Haiti Relief-Giving-It takes nothing from you.

I know. I know. Life in these United States is not so united and some of us are barely making a living. More than 3 million people in our own country experienced homelessness last year. And depending on whether you were a Republican or Democrat, the blame was put on the last white President or the current African American President, Obama.

We're still trying to get the word out to Americans to boycott puppy mills and to save shelter dogs. New Orleans morale may have been recently uplifted by Saints, but the city still needs a few more patron-saints to repair the damage that Katrina had wrought.

And then along comes an earthquake in Haiti. It's a situation. The kind of situation that we cannot ignore. It would be nice if I could stay focused on "my things" and just keep plugging for the dogs or raise money for breast cancer research and then relax in the evenings and watch The Situation on MTV's Jersey Shores. But that's not going to happen. Haiti's plight is everywhere. The devastation and human interest stories and relief efforts are big news. So that means that the problems and charities that we have been trying to address and raise money for, and even the mindless TV that we like to chillax to, is being invaded or taken over by news of Haiti.

As I was cutting and coloring one of my Gold Coast clients the other day, she mentioned how she was just sick of hearing about Haiti.

"Everything is for Haiti,” she said, as I began weaving pieces of her gray hair to lay on foil packets and then brush with honey color. “I’m just sick about hearing about Haiti. We have our own people we have to take care of. The silly Americans who’ve borrowed more than they could pay back and used their credit cards to live on have bankrupted our country. We have to concentrate on that. Not Haiti. And what about our own homeless children?”

Normally, I could have kept my mouth shut. I would have nodded silently and folded up all the little foil packets and then got her some regular coffee, instead of her requested decaf, and then let her read her People magazine in heart palpating silence for the next thirty minutes while her color developed.

But this particular day I wanted to say something. Maybe a direct rebuttal or at least, throw out a few non-neutral thoughts which is what a good hairdresser should do so as not to piss of your clients too much. I could have chosen to tell her that I was a Silly American and that I still had way too much credit card debt. But I decided to take umbrage to the whole theme of her dislike of the Haiti media circus. Of course I said it with a smile and layered with a veiled directness.

“The whole Haiti thing reminds me of the 80’s,” I said. “I was trying to put together a cut-thon-for AIDS when we in the U.S. were just learning that you couldn’t get it from a kiss and that it wasn’t just a Gay disease. There was sentiment out there that was like, ‘why should I give my money to people who probably did something to get the disease?’
Well, eventually, there was an AIDS Walk and an AIDS ride. And Liz Taylor had worked magic and put a popular giving spin on the situation. And people began to give to the AIDS cause and continue giving to this day. What I’m saying is that I think the ingenuity and the giving spirit took over and Americans eventually came together to give and to help their fellow man.
I’d very much like to think that, like Christmas season, this giving spirit is ignited and then trickled into the rest of the year. Not just for Christmas beneficiaries, such as Homeless shelters but for the World Wildlife Federation and the Red Cross Haiti Relief fund.”

“But we have to take care of our own,” my client said.

Obviously my client and I were speaking from deep seated passions from opposite spectrum's of political hues of red and blue. If I was a still a Republican, I would have still disagreed with her and said, “Look bitch, Haiti is our own. We are totally going to be buying up that real estate with what they are going to owe us. And then we’re going to build big fucking hotels and golf courses and make the damn villagers work for us so they can afford to live in the shacks that we’re building for them now.”

Or I could have gone with the: what about We are the World – one-world theory. Spiritually speaking, aren’t we all just one people? One person on the other side of the Earth is just as important as the one standing right next to me. Human life = precious. Maybe I could have expanded on that very thought and added an Americany imperialistic twist on the world thing so that she could digest it better. “Look bitch, we use up ¼ of the worlds’ resources and energy, and spew out ¾ of the worlds trash and pollution. It’s like we have been shitting on these people for years and they haven’t asked for much.”

I think I had too many cups of coffee that morning myself and I just wanted to pick a fight and call my client a bitch. But my natural tendency to keep my client comfortable as well as keep her coming back to me won out.

