Weekend in NYC, part 1.

This December I’ll have been doing hair for eight years.  For the last six, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with an employer who values my continued education.  About once a year I go to New York City for either a hair class or a hair show.  Brian, on the other hand, goes to NYC to hang with friends and see concerts.  Weirdly enough, we’ve never been to NYC at the same time.

Until this weekend.

Straight after work on Saturday we took a bus from Washington D.C. to New York.  (Thank you, Jacob, for dropping us off!)  We arrived late, but stayed up even later with one of Brian’s friends who was gracious enough to lend us his apartment floor for the night.  (Thank you, Stover!)  I finally got to see this roof on which all the guys always hang out.  There’s something so sexy about an apartment rooftop in NYC!

Then I got a bug up my butt to teach Stover how to make smoothies.  So around 1am we journeyed out to a grocery store and picked up all the fixin’s.  Except yogurt.  Totally forgot the yogurt.  So we put Plan B into effect and indulged in ice cream instead.  Well, not really ice cream for me.  The boys had Ben & Jerry’s while I had Ciao Bella blackberry cabernet sorbet.  Mmmmmm.  In the meantime, I chopped and froze the fruit so that it’d be smoothie-ready in the morn.  Brian got up early and retrieved the necessary yogurt, so our initial grocery trip was not in vain.

I didn’t get much sleep that night, however, because one of Satan’s minions was keeping me awake.  And by Satan’s minions, I mean Stover’s Jack Russel terror, er, terrier, Lo.  Throughout the night Lo attempted to eat my feet, to eat my hands, to eat the mattress, to eat my shoes, to step on my head & hair and to walk across my body so many times that I think I’m indented.  By morning Lo had almost worn herself out.  Almost.  I think my basset hounds sleep about as much as she doesn’t.

You know how sometimes you want to be open to God’s will in your life, but something’s holding you back from total abandon?  Like, “God, I’ll serve you, but please just here in America.  Don’t make me a missionary.”  Or, “God, I’ll attend church faithfully, but please let me sleep through Sunday School.”  Or, “God, I want to love you with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, but please don’t let my family suffer.”  Or maybe you’ve never had any of those kind of conversations with God at all.

Well, mine sounds something like this:

“God, I want to love you, yet I know I fall short.  Please help me to love you well, in a manner that gives you due glory and honor.  I’ll move to Africa.  I’ll live in a cardboard box.  I’ll shave my head.  I’ll eat locusts and honey for the rest of my life.  Just please don’t make me own a Jack Russel terrier.”

You think I’m joking?  I used the F-word twice in one night.  And that’s, like, my annual quota.  So that’s sayin’ something.

Just sayin’.

Here’s a picture of Lo.  Brian is holding the skull of one of her last victims who tried to sleep on the floor.  She now uses this skull to hold her salt and pepper shakers.

Wait a second.  Is having a baby like having a Jack Russel terrier?  Be honest.

(Stover, please don’t hate me for thinking your dog is insane!)