibly selling or renting the house for extra income.  They all agreed and did nothing.  Whether this was due to denial of the true situation or something else it fell to me to get things started.
 I visited my grandmother's elder law attorney and we started forming a plan to protect her assets in the event we had to apply for Medicaid (which is a definite thing now). The attorney says to protect things that the house needs to be sold because once we apply for Medicaid it will be gone to the state. This is true as I was a supervisor at the office for years. The only chance to protect anything for her to have hairdos and such is to sell it and put the proceeds in a trust .  It's also the only chance for me to be able to give anything besides household items to my aunt.

For all this it has been the drama over the stupid stuff that has been annoying to me. There is always some excuse some kernel of accusation that the decisions that are being made aren't my grandmother's that someone is getting left out.  Then there are the health issues (mental and physical ) that plague my family. Our inability to directly communicate what we are feeling or thinking . Issues between my grandma and me, my aunt and my grandma, my aunt and my dad and who knows what else swirling beneath the surface needing to be brought out in the open yet flowing under the surface of our interactions like the hot magma under a volcano. While we love each other it is tinged with past hurts, regrets and resentments that are coming to the surface in the form of dealing with stuff.  Not to mention that several of them have developed their own serious health issues that they need to concentrate on vs. concentrating on this. 

Frankly I'm tired of it.There is no reason to keep a house around that is just costing her money at this point. If i can get this settled then we can all do what we need to do and not have to worry about ti anymore.  

