what have i done?

File this under "S" for stupid things that women do to try and improve their looks. A couple of friends have recently coloured their hair, and their locks look gorgeously shiny. I coveted their glossy manes, and wanted to acquire some of that glimmer for myself. I found an over-the-counter product today at the drugstore - Clairol's Shine Happy - which promised a clear shine treatment in only 10 minutes! How could I resist?

I don't colour my hair. I'm not interested in colouring my hair. I love my natural colour - which some people refer to as "mousy" - with its God-given highlights and blonde streaks. There are now some healthy grey streaks mixed in there, too. Bring it on, I say.

My hair does look kind of dull, however - at least compared to my salon-treated friends'. I just finished with my box of instant head-bling, and am wondering what could have possessed me to do this to myself.


Notice that I am drenched. That's from the showerhead in my tub - but I'm getting ahead of myself.

First, I read the instructions found inside the box. Dire warnings about not getting the solution in my eyes nearly deterred me before I even got started. How to explain that one to the grandchildren? Yes dearie, I blinded myself trying to get shiny hair...

Armed with a makeshift eyebath should things go awry, I suddenly realized I wasn't going to be able to see during the 10+ minutes my hair was getting glossied, since the solution wasn't supposed to come into contact with metal (my eyeglasses' frames), and, due the abovementioned potential for blinding, the wearing of contact lenses was not recommended.

I memorized the instructions and pulled on the gloves supplied with the kit. Double-checking to make sure I was adding the correct solutions to the appropriate containers, I mixed everything together, and quickly applied it to my damp hair. Got some solution on my forearm, which was immediately bleached white. Decided now was a good time to dampen a towel as recommended in the instructions, and wipe all excess solution from any exposed skin (including my forehead, ears and neck).

Also decided that if I ever do this again, I'm going to leave it in the hands of trained professionals at a salon. Hard to tell if one is giving oneself chemically-induced vitiligo when one can't see two inches in front of one's face.

After the longest ten minutes of my life (which were really only eight-and-a-half minutes, because my scalp was burning and I was tired of waiting), I bent over my tub and rinsed out my hair with the new adjustable showerhead that my parents gave me for Christmas. Proceeded to get water (and possibly some of the solution, I worried) everywhere within a three-foot radius, including the inside of my right ear. Was wearing gloves as the instructions suggested, so I couldn't tell when my hair was clean. Couldn't check to see if the water was rinsing clear (also as the instructions suggested), because I was keeping my eyes fiercely shut in order to avoid blindness. Couldn't have seen anything with my eyes open anyhow, because I wasn't wearing my corrective lenses.

After rinsing for what I hoped was a sufficient amount of time, I removed my gloves to apply the conditioner included with the kit. Squirted the recommended dime-sized amount halfway across the bathtub. Scooped up as much as I could (by feel - still couldn't see) and rubbed it into my slippery locks. Wasn't convinced I'd rinsed out all the previous solution, so after some back-and-forth debate with my inner hypochondriac, who was convinced she was starting to feel a burning sensation in the corner of one of her eyes, I rinsed out the conditioner a minute early and stood up, damp, sweating and swearing with my outside voice.

I just checked my nearly-dry hair in the bathroom mirror; am disappointed to report that said hair does not seem noticeably shinier. My neck, on the other hand, feels itchy and irritated, and the skin on my hands is dry and tight. Maybe this stuff has some potential as a mild skin peel...

how i spent my christmas eve

I was lying in bed late last night, trying to remember the last time I didn't go to church on Christmas Eve. And to be honest, I think last night was the first time ever. I've gone to church on every other Christmas Eve of my life.

As I approach the new year, I've been reflecting on the year past. Normally New Year's doesn't mean that much to me, since I measure my life by my birthdays, and not by the calendar year. But at this time last year there were many new things just about to happen in my life, including a job that I began in the second week of January, 2008. How strange, one year later, to be leaving that job and searching for another.

It's about balance. I loved the work, but it had taken over my existence. I was doing noble things, but had set aside many of the activities that I loved most, including my creative writing and visual art. In the end I realized I was waking up unhappy more days than not. Life had lost its juice. I yearned to be in a place - live in a place - that would feed my inner callings. Less and less did it seem like that place was Toronto.