“What I’m saying is,” I said, “maybe Haiti is igniting that giving spirit. Maybe the gift, if any, is that the situation in Haiti has to offer us is to see our true human character emerge. I mean, how cool that even Americans out of work, and poverty-level Americans are giving and average of ten dollars apiece to Haiti. And George Clooney and his friends helped raise more money in a telethon than any other in history.”

My client started to talk, but by now, the other stylists and their clients were listening to me so I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to let my fine caffeine fueled opinion get its due.

“Listen,” I said, “beyoches, [I got it in] when this whole Haiti thing is better, we’re going to be taking long look at ourselves and we are gonna say to ourselves: job well done. We are gonna feel good about the giving and we are gonna start to think, hey, if we can do that, just think of what we can do for our own homeless. Our animal shelters. Pollution!
I don’t think Haiti is taking away from us. No. The devastation in Haiti has awakened our passion to help and to see that we are one people and one world. And we Americans have opened our eyes to our own humanity and we have opened our hearts and we will never again close our eyes and hearts again!”

Okay, so maybe I had three cups of coffee and my memory of the conversation may have sieved through my “blue passion.”
My point was and is, is that giving to Haiti doesn’t take away anything from us Americans. This is an opportunity to be thankful for what we have and to give what we can. And bitches, you can certainly continue to give and love and take care of your fellow people, and animals, long after we help to take care of our neighbors in Haiti.

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The Pope and I agree on being green.

http://tinyurl.com/yb4vrqq

http://tinyurl.com/ye7m9ar

The Pope and I finally have something that we agree on. Being Green is our spiritual duty. I have always thought that much of the Catholic rhetoric has been divisive. But because of the Pope's urging of Green consciousness and recent green dialogue, I feel that I can sit at the same table with him and get something positive done. If all faiths came together and agreed to honor this creation, Earth, I believe we'd reverse global warming and, in the process, find the commonality in our societies different faiths. We'd also be putting our faiths into action (do not judge...?) and we'd be doing a little god-like creating ourselves. How about a Utopian co-existence, and clean air and water for our children. Count me in. Let's get started.

I belong to a Science of Mind church. Our belief is that there is one God. And we don't moralize what we call God; Him... Her... Universe... Martini... And we don't care if you don't want to call "it" anything or believe that there is a God at all. We believe that everyone is part of this God, so every individual is perfect in our God's eyes. That means that we are all the same, whether it looks like it or not, or whether you believe that or not--so we appreciate and try to remember that daily. Pretty neat, huh?

But, just like many churches, the people of my congregation have been attending services and classes where we learn how to be better individual spiritual persons and then we take the teachings and try and work them into our daily lives.

There are a few Ministries in our church, like the Animal Ministry, that actively puts to use what they've learned within the community and out. The Animal Ministry serves the "outside" community at-large by collecting funds and donated items and disperses them to needy animal shelters in our area. And they do their own brand of spiritual prayer treatments for pets and their owners and have parishioners sign petitions for better laws for treatment of animals. (I just set up a FaceBook group page, ANIMAL MINISTRY, for them.) I like this ministry because it practices "faith into action," and it allows members and non-members alike to practice our spiritual principals.

But, like many churches, temples, and synagogues etc, I believe my church has been coming up short on the spiritual message to actual action where it concerns being green. Up to now we have not been walking the talk, or actually doing what we preach. Our new-thought and ancient-wisdom has taught me that we humans are stewards of this Mother Earth and we here to take care of this planet, ourselves, and all of Earth's inhabitant, human and non-human alike. But we have not fully made the connection that to change laws which protect our children from drinking tainted water or making sure that we all have clean air in the future is actually spiritual practice and not necessarily politics. We say we should love our fellow man and take car of our bodies but we have continued to buy energy wasting light bulbs in our church and we still use Styrofoam cups and we still buy bleached white paper towels, all of which adds Co2 into the air.

My spirituality says this human existence is the manifestation of our collective spirituality. This is our world. We made it this way. So when are we going to collectively going to make this world of form the beautiful place we desire it to be? It will take everyone to do it. Christians, Jews, Muslims.... The Pope is just one more dude realizing that we got to come together.