Goodbye Ralph

Me and Ralph a few weeks after nursing him back to health

I start off with a picture. How do you say goodbye to a furry child, an animal friend , a great and loyal companion. I lost my cat Ralph (aka Fat Boy, Old man, Ralphie)  on Thursday to some unnamed and unknown type of fast growing tumor. He's in the backyard resting under a home made cairn of Missouri stone. We had a good 15 or so years together. I joke that he was the longest healthy male relationship I've had.
It took me awhile to compose my thoughts tonight, what with the neighbors staging a party and impromptu rock n roll sing along, but the fleeting strains of Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" floating through my open windows reminded me of how I ended up with Ralph in the first place.
It was around 1997, I was four years into being a newly married woman and my friends Chris, Craig and Bobby were out on tour with their rock n roll band in a converted yellow hound school bus. I was thrilled to be "support crew" and was watching their house over on Loren St. in Springfield, MO making sure their animals were fed and the house wasn't taken over by college students looking for a convenient place to party.
The hubby and I had been out to dinner or a show and we had stopped by to check on the house. I was locking up after the nightly feed when I heard a tiny, almost imperceptible cry.
There had been a feral mama cat roaming around the neighborhood and I knew she had been quiet pregnant the last time I had seen her barely making her escape from the large Great Dane mix dogs that lived next door to my friends. They weren't mean dogs , but they were big and they did what most normal dogs did , chased cats. Anyway I stopped and the hubby ran smack into the back of me (yes i have a bad habit of stopping in the most in opportune places, but that is a subject for another installment) after muttering a curse word. I explained that I thought I heard something cry. He told me I was not hearing anything but the house squeaking. Then I heard it again. I knew that time it was a cat. I went for the spare flashlight we kept in the trunk of the car. He sighed and told me to "make it quick".
Out front of this house were these massive evergreen bushes. Old gnarled thorny things that had undoubtedly been planted at the time the house was built. Most likely in the late 40's or early 50's. They were low to the ground and it was almost impossible to get into them. I wriggled in as much as I could and shined the light into the darkness and I saw a teeny glimmer of glowing kitty eyes and I heard the tiny cry again.
This urged me forward, the cry was one of fear and pain, I got stuck on a branch and felt my skin ripping and the burn of evergreen sap. I dropped the light and put my hand out and touched fir. I pulled and got the light back on and found my self face to face with the dead mama cat. I heaved and shone the light to see that  there were two or three other lifeless tiny bodies behind her. Something had gotten a hold of the little family. Shaking off the wave of nausea, I plunged forward again, hands reaching and this time was rewarded with a barely wiggling, warm, crying, sticky, ball of fir.
After retreating from the bush I cradled it in my hands, terribly tiny it fit comfortably in my hand, I cradled it to my chest.  The hubby takng the light from me shone it down into my hands and said "What the hell is that?" After examining it under the dim light I said "Well it appears to be a cat, covered in motor oil."  He screwed up his face "You know I'm allergic to cats. What are you going to do with it?"  I made a split second decision. I couldn't leave it there it would die and it was obviously too small to take to a shelter poor bugger wasn't even fully weaned yet. "Well, I'll nurse it up to a size the shelter will take it and they can find it a home."  He sighed at me again "Alright " he reluctantly agreed "It stays in the garage."
So I held it all the way home. Warm now it had grown quiet and was breathing very shallowly. I wondered if it had been stressed too much and if it would even make it.  Once home I found my animal carrier and put it in there while I got out my animal first aid kit.
I filled the kitchen sink up with warm water and plunked the animal in gently washing it with shampoo. Two changes of water and I discovered that my cat was orange striped. I also discovered fleas, ear mites and a horribly mangled backside with some puncture wounds. It was a boy.
Not wanting to stress the little guy out too much more I bandaged his backside up and combed as many fleas out of his fir as I could. I then snugged him into the carrier and ran off to the store to get some kitten milk re-placer.
That first night he ate so much I could see his little belly swell up and he snuggled into my lap and fell asleep, purring. From that moment on that cat never stopped purring. I really was trying not to fall in love with him, but it was hard.
So this went on for a few weeks until I felt like he was big enough to be weaned off the milk and onto solid food. That is the picture above.  Hubby snapped it after I remarked that he wasn't fitting so well into one hand anymore.
I was ready to take him to the shelter. I was upset as the little guy had quiet a personality. He was talkative and would follow me around like a small dog. I came home from work one day to find him and the Hubby stretched out on their backs in the recliner sleeping and snoring away.
I poked my Hubby , "Hey I thought you said he had to stay in the garage."  " Well he said thoughtfully " I couldn't stand him crying and so I just brought him in for a moment and well we kinda fell asleep. Guess I'm not as allergic as I thought I was."  He paused. " I guess you can keep him if you want to."  I was overjoyed.  I picked up my kitty and looked at him. "What to name you?" I thought. He loved to roll in motor oil, he chewed on electric cords, he was proving to be an excellent spider killer. Then almost from the mystic nether a name just popped into my head " Ralph" .  I looked at him " Well how about Ralph." He perked up and twitched his tail. "Ralph it is then."
He always came when we called him. I used to tell people that I didn't pick his name, he just told me what his name was.
As he got older he got more and more dog like. I suppose that was because he was the only cat in a houseful of dogs. Snoopy my male beagle and Tramp my retriever chow mix and Ellie my friend Chris' boxer pup.  He'd throw a paw up for me to shake , he'd sit , he'd sit up, stand on my shoulders.
He'd do this chattering noise at the birds out back and when the other dogs would do something that they weren't supposed to he'd come meow at me and head to the back door urging me to follow him.
He would sit between my feet and growl at any strange person he didn't like. Of course being as he was quiet the lover boy those were few and far between. If you would pet him he was your friend for life.
I also called him the "shed monster" because it seemed no matter how much brushing I did he could always manage to coat anything that he touched with hair.
So many little strange habits he had .. he liked it when I would pick him up and cradle him like a baby. He would wrap his paws around my wrist to bring my hand down to tickle his cheeks. He also liked it when I would pat him on the bottom like you would burp a kid. He'd purr the whole time. He even purred at the vet , well as long as I was in the room, they had to have me leave to hear his heart and breathing because he would not stop purring around me.
He drooled. I always knew he was super happy when the waterworks would come on. He would drool and knead my side with his paws. (leading to me keeping them trimmed short ) If I didn't stop him he would soak a shirt.
As he got older he decided he didn't like children. He knew he'd get a scolding for for acting out so he would tolerate a couple of pets before he would tuck his tail , grumble a bit and insist that I put him in a place where he could rest unmolested.
When I got divorced I had to leave him behind with my ex for the year I was in my apartment. I cried, but I always planned on it being a short separation. I got lucky in finding my house when I did because my ex decided he was tired of keeping cats and called me to come get them else he was turning them outdoors. My dad and I came to pick him up and when I introduced him to his new "sister" B. C. the meeting went really well.  They settled in together and we had a happy six years in this house.
He was my companion, my guardian, he sat with me through the tears at losing my grandfather, working through the aftermath of losing my friend Keith, the joy of making new friends and a new life . He seemed to know when to come sit beside me or on me.
So when I discovered the tumor on his neck, it was a shock. I had always pictured him ending his life peacefully drifting off to sleep not waking up like my other pets. I scheduled him in with the vet to confirm what I feared. I had spent this last week keeping him comfortable and he was happy eating and playing and cuddling with me. Thursday morning he was not acting right and I had decided that I was going to make an appointment with the vet for Saturday, that the month she gave him wasn't going to happen.
When I picked him up to cuddle him he felt light, like he was pulling into himself, his limbs were feeling heavy. I took him outside in the grass and we sat feeling the first rays of the sun. The tumor had taken his voice but by God my little "purr monster" was still trying to purr.
I felt silly, but I told him that when I got home from work I would take him back out into the yard so he could lay in the grass again. In my heart though I was feeling that he was getting ready to go. I wasn't sure he would make it until I got home.
I put him in his favorite cat bed out in the garage close to the litter box and the food. He wasn't wanting to walk very far without effort so I let him pick his spot.
Ralph was a good cat, and we had a great time together. There certainly won't be another like him. 

