Seven Quick Takes Friday!

A special welcome to the Company Girls dropping by for (virtual) coffee!

I know you've all been waiting for a hair update, and it's a two-parter:  

--1--

Part 1:  My "no (sham)poo" experiment is working very well!  Other than a brief respite when I got my hair done last week, not a drop of shampoo has touched my head in the past three weeks.  I used the baking soda technique for the first week or so, every three days, and it was fine.  Then I read that it's kind of hard on (artificial) hair colour so I switched to shampooing with conditioner.  You heard it right....just use conditioner as you would normal shampoo.  You are supposed to use conditioner without any silicone in it (anything ending with "cone" in the ingredient list) and I don't have any at the moment, but it seems to be working fine.  I finished off with the dilute apple cider vinegar rinse and my hair is fine, fine, fine!

--2--

Hair update part 2:  I talked to my gal at the salon last week about growing out my grey, and she agreed with my plan.  She put in lowlights (a shade lower than my current (artificial) colour) and highlights (she basically lifted all the colour out of some strands), and then finished it all off with a toner to add a little colour back in.  It looked great, very subtle, and definitely reduced the demarcation line where my grey is growing in.  I think this plan is going to work!

--3--

Mildred's Temple Kitchen, a local hipster dining establishment announced that it is suggesting to diners over the Valentines' Day weekend that they can use their bathrooms for intimate encounters.  Now, the setup is a large unisex powder room with small bathrooms off the main area.  (You can see a completely tasteful photo at the link above.)  My thoughts are (1) eww; (2) doesn't that take some of the excitement away from the whole thing?  I mean, if you're going to have sex in a restaurant bathroom, isn't part of it the whole illicit aspect?; and (3) you couldn't pay me enough to work as the "French Maid" they are hiring to keep order and the rooms clean.

--4--

I listenend to a completely fascinating interview with the author of a new book called Operation Mincemeat: The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II.

  It was on the BBC podcast Start the Week of January 18th, and is a fascinating story of an ingenious plot to pass misinformation to the Nazis using a dead body and a back-story concocted by some writers.  I've added it to my amazon.ca wishlist, and it's NOT the type of story I'm usually interested in!

--5--

Yesterday, I went down to the Four Seasons Centre, the home of the National Ballet of Canada and Canadian Opera Company, to hear one of the free noon-hour concerts they hold in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre (left), a gorgeous space overlooking University Avenue.

The concert was part of their Jazz Series and featured the Humber Steely Dan Project.  They are a group of students from Humber College's renowned jazz program and it was a terrific show.  The ensemble included two saxophones, a trumpet/flugelhorn, two guitars, bass, two percussionists, keyboards, and three vocalists.  They played about a dozen covers, all Steely Dan, mostly more recent, to a packed house.  Apart from some pitchiness from one of the vocalists, it was a great show, and a wonderful tribute to one of my favourite groups!

--6--
I took Wilson to a dog park for the first time a couple of days ago.  He's an anxious guy around other dogs, but I've been slowly letting him meet dogs on the street and teaching him some manners.  So we hopped into the car on Wednesday and went over to the closest off-leash area to us.

It was kind of a pathetic space, but we were able to play fetch for about 20 minutes, his favourite game that he has missed since we left Atlanta, since we have no yard in which to play with him.  One other (tiny) dog joined us at one point, and he was fine with her, except when she went after his ball and there was a brief little growl that I immediately corrected.  We're going to head to another park today, a little earlier, to see if we can find a few more friends for him to meet.

--7--

My doctor called me a "success story" after seeing my blood pressure history (geekily, on my iPhone app) and noting my weight loss and lifestyle changes.  He also said that booze is okay, just watch the amount (i.e., not every day).  I can cut back on the monitoring to 3-4 times per week, and I'm to see him in 3 months!  Yay!

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