THEY SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY.........

December 7, 2012

Two days before that momentous day, the one in which I was born!  I will wear the fancy hat my sister Dawn bought me last year.  I will eat whatever and wherever I want.  I may get a pedi.  And get my eyebrows waxed.

But I digress.  We moved from Catalina Spa, about 30 minutes away from Desert Hot Springs, to 3500’ at the top of San Jacinto mountain.  Due to our club rules we are only allowed four weeks at one park, split up by at least one week between.  Silent Valley is our two weeks in between.  We didn’t know what to expect and have been a little put off for the first week.  Granted, it was rainy, gray and shitty for about five days which kept us mostly inside Blue.  It’s an incredibly well organized and beautiful park, made it the era of many families joining their club, vacationing here throughout the years.  They have 400 treed acres and 400+ campsites.  There are two distinct areas, one for families, one for adults  - with clubhouses and pools for each.  They have a general store, crafts barn, a restaurant, a bar, great laundry, miles of trails.  They even have a tram that picks people up and takes them to other areas of the park.  Of course none of the trams are running in winter, and the store hours have been shaved down.  

The sun did come, and it is glorious.  We got our mojo back and have been biking, playing pool, puttering.  I sent all the Christmas presents out yesterday, on our trip “down the hill,” as the locals call it, to Banning.  That trip in itself has us blown away every time, as “the 243” is a severely windy road that drops 4000’ in 10 minutes.  It is awesome.

Tony’s wonderful sister-in-law, widow of his older brother Pete, lives in nearby San Jacinto in a beautiful gated community.  We spent several fun hours with Rose and will return for Christmas when her daughter, son in law and four grandsons will be here too. 

Tonight we went to the top of the Silent Valley hill to see the sunset, put the top down on the Sebring and took some pics.  Lovely night out, pretty mountains everywhere, with their deep, gray shadows, variegated plants, earth, rocks.

December  9, 2012

Happy Birthday to me!  I’m 56 years old today.  After many nights of constantly interrupted sleep for many reasons, I spent the 8^th sleeping in and going to bed early.  Woke up well rested and ready for my day!  Drug Tony around to the big city of Hemet, CA, where thrift stores, better restaurants and beauty treatments awaited me.  

TONY'S CARD TO ME, LOVE IT!

 We went to several thrift stores and I picked up just a few things to maybe resell on eBay.  As we were going to the Von’s grocery store I spied a brow place – haven’t had them waxed in over a year.  Unbeknownst to me it wasn’t a waxing store, it is a threading store.  This is an important distinction, my friends.  Nothing in my life prepared me for this experience, and frankly, nothing , and nobody, could have.  Here, take my hand and let me take you on my 56^th birthday adventure.  No, no, don’t be afraid, I’ve already absorbed the mental anguish for you.

Beautiful, petite Keneesha (guessing at name, business card probably fell to the ground from my shaking hands) greets me as I enthusiastically tell her it’s been over a year since my brows have been done.  She leads me to a comfy chair that slides back, for easier access to my brows.  I settle in for a little waxing pain and around the eye redness, when my darling girl says, “We don’t wax here, we thread.”  My head comes up and my mind starts whirling – “What? You mean the thread thing that rips your hair out?”  I recall seeing it done on good old TV, and also recall that everyone both getting it done, and doing it, seemed calm.

Keneesha explained the benefits of the process to me, as opposed to waxing: exfoliates while the hair is removed, takes hair out by roots, doesn’t promote bacteria, leaves a beautiful, non-red skin surface after the procedure, is better for people with rosacea or on heavy duty prescription acne medicine, attractive.  I thought, “OK, new experience on my 56^th day of birth!  Rock on!”  I said, “Sure, why not?!”

She retrieved her thread, did a cat’s cradle between her hands, fingers out, put the end in her mouth…and began.  It was quickly done, zip zip zip!  She ruthlessly  efficiently threaded through my left eyebrow while I loudly screamed in pain.  She assured me it would be over soon, as she finished up with a few plucks on my left brown.  I told her I’d never felt anything that painful, was she KIDDING me about the quickness and efficacy of this procedure???!!!  I had one brow to go, however, so zipped my mouth closed and signaled to her to git ‘er done.  Jesus God Mother Mary in heaven, it hurt like a motherfucker!!!

Meanwhile, in comes a regular and sits down in the chair next to me.  The other “threader”, who had been calling  me a weeny and telling me to stop whining, goes to work on the other customer.  The customer assures me it’s not a big deal “after you have it done three or four times you can’t even feel it anymore.”  I said, “WHY do we want a hair free face?  I just don’t get it.”  Keneesha looks at me as she’s finishing up my right brow and says, “You’ve got a mustache, this would be great to get rid of that.”  The other threader, her customer, and the customer’s sister all happily chirped up and agreed that I would just love having my mustache and side burns smooth.” 

Uh, sideburns?  “What are you talking about, sideburns?  I mean, I’ve removed a few black hairs from my upper lip, and it hurt so bad ….. but who really cares about seeing hair on my face, sideburns or upper lip or whatever?”  They ALL, to a person, said it’s very important to have a hair free face.

