Surgery, Cold, and Haircuts

First things first, please keep my mom in your prayers over the next couple of days. She went in this morning for surgery to "put her bladder in a sling". *chuckle* Should solve some incontinence issues she felt it was time to deal with. Anyway, she should be out of the hospital in a day or two, but the Dr was doing the more invasive procedure which is essentially giving her a second tummy tuck. (Mom, did he give you 6-pack-abs while you were in there? *wink & grin*)

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Secondly, the damned furnace is flubbing up again. This past week, we have woken up to no heat in the house 3 times since Wednesday. (That was the first sign of it malfunctioning again, since we thought it got fixed back the week before Christmas.) Anyway, since that time, one of Scott's friends came over and put a fuel filter on the fuel lines, hoping that would solve the problem. It didn't. That "fix" lasted all of 2 days. Saturday night we went to bed knowing the furnace was out, but everybody (Tay had 2 friends spending the night) was bedded down with plenty of blankets and stayed reasonably warm till we all got up yesterday morning. Then, yesterday morning, we had a different furnace company (the fuel & furnace co. that Scott's Dad works for) come out and see if THEY could solve our problem. The guy got the furnace running again, replaced something-or-another, and left. Shortly after 9 pm, the furnace quit again. Altogether quit. *sigh* So, again we called the fuel & furnace co. and they sent somebody else out to look it over. 10:30 pm, the guy leaves and the furnace is running again. Scott woke up this morning to leave for work, and the furnace was out. Again.

It's 56 degrees in the house without the furnace going. We're just thankful it's not -50 outside. There's no way we'd be able to sit around the house if it was -50 outside. *chuckle* This MAY be what persuades Scott to look harder into a wood-stove. It's certainly persuaded me, but I don't ultimately get to make that choice. (I DO have a bunch of candles burning around the livingroom, kitchen and computer room throwing off a BIT of heat, and at least providing some hand-warming while writing school-work, reading the newspaper, or typing here on the computer.)

Anyway, now at 10:35, we haven't had heat yet this morning. Scott's got a call in the furnace & Fuel company to send somebody else out, and he's staying home from work till it looks like they've got it fixed (again?). Thus far, we haven't heard at what point the furnace-repair-guy is going to be here. I'm going to be SO glad to go to work today, if JUST for the fact that it'll at least be warm. (Really, though, I'm not TERRIBLY cold. I'm wearing my PJ shorts under a pair of sweat-pants, my night shirt under an over-sized men's thermal long-john shirt, and my "fluffy crocs" on my feet. Except for my fingers and my face, everything's pretty well covered. And I'm to the point where I think I'm going to go ahead this summer and make myself a pair of those "wristlet's" for next winter. Maybe a pair for the kiddo, too.)

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Thanks for all the love regarding the hair-cut and glasses. After I wrote up that post, I had to chuckle the next morning because I realize that my hair is ultimately even shorter than it appears in the "after" pic. Once my hair is washed, if I don't blow it out and brush it down, it actually winds up rather wavy. And with LOTS of body. I don't EVER blow it out and brush it down, therefore it winds up "kinking up" a lot more than it was in that "after" pic, therefore it winds up just brushing the tops of my shoulders, instead of hanging just below my shoulders. That's ok though. I can't put my hair up in a bun anymore, but I CAN use one of my butterfly clips, or any of my barrettes to pin my hair back or up. And I can braid it much more easily now. AND it's got a lot more body and WAVES!! I LOVE my waves! And they're natural! *grin*

I got quite a chuckle yesterday when I went to work, and everybody kinda did this double take and said "OMG, Kati, you got a HAIRCUT?!?!" It was hilarious. One of my coworkers kept looking at me, but couldn't figure out what was different. She just hasn't realized yet what it is. It's funny as hell. And I'm not telling her. *wink* I love waiting to see how long it takes folks.

Speaking of haircuts, I had to chuckle yesterday when I was sitting out at the desk. This very clean-cut, dressed up family comes past the check-out desk with their load of books, and the two older boys have mohawk hair-cuts. I find it so ironic to see what is to all appearances a very clean-cut family just out of church, and 2 of their boys (4 kids total) sport a hair-cut that was once upon a time a symbol of disrespect for "the establishment". When I was little (in the 80's) NO self-respecting young christian family would ponder the thought that their kids might get their hair cut in such a disrespectful manner as a mohawk. Only "druggies" and "punks" and "losers" sported those punky sort of hair-cuts.

NOW, it's not only normal, it's FASHIONABLE enough that even clean-cut little "christian" boys will get a mohawk hair-cut and Mom and Dad don't grumble about it. And not just mohawk hair-cuts, but multiple piercings and tattoos. One of the women I work with who is (as she claims) old enough to be my mom (but she won't divulge her actual age) has two sets of piercings in her ears, and just got a cartilage piercing this past weekend. My own Mom has 3 tattoos. I have one tattoo and two sets of piercings. I just find it very ironic to think back on my own childhood (not 20 years ago) and the stigmas and steriotypes that went with these various aspects of appearance (Haircuts, body modifications) and how they were limited to the extreme fringe. Now the extreme fringe has lost these indicators of their self-imposed "outsider" status, and I wonder what the new indicators are.

Though, I guess there's still the fact of HOW many piercings or tattoos you have, and even the hair-cut extremes, among which the more extreme for women these days seems to be dreadlocks, no matter your ancestory. A face-full of metal still is deemed as more extreme than a simple, single nose-piercing or eye-brow piercing. Tattood or scarified facial markings are still an extreme. The bearers are just required to be even MORE extreme than used to be necessary, in order to be considered extreme at all. Anyway...... just some funny (to me) ponderings I was having yesterday.

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Ok, I'd better finish this little post up and get back to schoolwork. We've got 2 more questions to answer in science, then I've got to head off to work without getting any more schoolwork done.

Have a Blessed Day!