A Tale of Two Weekends - or Adventures in Hair and Photos of Tango

This was a weekend of civilizing character. It was not fast; nor was it furious. Indeed, rather sedate. BUT I am proud to say that between us Andrew and I accomplished some fairly magnificent long-overdue tasks. Most important of all for me was getting to a hair person for a damned trim. I seriously do not remember the last time that my hair was properly trimmed. Scraggly hair was scribbling out little SOS messages across my decolletage, and I'd wake to it weeping, I assure you. Andrew also managed to get his hair cut. I say cut, because although we probably took the same amount of inches off, an inch for his hair - though it be long for a man's - is still a far greater proportion of hair. He also managed to buy some slacks after officially being without any. Each of these in good turn.

The hair cut experience is always fairly painless, as I am now devoted to a quick and easy place in Barkley Village. When my mom was anticipating losing all of her hair back before her chemo, this was the hair place where she eased into it with the short cut that was so fabulous she now intentionally maintains it as such.  I am pretty sure I went back for a second cut after this point (I hope), but I can't recall for sure any of the details about the experience. Anyways, they were so nice to her and so speedy and cheap that I'm a fairly loyal customer, if only in theory most of the time. The challenge was largely one of committing to going. Of course Andrew was turning a fair bit shaggy himself, causing a fair bit of Fabio-hair tossing and prompting me to play with it in ways that perhaps he was ready to not have to experience:

Although i think the braids are quite lovely, personally!As always, the place had him in and out of the chair in a few minutes and gave me some more clear demarcations of layering and took off the deadest of the dead in my hair. I probably could have gone a few shorter given how long it's been, but I am stubbornly devoted to hair that is too long, despite my secret belief that long hair is not my most flattering style. I think Andrew looks adorable.

Kind of a bit of a Prince Valiant look going on. The shaving will come soon, since he's about to see his mother and always remembers to shave before seeing her. Also, yes, it's almost finals week so he is appropriately lost in deep and abiding consternation reviewing what he calls "really really hard math" and what I call "total and utter gobblety-gook" whenever he (as he frequently does) attempts to narrate his steps towards solving a problem or ten. Needless to say that most of the weekend, he was staring at equations like this and I was ... not. It actually was some great down time and I managed to do a fair amount of cleaning, cooking, straightening and otherwise pretending to be a grown up after about a month of allowing a figurative cyclone of negligent housekeeping to devastate my living quarters.

After fervid lucubration over said "really really hard math" it seemed apropos to escape the study quarters, and we made a slight jaunt to The Blue Moon Ballroom. I had originally planned for tango downtown, but the tango didn't start until after nine o'clock and inevitably - since it was live music - it would have started late. And that really meant ten o'clock given Daylight Savings was lurking around the transition into Sunday. And it cost twenty dollars. And, well, I like seeing Molly and Marcus and this is where I know I can find them... so... 

 Not only did we get to hang out there for free, but we came away with a coupon for 40% off at the Gap. Now, I don't really shop at the Gap directly. I find that they make high quality clothing, so I own quite a lot of The Gap/Banana Republic line, but usually only after somebody else has worn and then donated it to Goodwill. I'm honestly a little afraid of any store in which salespeople actually approach me in any way shape or form. I'm a skittish shopper and such interactions tend to leave me fleeing for the door holding out a crucifix and screaming "stay back"... but Andrew needed slacks, so before he headed off this morning, he bought some. At the Gap. With the coupon.

The best part of this experience was watching him shop, since we have very different styles. For one, he isn't afraid of salespeople. Ambivalent, yes. I don't think the sales girl's flirtatious insistence that no the slim fit pants really did fit and she liked them even registered with him. But not freaked out by it like I am. He also does have opinions. 

He is not one of those boys who is dressed by his girlfriend. I agreed pants were not him when they weren't, but he was pretty clear on what he wanted, or his uncertainties about what he wanted: we're soo over khaki,black is too waiter, dark green is too gardener... and so on. Slim fit was a definitive no, but he found some pants of a brownish greyish hue (I think, it was all pretty fast and I didn't take photos) in his size and fit that he described as potentially dowdy but he could pull off with the right tie.

So, all in all, we successfully pulled ourselves back from the brink of barbarianism and groomed ourselves a bit this weekend. Before finals, even.

We are now a week and a day and counting from our ski vacation with Andrew's family. I'm fairly terrified, as it's been over two years (holy crap, over two years??) since I had my first skiing experience. That went quite well, but I am sure I've forgotten everything and am just begging for some kind of horrible accident. I'm secretly relieved that my-boyfriend's-mother's-boyfriend (and again, I defer to German to come up with a word to define his relationship to me) is also going to be along and also is fairly new to skiing. So I won't be the only one slowing things down and somersaulting down the mountain like Jack's Jill.

Anyways, on a topic swerving as wildly as me on skiis... The weekend before I did a short tango performance at the Skagit Valley College's World Fiesta. It was a confusing event, all together. Upon showing up, I found virtually no particular organizer who could direct me to... well pretty much anything and the music was all messed up (I suspect this was my performance partner's responsibility as one does not give a dj a disc full of songs and then tell them what track numbers to play with any hope of getting the right tracks). So I danced to two songs I'd never heard before in my life, and the other couple we brought with us danced to the one song I thought we might be dancing to. There are some great and some not so great photos, as always with dance photography:

Tangolates... Here, our performer shows us the tango squats... ok, really
she just had to pee reeeaaally badly

Ok, what the hell song is this now? You said Pugliese!
This is... I don't know what this is!
You think I'm going to dance to this??

Finding a lead in a sea of fair-goers, Adella marks her territory by
peeing on his leg!

Brooke understands it's a close dance, but she also knows
that it is particularly important to make room for Jesus... 
if you know what she means

Adella, not knowing how to make any kind of room for Jesus and having
already marked her lead, moves on to other...er... pet like embarrassing behaviors. She will later climb him like a tree and meow from on top of his head

And some rather lovely photography as well:

While you can't quite see the contrast of the lilac tights and pink bows, I still rather love this photo. Brooke, the other dancer took it. I had no idea she was an awesome photographer as well.