As a result, I have upended my life and moved away. Or should I say towards?

I find myself facing new beginnings once more. I am in the waiting place yet again. Exhausted from my move a month ago - all that painting and unpacking! - part of me just wants to hibernate for the rest of the winter. December has been a blur, compounded by frequent commutes back to Toronto for my work with the Chorale.

I've observed a few of my favorite Advent rituals - the Wesley-Knox Christmas concert with Denise Pelley, the RCCO Carol Service - but last night I wasn't ready for Christmas to happen. How did the days go so quickly?

I enjoyed the Chorale's Indigo concerts within the last week, and I've even made it to Sunday services at various churches this month. The music is running through my head. The scriptures have been read in my presence. I wasn't feeling the magic, though.

Yesterday I woke up intending to do some cleaning in my apartment and maybe (hopefully! finally!) unpack my library and set up my meditation/yoga room. My best friend and I had tentative plans to hang out in the afternoon, and then I was likely going to go to my new/old church for Christmas Eve.

When I tried to go online first thing in the morning, however, I realized my phone line was dead. That one event threw a spanner in the works. I couldn't pick up Laurie when she got off work early, since I had to wait around for the Bell technician to show up. When he finally finished, it was nearly suppertime. Laurie wasn't picking up her phone, and her voice mailbox was full.

I packed my bags for my trip to my sister's this morning, and ate some supper. Laurie finally called me back, and that's when I made the decision that I wanted to do nothing more than spend Christmas Eve with my best (and Jewish) friend, working on my apartment.

I fed her some of my supper and put her to work folding boxes and flattening packing paper. Sometime after nine we finished for the night, all my books unpacked and safely in my bookshelves. Both exhausted, I drove her home, and I'm sure she hit her bed as quickly as I did.

The evening couldn't have been more perfect. I got to spend time with one of my favorite people, who sometimes feels left out at this time of year; we laughed a lot; I now have a meditation room; did I mention I got to spend time with one of my favorite people?

Christmas in the past has been about catching that warm fuzzy feeling, for me. I think I'm there...

castile soap

I have a thing about soap; in fact, I may write a future blog post about my love of soap in general. But today I want to talk about a particular kind of soap - castile soap, also know by the French name "savon de Marseille" (which means "Marseille soap").

Soapmakers in the Marseille region of France have been making soaps in the traditional manner for hundreds of years. The soaps have a pure vegetable oil (as opposed to rendered animal fat) base, and are much milder to the skin than tallow-based soaps. (They're also animal-friendly - important to me as a vegetarian.)

Castile soap was traditionally made with olive oil, although Marseille soaps eventually came to be made with either olive oil (which produces a green soap) or palm oil (which produces a cream-coloured soap).

You can still buy castile soap today, and it usually comes stamped with the oil content (below).


Castile soap is made throughout the Mediterranean region, but the soap made in the Marseille region of France is one of the most well-known. Marseille soap will be stamped with the word "Marseille." I bought this soap yesterday at L'Occitane, a French chain of soap and body care stores.

I'm using this soap in my kitchen, of all places. It makes a great dish soap if you rub the dishcloth on it, then wipe the greasy dishes. This soap is scented with lavender, but I also love the smell of pure olive oil soap without any scent - it's subtle and earthy, and makes me feel virtuous.

my blackberry

I love my BlackBerry. If you'd told me six months ago that I would get a BlackBerry (and that I would come to feel that I couldn't live without it), I would have told you you were crazy.

I thought I knew myself well. I thought I knew what helped keep me organized, and what would drive me crazy. Turns out I was wrong.

I'm a very visual person, and I like to see everything laid out in front of me. (In an organized fashion, of course.) Don't give me directions; give me a map. Don't tell me something; write it down for me. Don't hide my schedule in binary code; give me some paper and a pencil, already.