Look, I know all churches are worried about the dollars to keep our doors open. How do we get more people to attend church? How can we empower our congregation to be better people? But I don't think that we should have to worry about the bottom line. We should let God do that. I also believe we can attract people and empower ourselves by putting our faith into action. Here's an example:

There is a Rabbi Rosen of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation. He and his core council had a choice when their old building was no longer big enough to hold the growing congregation. Either they had to tear down and build a bigger building on the igniting site, or move and buy or build another larger Temple elsewhere. Sometime and somewhere along the way of deciding, Rabbi Rosen had a spiritual epiphany. He had caught the "Green bug." Rabbi Rosen realized that being green and being a steward of this earth was a spiritual edict of his own religion.
By studying the Jewish principle of Bal Tashchit, which appears in biblical text as well as in later rabbinic interpretation, he gleaned that a Jewish environmental ethic teaches "do not destroy or waste."
"God led Adam around the Garden of Eden and said, ‘Look at My works. See how beautiful they are, how excellent. See to it that you do not spoil or destroy My world — for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you.’" (Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13)

Rabbi Rosen and his core council decided to stay on the same site, tear down the existing building, recycle the demolition, and then make the new building the very first LEEDS Synagogue. http://tinyurl.com/2xqdgy Of course, this was going to take millions more to do this than had they only decided to tear down and build traditionally in this bad economy.
Well, today he preaches that the money for the tear down and build-out for their new building came easier and faster because they chose to go green. The money poured in because they chose spiritual over practical or traditional. Faith and spirit won. Fear lost.
The Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation is a beacon of faith into action and attracts followers, admirers and has shown the religious communities that being green is the way to go. I'm definitely an admirer.
If you'd like a tour of the now famous LEEDS certified Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation:
303 Dodge Avenue Evanston, Illinois 60202-3252
Phone 847-328-7678 info@jrc-evanston.org


Every congregation has to have a pastor or priest or rabbi that gets nipped by the Green Bug. Then the blessings can start happening in our temples, synagogues, churches and mosques. And may that good fortune happen for all of us who run green groups in our churches. Maybe now with the Pope on board it's going to get a little easier to make the connection that this earth and we humans are spiritually connected. (Did you see Avatar?) I never thought I'd say this, but thanks, Pope. I look forward to working with you on this one. Maybe we'll find some other things to work on together. Solar Energy? Feeding the worlds poor? And maybe by working together I'll find out that you aren't so divisive and maybe you won't think I'm so bad and that I'm one of God's treasures just the way I am.

I am the leader of The Green Ministry at Bodhi Spiritual Center in Chicago. WE are GREEN and we are Getting better at it, every day. And we belong to Faith in Place, an interfaith group of like-minded green organizations in different churches, synagogues and temples etc in the greater Chicago Area. http://www.faithinplace.org/

Best Sangria Recipe

This recipe is from one of my buddy, Evin.
4 bottles of red wine
2 litres of Ginger Ale
8 oz vodka
8 oz rum
4 oz Grande Marnier
2 cinnimin sticks
You can add some sugar. But I left that out because I add peaches later.
Add all of the above and then let chill/set overnight (24hrs).Before serving: take out sticks. Add fresh fruit.I like sliced peaches frozen in sugar water and then broken/chopped just before adding. Also fresh sliced apples, oranges and frozen blue berries.