Sweet Keneesha, standing by my side, thread still in her hands, quietly said: “You know, we can do your whole face, we do it all the time.”  Stalling, I asked, “How much does that cost?  The whole face?”  “$30.00.”  I hesitated.  “WHY would I do that and put up with so much pain?!”  I looked around the room.  I had pictures of my hair-free face and wondered if I cared.  I thought about being 56, trying new experiences, the Thai dinner that was to come after I was done at The Brow Shop, the enormous amount of pain I had just endured getting my two little brows threaded.  “Sure, let’s do it!  What an exciting day, what fun!”  Everyone clapped and cheered.  Next stop Gitmo.

She began rolling her little cotton thread over my forehead and the pain renewed itself ten fold from the brows and my “Oh shit, why did I do this?!” started in my head, then came out my mouth. 

As she rolled down to those pesky sideburns  I didn’t know I had, my mouth opened and I blurted out, “You’re not going to heaven!!!”  Poor Keneesha quietly responded, “I am going to heaven.”  I felt terrible saying that to her, and equally as terrible following it up with, “How do you LIVE with yourself everyday doing this to people?!”  She said, “It’s OK, it’s almost over.  When I start something, I do it right and finish it.”  No shit.  Why me?

On and on it went, chatter from everyone around me, encouraging me through the pain, how happy I’d be when we were all done.  Oh, and you’ll have to do this every two weeks.  And don’t EVER pluck another hair or you’ll fuck everything up that has been done today.  “Never pluck again?!”  “Never.”

Meanwhile, Tony had gone to Home Depot and we were to meet at Von’s as soon as I got my brows done.  But he didn’t know that the waxing had segued into threading.  Between my rude threats to the woman with my facial hair in her thread, I was able to glance out the window and see Tony – in the Sebring, staring at me.  I can’t imagine what he was thinking I was reacting to, with no narrative to give him the details.

On and on it went.  There are times when she has you hold your skin taut so that she can come at you and rip out whole lines of hair by their roots.  At one point to cheer me up, she observed, “You don’t have any nose hair!  See, that’s one place we won’t have to do!”  Oddly, it did give me a little bit of hope that I wasn’t all one big hairy faced post menopausal woman; but I didn’t feel that happiness for more than a second, because she started on my upper lip.  “If you stick your tongue into your upper lip it tends to hurt less.”  After she started on the upper lip I screamed, “You’re a liar!” I repeated that phrase like a mantra for the next ten minutes as Keneesha cruelly cruised from upper lip to both cheeks, around and around my neck. 

The pain was so deep, so enduring that I had no control over my limbs or my mouth,  alternately kicking my legs up and out as I screamed, “My god this is horrible!  Owwww! Stop it!!!”  My arms were constantly drawn to whatever face part she was working on, pushing her little evil thread away forcing her to stop for just a minute.  I would then just partially curl up and pant.  She would then move in and with great delicacy, continue to rage against my face again.

She finally finished.  I could only lie back and try to recover from this assault.  Poor Keneesha loyally stayed by my side.  I gasped, “Am I the worst you’ve ever had?”  She averted her eyes and smiled.  “I AM, aren’t ?”  “Um, well.”  “Am !?!  Really?!  The worst?!”  She slid away from me and said, “Well, yes.”  Oh that poor thing.

Tony came in and I filled him in.  He said he could tell it was something terrible the way I was flailing around.  He read the front of the store and didn’t see “waxing” anywhere, but did see “threading” and knew what it was.  He, being a logical man, couldn’t figure out why I continued on after the brows.  I couldn’t either.  Still can’t.

Dinner next at a lovely Thai restaurant called Lemongrass.  I got my usual phad thai with wide noodles, totally in bliss.  TC stuck with his favorite, panang beef.  Stuff, we hit one more grocery store before going back up “the hill.”

PHAD THAI

 It was a delightful day.  It started out with a handmade card from Tony, many birthday wishes via FB and email, and I got to do whatever I felt like.  I remember last year I spent my 55^th in St. Augustine, FL, a city we both love.  We were in a weird and strange campground, full of trees and muffled quiet.  We walked the city and had a fun day, but it was a little off, I don’t know, probably me.  My 56^th however, proved to be a lovely and memorable day  -  as an aside, it was a beautiful 75 degrees all day too.

Driving home I caught up with my sister Dawn for awhile, until we got to Blue.  I had been feeling my gut clenching on the way up the hill; by the time we were a few feet from Blue I was in full panic mode as my snapper, or sphincter, was also starting to clench and unclenth.  I had on my super strength panties which I was already starting to picture ripping off – how would this work?  Would I shit myself, the ultimate shame?  I ran to the door, unlocked it as quickly as possible, raced to the bathroom, shut the door  (barely), ripped down my pants, got my granny panties off in record time – and, might I add, just in top.  Explosive diarrhea.  Epic end to a great 56^th birthday.        

MY SWEET TORTURER