But my BlackBerry has become one of my very favorite tools. Yes, it's addictive. (And yes, I'm kind of ambivalent about that part of it.) But it helps simplify my life so much that I'm seriously figuring out how I can afford to keep it, should I ever leave the job it came with. (BlackBerry plans are a little more expensive than those of your average mobile phone. Go figure.)

Why do I love my BlackBerry so much? It does so much - all in one tiny little package.

It's a mobile phone.

It can receive e-mails. (IT CAN RECEIVE E-MAILS!!!) That feature alone blew me away the first day I had it. No more having to log on to my computer when I want to check and see what's going on. (And a lot is going on - mostly business. Which is why I got the thing in the first place - it made sense to the organization.)

It can SEND e-mails. (IT CAN *SEND* E-MAILS!!!) How ridiculous is that? Someone needs a two-word reply on the fly? No problem! I have (dare I say this) responded to e-mails from just about anywhere: the grocery store, the health food store, restaurants, my car (no, I wasn't driving at the time, officer), my bed in the middle of the night, and the while using the toilet.

It has a web browser. I know cell phones have been able to browse for years, but this is the first time I've had a mobile plan with browsing. Brainerd and I were at a choral management conference a couple of weekends ago, and during a session on strategic planning we were able to view, right there and then, the vision and mission statements posted on the Chorale's website, and discuss some changes we needed to make to them.

It's a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). One of my favorite features (oh, who am I kidding - they're all favorite features) is the address book, because - get this - you can click on someone's name and have the choice of phoning them (at any of their million locations), texting them, messaging them (Blackberry has its own messenger service between users) or e-mailing them. And like all PDAs, it also has a calendar/datebook and assorted sundry functions (calculator, etc.).

It's a camera. (Okay, I don't really use the camera all that much. I have a much better digital camera that I take with me almost everywhere, too. But if I WANTED to use my BlackBerry as a camera, I could. I even used it this morning, to take a photo of a sidewalk I saw during my morning walk, apparently created during Canada's centennial year.)


(1867 - 1967: Yay, Canada! Oh, and BTW, one cool feature about the BlackBerry camera is that I can immediately upload photos to my Facebook profile. Like that.)

It's a clock - and an alarm clock. My watch stopped working a couple of months ago. I haven't noticed. The BlackBerry is with me everywhere, so I always know what time it is. I only wish that it also had a timer. I mean, the alarm is kind of like a timer, except it's not. You have to set a clock time, as opposed to an elapsed time. Here's my advice to the BlackBerry people: BlackBerry people, make a BlackBerry with a proper timer. I love the ring I've set for the alarm, though - it's called ChiGong: a gentle, Tibetan bowl sound. And my ringtone for incoming calls is equally soothing - it sounds like a single chord played on a harpsichord.

It's a GPS (Global Positioning System). Took me a while to figure out how to navigate the map functions, but I still get a kick out of the device telling me exactly where I am at any given moment. Brainerd and I took a research trip to Cape Croker, ON (near Wiarton) last spring, and when we got lost on the winding country roads in the Native reserve, it could tell us exactly where we were. Sweet. The GPS can't give you directions to brand new addresses, however - which I discovered to my dismay when trying to find a friend's house in a brand new subdivision north of Toronto. Might not have helped me much, anyhow: the houses were so new they didn't even have street numbers on them, yet.

It's an mp3 player. (I haven't used that function yet, but I'm sure it's awesome. Awesome.)

My number one favorite reason I love my BlackBerry, however, is that I can create lists on it. Like shopping lists, and To Do lists, and lists of my favorite inspirational quotes. I currently have 29 lists on my BlackBerry, and I add more every week. No more paper lists that I can never keep track of! I always have my BlackBerry with me, so I always have all my lists. I consult them constantly throughout the day, and especially when I'm shopping or packing for trips. My CrackBerry definitely feeds my list addiction.

Number of times I have left my BlackBerry behind in a store or business: 3

(I have a constant mantra now whenever I'm leaving a store: Do I have my BlackBerry? Where's my Blackberry?)

That's about it. I highly recommend the BlackBerry. Mine is a Curve. I've heard iPhones are pretty cool, though. May have to check those out, someday...

cheese

I have become a cheese addict.