Brunettes Save Money between Color Appointments

I know I’m going to get flak from my own profession for telling you this. All of us hairdresser’s know that the client cannot color their hair at home and get “salon results.” Celebrities hocking the at-home color kits wouldn’t even dream of using the products they are getting paid big bucks to tout without their own hairdresser, at least, applying the hair color to them. But I’m going to tell you that, sometimes, it’s going to be beneficial, economic, and even professional to recommend that a client use an at-home color. You’re just not going to buy it in the grocery store. You’re going to get it at a beauty supply store, and you might even get the blessing of your hairdresser. I’ll try and convince your stylist with my words that you will be doing both of you a favor and that color touch-ups at home are part of keeping you happy as a client.
There is the new normal in the hair business. It doesn’t matter how rich or what economic bracket our clients are in, they do not book ahead like they used to. Of course, this is due to the economy. Every business is feeling the new norm there; the average sales being down 10%- to 30%. Another reason that clients don’t book ahead is that a lot of regular color clients are also of the age and income that they are having kids. The old axiom has applied here, when there is a recession, people have more kids. And kid's schedules make clients walk around with "roots" a lot longer than before the little time-usurpers arrived.
In the salon where I work, there is another added reason that our clients can go longer between visits. We use new color lines that don’t fade and they keep their shine. [They have no PPD’s and are low-ammonia which keeps the integrity of the hair: better for your body & the environment. But that’s another article.] One of the major reasons people rush back into the salon to get there hair re-colored is the fact that older hair color lines have a shine shelf-life and will fade. Old colors used to get dull, and get lighter and warmer. Old colors always a huge contrast in the 4 to 6 weeks between the new growth and the colored hair. But now, if the hair color doesn’t fade and it is still shiny, clients can get a few more weeks of growth and they do not have to revisit us as much as they used to. Good for them.
Now, let’s us imagine, Ms. Brunette. She’s working and has two small kids and a husband who used to work for the banking industry, but now Ms. Brunette's husband has been laid off. Ms. Brunette has been coming to me for ten years. I did her hair for her wedding and I do her husbands hair and I’ve even started doing the kids hair. Ms. Brunette feels that her hair makes her sexy and that her salon-colored hair gives her the mojo and youthful appearance to be competitive at work. But, she’s not stupid; she’s got a family and responsibilities. In the coming year, she’s got to tighten up her Prada belt. In fact, she stopped buying Prada when she got married and she’s been buying Banana Republic accessories. So now she’s bummed because she thinks she’s not going to be able to buy any new belts in the near future at all.
Ms. Brunette has brown hair with about 20% gray. Unless she gets more gray, say, 40% to 50%, she’s going to want to stay brunette. I would probably give her some lighter gold or caramel highlights where the gray was poking out, and then color the rest a rich brown. The highlight will distract the eye from incoming gray and soften a solid brown color. But after she leaves the salon, that gray hair starts screaming look-at-me! - around week three. So, is Ms. Brunette going to come in again in three weeks? Good for me.
The new norm for me is to tell Ms. Brunette to walk down to the corner beauty supply after her salon appointment. I tell her to buy a 3 oz. bottle of hair color. A color that is in-between the high-light color and the brown color that I’ve just put into her hair. I tell her to also buy a bottle of 20 volume peroxide that goes with that color line. (usually comes in 8 oz. or more) The last thing that I want to her to pick up is a bag of disposable mascara wands.
Note:The added benefit from buying products from the beauty supply is that you are buying more product for less. You are not paying for wasteful mark-up and packaging.
And this is how I tell her how I want her to use the products at home: at week 2 or 3 or 4… pour a quarter sized portion of each the peroxide and the hair color into a bowl. Fine china is fine. The color won’t hurt ceramic, porcelain or glass. Then cap both of the bottles for future use.
Mix the two products in the bowl with one disposable mascara wand and then apply to those cursed aging grays that seem to want to poke out in the part and around the face. Don’t worry, this is not an exact science here. You will overlap a little on my highlights and browns. But just try to do only the grays. The color quality will not be as good as my hair color application but you’ll be in soon enough to get the better quality color. The eye won't be able to tell.
Now, if you are doing this in the morning before work or at night, let it sit on the hair for, at least, fifteen to thirty minutes. The hair colors that I recommend are never progressive. They just color the hair to the level I chose and then they stop and become impotent. Leaving it on past the time will not fry your hair. Leaving it on under 30 minutes just means that the color might not be as full-coverage as it could be – but it will stain the gray. And just remember to jump in the shower after, at least, fifteen minutes, and don’t get it in your eyes when you are shampooing it out. Please use professional shampoo from your salon! It will neutralize and keep the color from fading.
Ms. Brunette can do this again the next week and in two more weeks, up until the grays from the sides and crown really start singing. So, I’d say, she could probably visit the salon every 8 to 10 weeks now, like the blondes.
And what about blondes? What about red heads? Well, I really only recommend this for the brunettes because they have such a contrast between the gray and the browns. It’s such an economic and time hardship to try and keep on top of their hair color. I know I would loose my some of my brunettes to the box colors in the grocery stores if I didn’t share this information with them. They’d still come in for haircuts, but I’d probably get blamed for her color not being as beautiful as it had been and someone’s going to know that short cuts were taken. But blondes could do the same trick. And so could redheads. The only difference is that I cannot give you a general formula to buy like I can for brunettes unless I’ve seen your hair personally. Some blondes come out too warm if you use a level of color without added ash in it. And some red heads are blue-red or orange-red. Only your own stylist could tell you the exact touch-up colors to use between colors. Sorry. I’m still a hairdresser. But I do want to keep your business and I know that these are tough times. I truly believe that we are in this together and I hope this information helps a few people.
I blog about the same things that I talk to my clients about. Martini's/Tips/Life/Hair.
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My dog, Daughter