11 weeks and counting.

I haven't written in awhile, but felt the urge to put "hands to keyboard". I have started getting emails from EF Foundation containing the information about my student's homebound flights. This is a busy time of year in student exchange. The school year is winding down for our students that are here and we are busily gearing up to recruit good host families for the next year. Trying to get our students placed before the summer school being out phase starts.
Then the realization hit me that MY boy was going to be going home soon. I looked at my calendar .. 11 weeks left. Time has gone by so quickly. He's added a bit of height .. gained about 15lbs of muscle and matured quite a bit. I am so proud of him. He's learned a few life lessons while here. Some of them good (like when he puts his mind to it he is an A student) some of them not so good (people aren't always direct in saying "NO" and will string you along in an effort to be nice).  He's learned that here in America as he put it "I have a chance to do and be anything." as long as you are hungry for it and put in the effort and time. He's learned resourcefulness and has learned to overcome his shyness about approaching people for what he needs.
I'm gonna miss him. I'm probably gonna cry when I have to take him to the airport. That's the thing about exchange. If it's done right with the right organization (heaven knows there are plenty to choose from) it's more than just housing a kid. They become your family. 

I resolve NOT to be a Toss Pot for 2012

It's almost the New Year of 2012. If you had stood in front of me 5 years ago and told me that I would be where I am now I would have said you were nutters. It's amazing how my life has changed and blossomed. The blending of the new and the old things in my life has been an amazing process. I'll say it again and again I truly am blessed.  A few highlights of the year 2011:
     I joined twitter.(@ladystrange73) adding one more social network to my cadre. I am finding it a challenge to express myself in 140 characters. I think it will help me learn the skill of being more honed in how I express myself.  It also doesn't hurt that with a few clicks I can support my friend Kelly by helping to promote her wonderful book "the Readheaded Stepchild" .
In one of my more surreal moments I actually have been chatting with the drummer of one of my very most favorite band Def Leppard.  It's amazing how technology brings us all closer together.
Mind you he's not a "friend" in the sense of the word but the exchange of ideas on vegetarianism, drumming , charity, etc. has been amazing. His charity Raven Drum Foundation does a lot of work with our veterans.
     I became a host mom to an exchange student. He is a great guy and I have really enjoyed getting to know him. I have new friends in Italy and I cannot wait to visit them. I have learned much about Italian culture ..now if I could just learn to speak fluent Italian. He tries to teach me but my inability to roll my "r" is quiet inhibiting.
It has been quiet fun being a contributor to international diplomacy. Having a teenager in the house has helped me remember what it was like to be starting out on the journey to adulthood.  It's wonderful to have laughter in my home.
     I had my 20ish high school class reunion and I reconnected with my roots. I got one of those rare second chance moments to "right some wrongs" with some people who had been casualties in some bad decisions I made after high school. That's the thing about great friends. No matter what they forgive and welcome you back in after they get through reminding you how dumb and stupid you were being at the time. Many tears of joy were shed that night (by me )and I felt the world shift and things were starting to really feel like they were getting back on the track where they should be.
     I got to see Def Leppard from the second row of the Sprint Center. I never had been closer than the nosebleeds at any Leppard concert before and to get to be close enough to almost touch them was heaven. I got to meet Phil Collen's lovely wife Helen,  an album cover signed by the guys, Guitar pick from Rick Savage (who liked my Sheffield Wednesday scarf) and I met Vivian Campbell and took a pic with him after the show (thanks to my new Concert buddy Marni).
  Back to the future. I already have my theme song "Undefeated " by Def Leppard  for 2012 (actually I adopted it in 2011 when Mirrorball came out) as I think it's quite appropriate. No matter what I'm always ready to get back up and go right back into the fray.
     Realizing that no matter what as long as I have my health , my faith and the ability to work the rest of it will fall into place as it should be. I will continue to grow and change and hopefully get a few more second chances to undo some mistakes of the past.
   So that being said I asked Rick Allen (@rickallenlive) last night on twitter if I could "borrow" his New Years resolution. He said "please do :)" so here it is. Summing it all up in one sentence. For 2012 "I resolve to try to not be a Toss Pot."

