Tales from the Shark Tank

I’m a redhead again.

No, it’s not because I hated the grey. I don’t actually mind it at all. I didn’t even particularly mind the “two toned Chevy” effect growing it out caused. It was a question of contrast.

I started coloring my hair in the first place out of sheer aggravation. In its natural state, my hair is (or was) dark brown with red highlights. My complexion, on the other hand, is very fair. Makeup color one shade darker than albino fair. Never go out in the sun because you won’t burn, you’ll crisp fair. Downright pale. In contrast to the dark hair, it was worse. It wasn’t noticeable if I wore makeup, and I did for a long time. For years, it was part of the morning routine. But I’ve never been particularly vain, and I started leaving the makeup off if I wasn’t going to be “on display”.

And every time I did, people would look at me at say things like “You’re awfully pale. Do you feel all right? Are you sure? Have you eaten? Here, sit down awhile.” They acted as if I looked to be ready to faint or at death’s door from consumption or something. It wouldn’t have been too bad if they’d accepted my response, but telling them I was fine didn’t help. Explaining that no, I was naturally fair didn’t help. I have very little rose in my skin tone (mostly golden), and in contrast to my hair people seemed to think I just looked ill if i left my bare face hanging out. I had a nurse that was prepping my grandfather for surgery ask me the same question 5 times in 20 minutes. I appreciate concern, but it was ridiculous!

Enter a whim. I got some red henna and dyed my hair with it. It was a revelation. Suddenly I was fair, rather than pale. The red hair, green eyes and light complexion all went together as expected. All the annoying questions stopped. Indeed, I began to get compliments. I decided that Nature had simply made a mistake. I was supposed to be a redhead, and a redhead I stayed.

I did let it grow out a time or two, but the most recent had been when our son was a baby, and he’s 15 now. (No, he’s never seen my hair its natural color, or at least not to remember it.) It was time to find out what color it would be now.

I found out. It’s a salt-and-pepper steel grey. I’m fine with that, but the other thing I found out is that my hair and complexion still don’t match. The same questions started again. “Are you all right? Do you need to lie down for awhile? You’re awfully pale….” Same old problem.

With the same old solution, a box of L’Oreal Medium Auburn.

I think I may wait another 10 years before I try the experiment again.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks. A couple of days before I was to go down to Indianapolis for week (another story), the air comditioning in Dragon Firewing began to misbehave. Not wanting to be driving over half the state in an unairconditioned minivan, I of course took it to the mechanic. The news was not good. It needed a new compressor and all parts pertaining thereto. Total cost: a nice even thousand. Then the mechanic told me that it had several incipient problems that fell under the heading of “old car maintenance” and that the front brakes were not in good shape.

Firewing was a 2003 Dodge with 140,000 miles on it. I knew, from prior research, that Dodge and Chrysler vans tend to eat their transmissions at about 150,000 miles, give or take. I was looking at sinking a huge amount of money with no assurance I wouldn’t be spending even more in under a year. I told the mechanic to fix the brakes for safety’s sake, asked friends for dealer recommendations, and began hunting online for a replacement. All I was really hoping to get was an idea of prices. Car buying has never been fun, complicated as it is by a funky hip that is very particular about seat design.

It was, bar none, the easiest car shopping I have ever done. I found a 2008 Honda Civic at a dealer in Indy that looked perfect. I knew, from driving a friend’s car, that my hip has no problem with a Civic. An email brought a return call about 15 minutes later, telling me that the car was indeed still there and available. The salesman couldn’t have been nicer; when I told him I’d be driving in from Hebron the next day, sandwiching a test drive in before my mom had surgery on her eyelids, he offered to hold the car for me. (Probably didn’t hurt that I told him that if the test drive went well and the car looked as good in person as it did online, I’d be buying it.). And indeed so it was. I emptied all my junk out of the van, pulled into the dealership at 8:00 p.m. Indy time, and drove away at 10:00 the pleased and deeply relieved owner of a new-to-me car. I have been reminded why I loved my compact cars before my hip started raising hell and I ended up with my first van. Her name is Bluestar.

I have acquired a shiny new bicycle, a week after my beloved husband got his. Kind of a cross between a comfort bike and a road bike, it fits me nicely and I can ride it comfortably, which means I’m considerably more likely to do so. I picked it up yesterday, and was amused to find that the women’s model was black with bright pink accents. And yes, I got a helmet to go with it. I value the contents of my skull.

