Maybe I Should Buy A Hat

The hair after I fixed it.

". . .My hair came out looking like I was shot 

out of a cannon, and I had just gotten out of bed."

~Kelly Cutrone

I called Mike as soon as Skype told me he was awake.

"I can't see you," he announced. "It looks like you're in the dark.

"I positioned the computer this way on purpose," I replied. "I'm hiding."

"Why?" he asked, and then he remembered. "Today was haircut day. How did it go? Not good?"

"Well, it's short," I said. "It's a lot shorter than I've ever worn it."

"Let me see."  He was quiet a second. 'Yep, it's short. It'll grow."

"It'll take six months." I was a bit bereft.  "She styled it wrong. I had to come back and re-do it so I had bangs. I look like I have a watermelon head on my neck."

"It doesn't look bad, just different. And, think of how easy it will be to take care of now."  My husband is ever positive, but he doesn't understand that it takes me a lot longer to deal with short hair than with long.

My idea of a little was the width of a pen.

If you remember when I had my hair cut in Sulmona last year, I mentioned that I hate my hair. It's so fine and fly-away, and humidity glues it to my head so quickly.  The color adds a little body, but even that doesn't do much good when one doesn't know how to deal with a cut.  At any rate, the cut last year turned out great because, even though I had a hard time communicating, my few words and sign language worked. This year I was more positive since I can actually communicate.

I arrived for my appointment a little early today, but I was the only one there, so she took me right away.

"You said you wanted color and cut, right?" she asked me.

"Yes," I replied.  "I just want it cut a little." I held up my  thumb and finger to indicate a little (photo above).

"No problem," she told me.  "It will be easy."    She started doing the color, and she asked me a bunch of questions, starting with, "Where are you from?"

"Las Vegas," I told her.

"Ah, Las Vegas." She nodded. "Las Vegas.  Really?"  I took out my phone and showed her photos from home.  "Las Vegas."

For some reason, every time someone asks me where I live and I tell them "Las Vegas," they say, "Ah, Las Vegas." The first day of Italian class, the entire group 'oohed and ahhed' over it.  All of my new friends in Bologna always introduce me to others saying, "She lives in Las Vegas." Three people came into the salon while I was there, and what was the first thing Angela said to them after they finished whatever business they had? "The signora is from Las Vegas."

One of her other clients, Paolina, mentioned that she'd been to Las Vegas three times.  "The first time, I slept at the the place with the big sign like this." She used her hands to shape what used to be the Dunes sign.

"The Dunes?" I asked.

Angela's idea of a little was anything less than a foot.

"Yes. Yes," she said.  "Then, I slept at the pyramid. The last time, I slept at the place that supposed to be like Venice.  What's it called?"  I told her Venetian, and she continued, "That's it. I like the machines a lot."  Apparently Paolina travels a lot because she's been all over the States, and there isn't one place that she doesn't like.  "Miami is just okay, though," she told me.  "It's too hot and crowded."


 Right after Paolina left, Massimo (I swear I've met about 500 men named Massimo this year.) came in to fix something in the shop, and Angela told him I was from Las Vegas.

"Ah, Las Vegas. How can you live there?" he wanted to know.  I got the impression that he thought that everyone in Las Vegas lives in a hotel.  I explained that I lived about 15 kilometers from the Strip and that I hardly ever went down there.  "Is it expensive?" I was doing pretty well until he asked me that question, but I had no idea how to explain cost of living in Italian.  I shook my head and said it was just like living anywhere.

At that point, Angela had washed my hair and was ready to cut it.

"Remember," I said, "only cut a little."  I again held up my thumb and finger. She turned the chair away from the mirror and started cutting.

I have a theory about why many hairdressers turn the client away from the mirror while they're cutting hair: They don't want us to see that they're doing what they want and not what we want until it's too late.  When she turned me back toward the mirror, I caught my breath.

"It's beautiful," she exclaimed.  "It is the Italian haircut for you."  I just smiled.  What was I going to do? Ask her to glue it all back on?  I paid, and she hugged and kissed me. "When you come to live here next year, you will come back to me, I hope."

McDonald's "Walk-Up"

I walked back home and re-did my style so I have bangs...short bangs.  Afterwards, I walked in a stupor to the centro with every intention of breaking my vow not to eat anything fattening today. I decided that since today was my six-week anniversary and my hair was too short, I would get a hamburger and fries.  I wouldn't go to McDonald's (There's story behind my not going there.), but I will admit I thought about going to Burger King. There were so many people at BK that the line went into the street.  (Side note: I passed McD's on the way to BK and noticed they had opened their "walk-up window" on the sidewalk (photo above). Good grief.)

My fries and burger with globs of mayo

 I ended up at Gamberini, a Bologna tradition since 1907, according to their sign.  I got my hamburger and fries (photo above). For some reason, hamburgers just do not taste the same outside of the US. I'm sorry to those who think burgers are burgers, but they're not.  This one was dry, but it was okay after I took the glob of mayonnaise off of it. (Good grief. I just now thought that I didn't ask if it was a beef hamburger. They do eat horse meat here, and it doesn't have a lot of fat which makes it drier.)  The fries also had a side of mayo, a more popular condiment than ketchup here obviously.

Dinner

I did resist the temptation to stop and buy a gallon of gelato on the way home, but for dinner I had a cappuccino (photo above) and cookie.  

Tomorrow I'll stay away from the fattening stuff.  Maybe.