DJ Hero (not the game)

I was listening to one of our radio stations here in town last night Power 96.5  and one of my friends was on there about 16 hours ago and I was musing today on how much I admire him. He is currently on the BET show Master of the Mix  .  Danny or D.J.P (as he as known as in his profession) has always been focused on his goals and this has lead him to achieve his dreams. It's a great lesson in what pure determination and focus can do for you.
I first remember meeting him in Junior high he lived across the railroad tracks from me, this tall, bit hyper, skinny, dark headed white kid who was always getting in trouble on the school bus. Our bus driver was a cowboy boot wearing , pearl button plaid western shirt wearing woman named Marge. Marge had a voice rather like Mrs. Crabtree off of South Park. She said a lot of the same things too. Her favorite one was "DANNY SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!" or something along those lines. Danny had (and still does) the ability to perfectly mimic her voice. Which would set all of us into uncontrollable laughter and her into uncontrollable rage.  I like to think of that as one of his first public performances.
Danny always has talked about being a professional DJ from the time I first met him. He has always been very good at marrying rhythmic bits and improvising on the go. He demonstrated this ability in a high school during a talent show (there is a great clip of this on his you tube channel) where he won the thing by performing a kick ass drum solo.
He and I were in band together on the percussion drum line. He was a snare drum player and snares (in our band) lead the cadences.  I was on the bass drum holding down the low end.   He was very creative in coming up with the cadences that we would play in between songs during marching band season. You could always count on him to improvise above the bass line and make it interesting. As we would walk the parade route everyone would always start moving and dancing as we passed by.
The first time I ever got to see him really DJ was at our senior Project Graduation. I sat up by him at his DJ booth all night long while he beat-boxed, scratched and mixed songs so that we could all dance. He of course demonstrated his mad breakin' skills. It's one of my best memories ever me an him talking, laughing and him displaying his talent for picking out just that right moment for transitioning over to the next tune. I remember asking him what he was going to do after graduation. He looked me straight in the eye and said " I'm going to be a DJ. I'm going to travel with guys who are on tour and be their DJ." He never wavered , he never doubted it.
After high school I went to college, got married and lost touch with Danny as he had traveled on to pursue his dreams. I next ran into him after I started working at DFS passing out public assistance. I was in my normal lunch spot, a tiny food place called the Rickshaw, when he spotted me and called out to me. I gave him a huge hug and he told me about his work space in a nearby downtown building. "I have thousands of records now" he said. "I've been traveling ."  I think he also mentioned the Rock Steady Crew .  I was in awe.  I said we should go out and have a beer. "You can have a beer" he laughed "I'll have a coke. I don't drink."   He invited me to come over to his work space sometime and being as I had an extremely jealous hubby I accepted the invite but never took him up on it. I kick myself a bit for that choice made out of fear now a days.
I followed him as he played around Springfield at the clubs and admired how he always stuck to his goals. I never went to see him play many times as my spouse was not into rap or that style of music at all. We would briefly reconnect in passing, fleetingly keeping in touch.
We really got back to it at our last class reunion( #20). Good god are we really that old? Anyway, we started off at Club Vegas on South Campbell he was spinnin' for us and of course he and the guys got out there and were break dancing. He still was full of energy. He was still a great dancer.
 He gave me a huge hug and now that I didn't have a jealous spouse I could accept it with comfort. We exchanged numbers and he let me and a couple other girls hang out with him up in the DJ booth.
 The next night we had our "fancy dinner" and about 10 or so of us from the old neighborhood caught another friends set out at Cody's south. If you haven't seen the ABC band with the Bedell's you are missing out .
 The whole gang went to breakfast where I sat with Danny and his assistant and caught up on things. He told me about the last 10 or so years of his life that I had missed out on . How he had migrated to Tulsa OK, Vegas and now was back in Springfield helping out his family, who ironically, still lived across the tracks from my grandma's house.
Then he linked me a the message about being on Master of the Mix . He's living his dream. I watch him on TV and I see that guy who looked me in the eye at Project Graduation our last night in high school and said "I'm going to be a DJ."  and I smile and think " You made it homie, you really did ". 