I've always loved cheese - with macaroni as a child, on pizza, on tacos... and as an adult I learned to appreciate some of the finer cheeses, such as creamy Brie, aged cheddar and true Parmigiano Reggiano... but I didn't truly fall in love with cheese until last weekend.

Visiting a winery as part of a choral management conference, I was mesmerized by the well-stocked cheese cooler in the vinter's agreeable little food shop. I chose two cheddars - a horseradish-flavored one and a smoked one - and took them to my sister's that night. The smoked one, particularly, became the focus of every meal I ate at my sister's for the rest of the weekend, and I craved it for days after I left it behind at her house. Even her kids loved it - said it tasted like ham (which made the adults laugh, since I've been a vegetarian for over 20 years).

This week, back home, I have tried to seek out new and different (to me) cheeses, first at my local grocery stores. At Dominion I purchased some standard provolone (long a favorite, although I generally prefer it smoked, and had to settle for plain), spiced Gouda, and a cheddar with olives and red peppers in it. Loblaws offered some more exotic choices, including a chunk of Oka and another Quebec cheese I'd never heard of called Hercule du Nord.

The Oka (pictured on the lower right in the photo above) has been interesting. It came with a gritty orange-ish rind that, upon tasting (I'm usually not deterred by rinds), I learned was decidedly inedible. (I think it may have had ashes or something in it.) Even cutting off the rind didn't rid the cheese of its distinctively strong aroma and slightly bitter taste.

The Hercule du Nord (a semi-soft, ripened cheese like the Oka) has turned out to be much milder in flavour and very pleasant.

I eat my cheese in thin slivers, usually with fruit or tomatoes to provide contrasting tastes and textures between bites. The above cheese was photographed during my al fresco breakfast this morning, and was accompanied by peaches. The provolone (in the upper left) was a perfect foil for the sweet ambrosia of peach juice.

This afternoon I stumbled upon a cheese store that's been open in my neighbourhood for a year or two, but whose threshold I've never crossed. About Cheese is my new favorite food shop; it's filled with really fine cheeses (including several local artisan and organic choices) and other foodie stuff like imported spices and artisan bread.

I asked if they carried a smoked cheddar (still pining a week later), and they let me sample a sheep's milk one from Stratford, ON (photo below, left). Sold. Then, wanting to broaden my horizons a bit, I asked which cheese they've been featuring recently, or were really excited about. I was treated to a sample of Lost Lake organic chevre, which made me swoon with its creamy tartness. I almost asked for a second sample, it was so good. Bought that one, too (photo below, right). They were my supper tonight, with a couple more ripe peaches.

I think I'm going to have to get a second job to pay for my cheese habit; these specialty cheeses don't come cheap. I'm so excited that my summer memories will be tied to these new flavours, though - and I can't wait to try some more cheeses. Remind me to revisit About Cheese again late in the day on a Saturday - today they sent me home with a free loaf of sourdough bread which would have otherwise been thrown out before the store opened again after the holiday. Sweet.

In a recent blog entry, a friend who has moved her family to Belgium was unfavorably comparing Canadian cheese selections to those she's discovered in Europe; maybe she's never been anywhere like About Cheese?

the return of my smile

Driving home yesterday from a visit to my hometown, I couldn't stop smiling - not because I was going home, but simply because I was happy. Happy is a good thing. (So are vacations.)

I'm still trying to sort out in my mind what the difference is. Is it just the vacation, or is it something else? (Like the end of my period, and several blissfully migraine-free days?)

Part of it, I'm sure, is from hanging out with my parents, friends, niece and nephew for several days. Being surrounded by people who love you is certainly a balm for the soul.

Another part of it is taking a break from worry - and in my case, much of my worry over the past several months has revolved around my job.

I'm trying to prepare myself for the eventual return to work next week. How can I carry "vacation brain" back into my regular life?

A work in progress...

kissing a mango

Sitting at my breakfast table
this morning eating two fresh mangoes
I find myself
thinking that eating
a mango is not unlike
kissing.

Warm, wet, slippery
bold nibbles,
smooth flesh,
darting tongue tasting
sweetness.