My dog had me. Completely. As long as she needed me. She had me as soon as I parked and got off my motorcycle at the City of Long Beach Animal Shelter on a lunch hour. Once inside I could have been the Grinch with a millimeter-sized heart. But when I saw her pleading jet browns begging me to let her out of her doggy jail cell, my heart grew in my chest and it sprouted wings. At that moment, I vowed to take care of her forever or the rest of her life.
Leslie, a fervent dog lover and the owner of the salon I had been working at, knew that I was only beginning to entertain the thought of getting a dog myself. Thinking she was going to ask me to take one her more taxing clients that day, she instead came at me on the stylist floor and handed me a handwritten piece of paper that had a code number on it. I’ll never forget it. SW30. Leslie had been secretly keeping her eye out for me. And she watched The Pet Place, a Long Beach cable-access program that showcased adoptable dogs and cats from the local shelter. “Go there on your lunch break,” Leslie commanded, “instead of getting skin cancer.” Leslie was not only the sweetest of animal lovers, she was also very motherly to me and the rest of the staff. She didn’t like me taking my lunch hours and tanning my skin at the beach, which happened to be only a few blocks away from her salon. SW30 was the code to the dog at the pound that Leslie wanted me to check out.
I did not expect to take my dog home that day. I told her that it was just a look-see to appease Mama Leslie. I hadn’t even warned my new roommate that I was even thinking about getting a dog. As the female dog-warden escorted me down a long aisle in the dog prison, I kept my chin and eyes up. I knew enough not to look at any of the dogs that yipped for my attention from the insides of their six foot high chain link fence cages. If I saw too many of their pleading puppy and doggy faces I’m not sure I would have come home with only one special dog.
Luckily, the numbers were affixed to the outside of the cages, just above eye level. I could count down to the number code that matched the mutt that Leslie wanted me to see. Taking a breath, I abruptly stopped a few feet in front of the cage with the engraved metal plate that was stamped 30 in the Southwest building of the pound. Taking a deep breath, I let my eyes scrape down the chain links to look at, for the very first time, my little terrier-mix, Daughter. She certainly wasn’t a purebred, but she was very pretty. She had evenly curled light multi-colored fur that looked soft instead of course, like a pure-bred. A blonde Toto, is how people used to describe her. In her cage she was silent, which was the opposite of all the other dogs. But the veil of her dog bangs let me see more than enough of her beseeching, hypnotic brown eyes that looked like they were lined with mascara. She reminded me of one of those Life magazine photographs of a hungry orphan of war in the devastated streets was a war-torn country.
“You have to be mine,” this dog was saying to me with her eyes. “You have to be mine because I don’t think that I can take it in here anymore. I have been through so much – you don’t want to know. If you don’t take me out of here, I will not live another day. I just know it.”
She looked directly at me and paid no mind to the dog-warden who was at my side as if she knew the woman was useless to her on the subject of her release.
I choked on my breath and did an immediate about-face. I suppressed only my visible tears from the dog-warden who had to follow me quickly. Walk-running back to the main office house, I informed her, “I’ll take that dog.”
“I’m so glad,” the dog-warden-woman said, not a bit surprised. “That little dog seemed to smile as you ran away. Like she knew you were going to sign these papers.”
“She’s a little dirty now,” I sniffed. “But her fur looks so pretty that after I condition it with a little bit of Nexxus and style her she’ll be the Veronica Lake of dogs.” I always babble when I’m emotional or drunk.
“She’s intelligent too,” the dog-warden said. “But people seem to want the more playful, loud dogs.” Behind a counter, she began shuffling papers and then guiding my hand around a pen and made me sign things. (I couldn’t see clearly because there was a film of happy love-tears in my eyes.) “And, you’re in luck. She has had all of her shots so you can take her home right now.”
“Oh,” I said, astonished and apprehensively happy at the same time. “I thought you had to, you know, get her fixed or something. Aren’t there some kind of adoption papers I have to fill out?”
“You just filled them out.”
It all happened so fast. No time to think. No time to tell my roommate that we had a dog.
“This dog has already been spayed,” she informed me. “We do that for all the dogs on The Pet Place. But you’ll have to take her today because this is her last day here. You understand.”
“Why is it her last day?” I asked, thinking that I was going to have to try and outbid someone else. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s been here for awhile…” She bounced her head back, from side to side. “She hasn’t been adopted so …”
“Because people want the loud stupid dogs?”
Dog-warden shrugged.
“Can I pick her up after work? I get off at seven.”
“We close at five. After that …” Her head bobble-headed again.
At first I was appalled and I took personal offence. My dog was on The Pet Place, for god’s sake, and there wasn’t a line of people to adopt her? The whole world must have been stupid, because they wanted loud stupid dogs.
And yet there was something else that needed to be brought up.
“But, I’m on a motorcycle,” I said. “And I’m only on my lunch break.”
“Ok then …” Left to right… Then right to left – went the warden’s head.
After I screamed for her to get my dog, the dog-warden brought her to me, with a complimentary rope to use for a leash. The rope slipped off of the dog’s neck just as I began to lead her out the office. But she did not run off. In fact, she had paid no mind to the temporary leash when it was on her. She stayed well-heeled by me all the way to my parked motorcycle in the parking lot. A stupid dog would have run off. But not my smart dog. My dog knew she was coming home to the best home in the world and that we’d be the best pals and live together forever. We both just knew. We were fated for each other. It was the perfect time in my life for a dog. This dog. I had had my last break-up with my high school sweetheart and we had been together for eight wonderful turned sour years.
“What do you think?” I asked her, as we stood looking at my motorcycle.
She looked me, like the situation was pretty self explanatory. Duh, she said.
I picked her up and put her in one of my saddle bags and zipped her up to her neck. Of course, she was a perfect fit. And she rode back with me to the salon with her nose to the wind and a flapping tongue that hung from her smug-mug smile. We looked at each other many times while waiting at stop lights or at left-hand turns. We noticed pedestrians, bike riders, and drivers and passengers alike that looked at us. They all smiled at the new dog owner taking his dog for her first ride home on a motorcycle.
I named her Daughter, after the dog of the man who mentored me in the hair biz. His toy poodle, Daughter, had passed away of old age only a few months earlier. My friend was more than touched when I asked him if I could make my dog his dog’s namesake. And, like a mother, Brooke was happy that I was going to have unconditional love for a very long time.