Monthly Checkups ...IEC contact calls

For those of you who have been following me (or those of you just joining me) I wrote that I was hosting an exchange student from Italy this year. That is going totally well and I am enjoying having my student living in my house he's a great guy.
My other involvement in international exchange is my duties for EF Foundation for Foreign Studies as an International Exchange Coordinator. Sounds very glamorous doesn't it? Among the many duties this volunteer job has is checking up with our students and their host families in an every four week ritual that I call the monthly checkup.
Last year it was easy. I could just hop in the car and go see the A team and my student Lars who were only a few blocks away. I had one student and it allowed me to get used to the reporting system where we record our monthly contact logs.
The process should go like this. I speak with the student, alone , and ask whether or not things are going well and see what exciting things the student has been up to. Getting enough to eat, making friends easily , grades ok etc. Then I speak to the host family separately from the student. Similar questions. Is your student settling in to the family. Are they understanding your house rules. Are things going like you expected? etc. The goal of this is to keep the kids safe while they are here and head off any possible misunderstandings that might be brewing under the surface. Much easier to talk to me sometimes that host mom or dad.
I am that students first line of contact. If something is going down then I play mediator in the situation.
The reality (once you have more than one student) is far more hectic. I play a lot of phone tag. Trying to get everyone called or seen (we have to see the students at least two times per year after we greet them 30 days after they arrive) should be an easy task. With our busy lives that we lead now a days it's pretty hectic. Throw in a holiday and wowie !
Luckily All my kids are great and enjoy talking with me so they always call me right back. I am usually timing my calls between shift work, dinner and bedtime.
Some of the great things I am hearing this semester are : My student from Spain is doing so well with her studies they want to switch her to honors classes this next semester, My Japanese student is taking dance classes and loves them. My student from Hong Kong got to go to state with her Cheerleading team and my student from Thailand went deer hunting for the first time ever.
I love my second job ! 

Let's get ready to ruuuummmble !