We went out together for my first ride today, going about three quarters of a mile. Being no longer 20, horribly out of shape and considerably heavier than I was last time I rode, I’m taking baby-steps. There’s no time limit or rush about it, after all.

I don’t ever expect to use it to run errands, so I didn’t get anything like saddle bags. It isn’t the distance into town; once I’m accustomed to riding the 5 miles or so into Hebron shouldn’t be an issue. But there’s no way to get there that doesn’t involve a 50 mph road with no shoulders, and I really have no interest in arguing with cars. I’ll ride around here, or load it into the van and take it to a park or something like that. I’m not riding to save gas or anything of that sort. I’m riding purely for pleasure. That’s reason enough.

Back in a year beginning 197_, my childhood best friend and I were talking about weddings. I had just gotten engaged (to a man I ultimately did not marry), so the subject was logical enough. She asked me if I would forgive her if she didn’t come to the wedding. They were hard for her, she said, because she knew she could never celebrate sharing her life with someone that way. And I did understand. She’s lesbian. It was not an acceptable thing at that time. The Stonewall riots had happened less than a decade earlier, and the gay rights movement certainly hadn’t hit the middle west. At that time she could not even admit that her sweetheart was another woman, much less marry her. She could not take her partner to employee picnics or parties. She could probably count the number of people outside the gay/lesbian community who knew on her fingers. We had no reason to expect that to change in our lifetimes.

This weekend I had the delight of being a guest as she and her high school sweetheart exchanged vows legally in Washngton, D.C.. It was everything a wedding should be. Their families were there, and their closest friends. It was a mark of how far my friend’s family, in particular, had come. Her sexuality had been a source of considerable discord for years; now her mom kept saying how delighted she was to welcome her daughter’s partner as a real member of the family after all this time. Her brother sang, as did her best friend and her new bride’s foster son-in-law. I watched all the various couples dancing with each other, hearts in their eyes, completely unselfconscious. I even found myself asked to dance more than once, and dance I did, with great delight. I can tell you that the women who came in a classic suit and tie were striking. It was extraordinary in its very ordinariness.

Best of all was that when we went down to the hotel bar after the reception, no one gave the group of us a second glance, echoing what I’d noticed through the day. The wedding wasn’t until 4:00, so after breakfast I walked down to the National Mall to visit the Smithsonian. My goal was the National Museum of American History, but by the time I got there I hadn’t time to see it properly. I’d spent my time in the Botanical Gardens, the Sculpture Garden and the Natural History Museum. (The living, fluttering butterfly exhibit was exquisite.) Everywhere I’d gone, I’d seen same sex couples and their children, obviously families, small children swinging between the hands of the two adults. It was normal. No one blinked; no one hustled their own children away so they wouldn’t see it, as I have seen happen in the middle west. It was as unremarkable as it ought to be everywhere.

I had a thoroughly amusing encounter at the Botanical Gardens. There’s a sign on the door which reads “Shirts and shoes are required”. The woman next to me said, to no one in particular “It doesn’t say bras, does it?” I glanced over and commented that even if it did, it would hard to enforce, and she grinned. As we came through into the conservatory itself she added “Ooh, it’s warm! I’m staying in here until the rally”. Color me curious; I asked who was rallying. “Your uterus, darling” she said, giving “darling” that quintessential east coast twist. “From 1:00 to 5:00, you should come.” I blinked; she seemed ready to take my arm and drag me over to register right then and there. I said no, I had a prior engagement, and when she raised her eyebrows added “and it’s just as important. I’m going to a wedding that couldn’t have happened until now.” She squealed, hugged me, held me at arms length beaming and said “Have a wonderful time, and be sure to kiss the brides for me.”. I laughed, took a picture of her t-shirt, (It read “NO MORE NICE GIRLS!”) and we went off to wander around, she to the orchid exhibit and I to see the all-important Cacoa tree.

