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 8th 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.
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| 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 56th 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 56th
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.”
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| 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 55th 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 56th 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 56th birthday.
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| MY SWEET TORTURER |