Daughter never became a clingy lapdog and she never licked my hand or used a leash. She never had to beg me for another thing after that day I adopted her. With only a simple look or a long patient and demanding stare, she has conveyed to me whether it was time to go outside for a walk-and-sniff. Or that she just would appreciate a rub on the bum as well as to tell me how she didn’t appreciate me leaving her too long whenever I got home too late from work. Most dogs were a little more forward and vulgar. They used their paws or barked their needs or defecated. But not Daughter. Without a scratch or a whine, Daughter has been able to assure me that a piece of chicken off of my plate would not upset her stomach at all. Maybe all terriers were like that, sophisticated. Ever since she begged me with all her soul from the inside of that doggy jail, I have been able to understand her like I will never understand people.
Our friendship has been more than a fair relationship and we would be companions for as long as her life would allow. I accepted the awful responsibility of alleviating any suffering that Daughter might ever have to go through. I had minor practice many times over the many years; taking her to the dreaded doctor to get a tooth pulled or get treated for a parasite or get stitches as a result from an imprudent scuffle with a German Shepard. She always sat still while I blow dried her fluffy fur near a sunny window after a bath. She’s was mine. I was hers.
I don’t think anyone can trust people who don’t like dogs—especially my dog. My dog used her eyes to speak and I know that can be very intimidating, like she was looking into your soul. But, if you didn’t got nothin’ to hide, then you didn’t have nothin’ to worry about. Being a dog person made me a better person.
My last human love-relationship did not make me a better person. In some ways it made me bitter – for a long time. And Daughter went through those two years with me. Oh, not patiently. She let me know that he was not so good for me. And I should have known that the relationship was doomed when I moved in with him to Canada, where he lived, and he suddenly informed me that he was allergic to her and she had to sleep at night in the hallway, and not at the foot of the bed, which had been her place for the last fifteen of her eighteen and a half years.
To give my lover some credit, he simply didn’t know how to have a real pet and was afraid of Daughter and her soulful eyes. According to his growing up, animals only communicated by bleating, barking, mooing and oinking to convey they were uncomfortable, hungry or acknowledging his presence. He grew up on a farm. If Daughter acknowledged him at all, she would just stare at him as if she couldn’t believe her own eyes that he could have put on such a tragic outfit combination. Or maybe she was asking him, “So, you’re leaving when?” It didn’t help that he kept trying to win her over by talking baby talk to her or bringing her treats like the ones from Canada that were actually made in moose shapes. She didn’t eat anything he bought for her.
“That’s the way terriers are,” I kept trying to tell him. “They’re smart and finicky. Just don’t talk baby talk to her. She knows what you’re saying.”
“She’s a dog,” he would say. “She’s a spoiled city dog who doesn’t like dog food.” It was like talking to a tree. He continued to talk baby talk to her and kept trying to feed her moose-shaped things.
“She’s an American and only eats things that look processed like Jerky Treats, and Puperoni’s, and Science Diet,” I argued. “She’s never even seen a moose to know if she even wanted to taste one.”
“I suppose she told you that?”
Well, neither of us Americans in the room had to say anything. He could see it in mine and Daughter’s eyes. Of course she could talk. Duh. And she continually communicated to us both that she had no use for him.
After my latest break-up and a return to my latest home-city, Chicago, we had the best three years of Daughter’s life. I had felt so guilty that I dragged her though that last relationship that I promised her that I would take her to the dog park by my new apartment, rain, snow or sun-shine for one hour a day until the day she died. And as she grew older, she became more socialized, more secure and came into her own person, if you will. She had old dog friends and she taught young dogs and new dogs how to play and behave in the park. She was like the sweet and firm granny that everyone loved to see yet everyone knew they couldn’t get away with anything in front of. Everyone loved Daughter and she attracted so many new friends to me as well. These people were my new posse. The dog-people who listened to the story of my break-up and patiently watched me heal.
Those three and a half years were the best of her life. She was the life of the party and the center of my universe and she was certainly the most popular girl in the park. On the last day of her life she woke with a little bit of arthritic pain. I had already made an appointment with her vet to drive up at 3 p.m. to just talk about pain meds for her. I did not plan to take her because she had not been suffering from pain very much, she just had a few rusty days, every once in a while.
When she wet the carpet that morning, she knew I wouldn’t scold, but she just looked at me, as if to say, “Really? Is this what getting old is all about?” She looked mad and I could tell that she wanted nothing to do with this age thing anymore.
That was the first and only day that I carried her to the park across the street. We were an hour early for our regular 8 to 9 a.m. peeps. But we got to see the 7 to 9ers. We loved them too. Daughter didn’t run and play, but she just stood on all fours, while all the other dogs came up to sniff noses with her as they always did, to pay their respects to granny. She stood there for the entire hour and it was so amazing to see the reactions of the other dogs. They said hello and then their heads went down and then they walked away.
One of the 7 to 8 a.m. people had tears in her eyes and said, “Is she saying goodbye?”
“I think so,” I said. I had never seen anything like it.
By the time our 8 to 9 regulars began to trickle in, Daughter just splooge-plopped onto the pavement. She had been standing and receiving for a full hour. I scooped her up and held her in my arms like a baby. As she let her head lull over my arm, for the next hour, she said her goodbyes to her very good dog friends from her human cradle and I comforted my friends with my words and kind smiles. They were shocked to see such a touching moment as this and they knew, from the past three and one half years, this dog was never a clingy lapdog. At the time, I don’t think I was fully letting the emotion of the situation sink into my heart, but I was very thankful that I had until 3 p.m. to make sure that Daughter was ready.
Oh, the responsibility ... I took it on and I think I kept my vows to alleviate any suffering. I drove through McDonalds and bought and fed her a whole hamburger on the way to the vet. She appreciated the treat but she knew what her last dog-job to me was. It was to give me long patient stares of love which assured me that she was, indeed, ready. That last day was the day that she picked to go. Most dog-people and dogs would never be so lucky.
She’s was mine. I was hers. We trusted that this was the constant and the commitment of our relationship (something I've never been able to do with humans) and I think it’s made us both better people.