So today at noon I have a hair appointment with my stylist. I say let's rumble because my hair and I haven't always gotten along on the best of terms. We have a war on a daily basis to make it look good.
First of all every stylist I have (after starting to wrestle with my mane) always says "wow your hair is different. It's not doing anything like how we learned in cosmetology school."   "Yep I say that is why I am turning this over to a pro because I can't do a damn thing with it."
My hair is fine like silk, but there's a lot of it.  I have three different cowlicks in my hair that make it naturally want to look like someone took their hands and gave me a really bad noogie.  It is also completely straight. My natural color is an unimpressive ash blonde color with a slightly green tint (my grandma used to joke it's the Irish blood in my mom's side of the family while she cackled that it looked the color of dirty dishwater). I bemoan the fact that the red undertones didn't come out more.
When I was little my parents insisted my hair be long. Even though I would plead to cut it because every time I moved it seemed to snarl itself in knots that would cause little tears to come out of my eyes while my paternal grandmother raked a comb through my hair.  Yep I was a tender head and she was determined that if she just kept yanking eventually it would go away.  All it did was overload the nerve endings in my head and cause me to have temporary numbness from the pain.
The efforts to control my long hair were laughable. My mom quickly gave up on it. My Dad's mom picked up the battle after she had retreated from the field saying I needed to look like "a little lady".
Elastic ponytail holders would slip right out after a few minutes of horseplay in the yard. My grandmother's solution was to pull my hair back so tight into the holder that the corners of my eyes were permanently relocated back by my earlobes. In non-politically correct terms we used to say this "made us look Chinese". This would allow the ponytail to last a whole 15 to 10 minutes before flyaway tendrils of hair would burst free of their bonds and swirl in the breeze around my head like Medusa's coils.  Ragamuffin was a term thrown around very often as she would chase me around the yard in an effort to re-do the original torture.
Her second attempt was what she deemed "puppy ears" . This was double the torture as my hair was parted down the middle into two sections causing each eye corner to sit at a slightly different angle. After all it was important for the hair to stay in the holder not for me to look normal. None of my friends had to wear puppy ears. The effect was cute and gave Mary Shockley handholds with which to pull my hair in Kindergarten class. Once again my hair always found a way to escape.
A couple years later, my mother in a fit of revenge against my father( whom she had divorced two years earlier)  cut my hair into a very stylish "Mary Lou Retton /Dorothy Hamill bob in my 2nd grade year. I think that was one of the first times I ever saw my father cry, he loved my long hair.  Looking back on the pic I think it actually made my hair look better.
Of course it was grown back out, after all,little girls have long pretty hair so that they aren't confused with little boys.  That was when my paternal grandmother (whom I was living with full time by now) staged her third attempt at making my hair behave. Shirley Temple Curls. She decided to do this on school picture day and despite my best efforts at undoing her efforts. The horror was captured for posterity.
Junior High marked my attempts to become more of an individual herd member. I wanted to fit in after all. So I decided I needed wispy bangs. The hairstylist my grandmother took me to at this time was the same one that did her and all the old ladies hair in the small town of Ava Mo.  She was the queen of the blue hair mushroom do. When I said wispy bangs and showed her the picture of Cindy Lauper she responded by cutting my bangs in the same Bettie Page straight across manner she always had. My grandmother refused to even allow me to put layers in my hair. I was a smart kid and I hatched my own plot to get what I wanted.
In my first fit of rebellion I got out the pinking shears and attempted to give myself wispy bangs. The horrifying result was again captured for posterity in my Jr. High school picture.  After that my stylist decided that perhaps she should study up on the latest styles if only to prevent people from thinking that she had murdered my hair.
That was when I decided that my "straight as a string" hair needed some curl to make it "do something". It was the 80's I wanted hair that stood up and out not flopped down.  Thus began my love hate affair with permanent waves.  I took a picture in of Madonna and pointed out her wavy hair and asked if my stylist could do that. Sure she said we can give you curls. I ended up with a traditional Hailey Mills in the movie parent trap perm a do.  I wanted to crawl into a hole as I slunk onto the school bus that next Monday.
On the next try the new stylist in the salon took a crack at my hair. She got the spiral stacking down but she over processed me and I ended up looking like Roseanne Rosannadanna.  I will never forget the hour and a half she spend with the thinning shears trying to get my hair to calm down.
This cycle of "good perm bad perm" continued off and on throughout my high school years. I kept my hair long even though I hated it because my father begged me not to cut my hair. I also was not allowed to cut it any shorter than shoulder length and being as my grandparents controlled my access to the stylist. I ended up with a mullet for most of high school.