Sunday morning I’d planned to walk over to Chinatown, all of 5 minutes away, but my feet informed me in no uncertain terms that I’d been on them, with a few brief breaks, from 9:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. the preceeding day and declined to cooperate. So I went back upstairs and slept another hour, and my friends took me back to the airport because the train only runs Monday-Friday. By 9:00 Sunday night I was home, hugging my guys and reassuring the cats of my reappearance. (It’s Wednesday as I write this, and Sophia still hasn’t let me out of her sight.)

It was an amazing weekend.

I am learning where the expression “grows like a weed” really came from. No, I’m not referring to my kid (though he is indeed shooting up at a mindboggling rate); I’m referring to, well, weeds.

Milkweed, to be precise. Scientific names are useful. They made it clear that the butterfly weeds I was looking at in the garden catalogue were assorted varieties of milkweed. They were bright, pretty, and by all accounts darn near indestructible in their proper environment. The problem was finding a variety well adapted to where I live. “Perennial in zones 9 and 10″ is not terribly useful in zone 5.

Ah, but we have milkweed growing in the drainage ditches around here. I’s a native plant. You can’t get better adapted than that. So last fall I watched a nearby patch until I saw a ripe seedpod, picked it, brought it in and popped it into a bag so I didn’t have milkweed fluff all over the house when the pod opened. Then I stuck it in the freezer.

A week or so ago I figured it was time to get it going. But how? Gardening websites gave such conflicting advice it was hopeless. One said refrigerate the seeds in a container of damp soil. Another advised keeping them dry until ready to plant, then soaking them between layers of damp paper towel. Another recommended freezing them, while the fourth said one should under no circumstances freeze them. Germination rates would be high or low. Germination would take 2 weeks, or maybe 4. I gave up, grabbed some seed-starting pots and a windowsill mini-greenhouse and poked seeds into peat.

That was 3 days ago. I don’t know how long it’ll take to get actual leaves, but the flat black seeds have split open and shoots are pushing aside the peat. Germination rate appears to be close to 100%. They’re taking off like, well, weeds.

What I have is classic common milkweed, which can take over the world if given the chance. They’re one of the few things that can out-compete thistles, and that’s what I have in mind for them. I have an area I can’t get to easily. It’s going to grow weeds of some sort, so it might as well be something I consider desirable. This year I’ll put in half a dozen milkweed plants. They’ll grow like the weeds they are, and that exactly what I want them to do.

I love gardening. I love to see things grow. I love the magic in seeds, that turn into various plants that feed both body and soul. I have been known to let sow-thistle and hawkweed grow just so I can watch the butterflies come to the flowers, and later watch the goldfinches come for the seeds, looking for all the world like scraps of flying sunshine. I’m plotting to grab a milkweed seed pod or two (they’re ripening across the road within easy reach) and establish a bed in an area where it’s tricky to mow. It attracts butterflies so well one of its other names is “butterfly weed”, with Monarchs heading the list. It grows happily in marshy ground, and for an added bonus is one of the few native plants that can hold its own head to head with Canadian thistle.

And yet this year I’ve had a horrible time getting myself up off my butt and outside. Some of it has been the weather – either it’s been unbearably hot, raining or both. But some of it has been a combination of lack of energy and sheer inertia. The end result is that not only did I not get anything in the ground this year, but the weeds have overrun everything.

I don’t know exactly what changed, but something did. I noticed that I had a tangle of exceedingly healthy vines at the base of the maple nearest where we park the cars that was comprised of a combination of poison ivy, nightshade, multiflora roses and wild grapes. None of those are desirable plants, to say the least. I sprayed them with vinegar several times over until most of it withered, then got in there with a rake and gloves and yanked it out. It all went into the trash can, not the compost nor the marsh across the road where I’ve dumped other things to decompose. Another couple of weeks went by, but I’ve managed to spend an hour or so most days doing the long delayed work. All the weeds and grass in my raised bed have been pulled, running through the soil until I stopped finding roots from grass or creeping charlie. It’s thoroughly mulched now, in hopes I’ll have a usable bed again come spring. The cottonwood, maple and mulberry saplings have been cut down. I’ve yanked barrowloads of Queen Anne’s lace and wild lettuce, though I’ve as much and more yet to go. I’ve come in sore and tired, but after a week of it I’m okay by the next morning. I’m even starting to see perceptible progress. I’m enjoying myself.

I still have to kick my behind out the door in the first place, but that’s okay. At least I’m finally doing it.