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Coca-Cola, I'm on your side.

Dear Coca-Cola,
I'm on your side. Retailers should not be able to put so much pressure on companies like yours to lower your wholesale prices to the point that you cannot make a fair profit. If retailers, like Walmart, K-Mart and grocery stores did that, it would force you American manufacturers to move your production of products out of the United States. Which, in-turn, would put many Americans out of work. Which, in turn, might make that out-of-work American start looking for lower prices of products they like to buy. Which, in turn, would probably force retailers to compete for those out-of-work American's pennies which would lead to those retailers to ask companies like you, Coca-Cola, to lower your wholesale prices. Whew. What to do...? What to do...?
Look, why don't you decide what is a fair profit from your product? Not exorbitant. Not outrageous. You don't need to pay your executives enough to buy themselves five houses. I'm sure you could use that money for raises and benefits for your lower-paid workers who, in turn, are consumers. And why don't you take some of that profit to train the American public? We are not dumb. But not all of know that if you are forced to lower your profits you'll move your company to a country where don't have pay fair wages and you're allowed to pollute their environment. (That's who's really paying for the price of Coke.) We will pay a fair price for a product we like and we expect you to make a fair profit. We also expect that would keep your company in the United States, and that you don't pollute while making your quality product.
I'm a Coke drinker who's on your side.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html
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Fall/Winter Check your Vitamin D Levels