My senior year my stepmother snuck me out to a different stylist and I got to get my hair "colored" for the first time. This stylist added honey blonde highlights and layers to my hair. I was in love with my hair for the first time ever.
I made peace with my straight hair and ended the bad cycle of perms when grunge music came into fashion. It was ok to be straight.  My hair was healthier than it had ever been and was looking pretty darn good.
I then started making mistakes with home hair color. I was searching (and suppose still am) for that perfect color that perfect thing that will express how I feel my hair should look based on how I see it on the inside of my mind.  Unfortunately my first foray into experimentation happened to be a "knee jerk" reaction to try and keep the attentions of my soon to be husband.
He had a not-so-secret fantasy for red headed women. I was a blonde. After two weeks of hearing and seeing him leer, pant and praise every red headed woman in the two weeks leading up to his birthday, I decided to give him a birthday surprise. I would become the red head of his dreams. I got a box of Ms. Clarol temporary home hair color went into the bathroom at my dad's house and walked out an hour later as an auburn haired beauty. "This " I smirked "should be good" . My father cried for the second time "what did you do?" then he frowned at me. "It's temporary Daddy." I said .   Yeah, temporary color my eye .. what was supposed to wash out in two weeks was being cut and colored out by my stylist 9 weeks later.
I hadn't learned my lesson yet. I decided that since coloring my long hair was so expensive I would do it at home. I dropped down to just hair cuts at the local cosmetology school. Poor college students can't afford to go to fancy stylists.  I let the color go back to its natural ash blonde.
After I got married I started using different shades of blonde home hair color to try to give myself natural looking highlights. We were poor and I was trying to save money.  I ended up with tri-colored hair ash blonde roots, perfectly colored middle section hair and dead straw like ends that killed the bottom six inches of my hair. I cried when my husband remarked that I had given my self a skunk stripe. I slunk back to my stylist friend who was now supervising and teaching at the cosmetology school. She scolded me and smacked my hand "Promise me you will never EVER touch home hair color again!" I ducked my head and promised. To this day I don't even flirt with the idea of home color.  She fixed the top part of my hair. The last six inches of hair had to come off. She cut it into a shoulder length bob. My husband, who loved my long hair, was less than pleased.
However I was pleased I noticed it had more bounce, tangled less and was easier to take care of. I've always been a bit of a tomboy and hated having to spend a lot of time styling my hair. I kept it shoulder length and pondered going shorter.
My husband and my father had resigned themselves at this point that I was never going to have long hair flowing down to the middle of my back again.
 My dad got over it . My husband didn't.
As my marriage deteriorated over the next 13 years. I started cutting my hair shorter.
Six years into the marriage he said he felt trapped. I got angry and Snip ! the hair shrank to chin length and stayed there.  Years seven and eight I experimented with color different hues of blonde and red.  He was still unhappy with me. I threw everything I had into not failing at marriage.   Years 9-12 it was color, cut (all chin length) asymmetrical, bob, poofy, same length. I was finding my own way externally and internally.  Realizing that life is too short to be miserable. I got divorced and proceeded to shave the back all the way up leaving the sides chin length.  New life =new hairdo for the new me.
My current length of hair was decided on by a casual post-divorce conversation with my buddy S. whom I met at OTC and his best friend A.  Earlier that day I had been helping him move stuff out of his parents house and he had shown me a pic of himself in high school where he had long hair. I say long hair because currently he practically shaves his head. I had exclaimed that it really didn't look like "him" to me and that I preferred him with his current hair style as it was "just him" that "it suited his personality".  Later that day I had shared with him that I was considering going back to my long hair.  "Hmm" he had said looking me over "I don't know if I can picture you that way. "  "I can fish out some pics of me with long hair so you can give me your opinion."  and so I dipped into my old picture stash and produced a couple of pics where I had my long hair styled relatively well. Carefully he looked them over and then showed them to A. who smirked a bit  but didn't say anything.  S. paused and then said. "Like you said to me earlier. I just don't think it looks like "you" . The short hair looks good on you."  Pushing him for a definite yes or no grow it out or not answer "I said but do you like me with long hair?"  With almost Herculean effort he slowly smiled and said. " I like you with short hair."  A. who was standing behind him smiled and nodded his head in agreement and then said " It's your hair just decide."
So I started thinking about what "suited me" for so long I had to squelch my inner voice that I really decided to think over why I was so ready to hop back to something that caused me so much grief. I decided that if I ever really want long hair I can go buy a wig. Short hair fits me and my personality. It's quick to style, looks good on me, works with the natural way my hair lays and all in all makes me happy. Now if I could just get that color combination down ...but where would be the fun in that ?