You get what you pay for

On Sunday, I spent most of the day with my family, celebrating my brother Andy and my sister Angie's birthday (they're twins!). Patrick is still pretty sick (he has bronchitis, the big baby), but my mom and dad really wanted to see me, my brother Dan was cooking, and Patrick was 99% guaranteed to sleep all day anyway... so I went without him.

Dan grilled us all steaks, I stopped at Pavilions and bought the makings of a terrific salad (note to Culver City residents: what is up with the NUT BAR in your Pavilions! Seriously! Are you guys eating that many different kinds of nuts that you need a freakin' bar?? Who's buying all those damn nuts?) - that salad took me an hour to make. I am one slow-ass chopper. Anyway, the food was delicious, simple, and having my family together (minus poor, sick Patrick) was fun.

After we played some games and I threw the ball around for Rocco and Goldie, it was time to cut the cake. My mom bought an Angel Maid cake, which of course we all love. Unfortunately my brother Andy had to work (their birthday was actually two weeks ago... we've had scheduling issues, another reason for doing it without Patrick), but don't worry, we saved him a piece. While we're sitting around the dining room table, eating our yummy and perfect cake, my sister says, "Well! I would've preferred a VONS cake!"

A VONS cake?? Or an Angel Maid cake? Really, Angie?

Now, my sister is frugal. She takes frugal to another level, to tell the truth. She believes in the power of her money, and her money has more power the longer it stays in her bank account. So I get that she considers an Angel Maid cake to be "expensive," and that would color her opinion of the cake itself. But sometimes, Angela, you've got to spend a little money for quality. And then my brother Dan basically called her a fool and laughed in her face (but lovingly, honest). So we all gave her the "you get what you pay for, and in the case of a cake from Vons, what you pay for is about 2 inches of solid lard frosting" speech, and then we all shut up because we were having our second pieces of Angel Maid cake.

Yesterday, I decided that the thing I needed most in the world was a haircut. Now, I've had my share of expensive haircuts. I paid $70 for the last one (and I guess that's cheap, too, depending on what you're used to spending on a haircut. I was used to getting my hair cut in Missy's backyard), and while the experience itself was okay (two people blow drying me at once! [this is not a euphemism]), the haircut itself was nothing special. And then the guy (Carlos, I believe his name was) tried to convince me A) to wash my hair every other day (or less! But that's fucking crazy) and B) that I must blow dry my hair AND use hot rollers (this after I explained that I am a wash & go kind of gal, proud of my bed-head). I think I have mentioned that my best haircuts were given to me by someone who now makes a very good living as a dental hygienist? So I figured, hey, Supercuts. They did an OK job last time, right? And I need to clean up my bang-area. Whatever that part of my hair is called. The "fringe."

So... I came home from work yesterday, practiced for 45 minutes, and then set off for my haircut. The girl was sweet, her name was Jen, and I told her that I needed a trim, the bangs cleaned up and that she could "take it up as far as you want." Yes, I said that. I was very tired yesterday.

Well, Jen apparently wanted me to have short bangs (not super-short, but about eyebrow length) because that's what she did. My first reaction was, "oh shit." But now I'm getting used to it. Last time I saw my Irish (Scottish? I never remember. He has a killer accent) friend Barry, he said to me, "nice haircut! You do it yourself?" If I see Barry in the next couple of weeks, I might ask if he'd like to have a go at it. He might clean it up for me.

Now that I've had 24 hours to get used to it, it's not that bad, really. And bangs grow quickly. And my friend Andrea at work said that the rest of my hair actually looked longer, which seems a bit impossible, but hey, I'll take it.

Oh, and I keep forgetting to mention: one of the blogs I read is written by my friend Julie's friend who is going through chemotherapy for breast cancer. It's a nicely written blog, the lady is very brave, and it kind of makes me remember what my mother went through and to not take anything for granted. Anyway, Marla (that's the lady's name) wrote about playing some Wii games with her kid, and showed a photo of the Mii her son had made for her. I like my Mii - photo someday - but her Mii was named "Mommy" and that right there choked me up. My Mii is named, not so surprisingly, "Irene," and I never considered calling it anything else. The cats just call me "meow!" I thought it was very sweet, and probably not very original, but still. I don't know. I've been thinking about it quite a lot lately.

So tonight after a hard day at work, what did I do? I came home and played tennis, bowled, checked my Wii fitness (my Wii age? 36! What a coincidence!), did some target practice, rode a cow...