Last year, one my clients, an M.D., F.A.C.P., (I dunno), and I were talking while I was cutting and coloring her hair. She was telling me that either or both the
lack of fall and winter sunlight and/or the lack of vitamin D was creating a mini-epidemic for her
female clients. She informed me that a lack of either could cause minor or major depression and
a loss of energy in the coming winter months.
As the best hairdresser in Chicago, (thank you, yelpers) I feel I have a responsibility to pass on valuable information like this to my clients.
"Get your iron checked," I have always said, for the tired vegetarians and poor eaters.
"Drink more water," I would tell my clients who broke-out and had dry skin.
But this one needs to be told, again and again, to everyone, every fall and winter: if you are tired, rundown, low-energied, or if you think that you might not be feeling as good as you should
emotionally: get your 25 hydroxy Vitamin D level (or Iron level) checked.
But do not just start taking mega-doses of these vitamins if you only think that you need them, as they can cause havoc on the liver if you overindulge and you don't need them.
Only a doctor can prescribe the right amount. And only a doctor can do the proper tests.
Also, if you are suffering from a normal case of lack of sunlight: A few simple minutes with a full-spectrum light in the mornings might be all that you need. These units can sometimes be paid for with a prescription from you doctor and good insurance.
Go see your own doctor. Or you can go to a facility like the The Northwestern Center for Integrative Medicine and Wellness is at 150 E Huron Ave, Suite 1100, Chicago, IL 60611. Phone 3129263627
www.nmpg.com
This client I was telling you about? Well, she admitted to me that even she had been feeling tired and rundown. She's a busy gal with a family. So she took the time to take the Vitamin D test in her own office and she was stunned to learn that her levels were way below the proper levels. Just like many women who take care of the home, multi-task, raise the kids and run a medical practice etc, she ignored her fatigue and kept on going! Look, if it can happen to her. It can happen to you. Now she is using full spectrum light from a unit in the mornings, but, more importantly, she takes the proper dosage of supplements.
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