Trimmings

I titled a note to AB this same noun. It acts as a double entendre for my recent haircut fiasco as well as, well, the Holidays. Trimmings, as in tree trimmings, or meal trimmings, and bad hair trimmings. The haircut did not fare well whatsoever. To begin with, shoulder length must have a different definition in Virginia than it does in other parts of the country. Or maybe salons vary in what they perceive to be the shoulders of a person, because frankly, when the cape was removed from around my neck, I noticed that my hair, which previously hung several inches past my collar bones, had been sheared to an inch or so below my chin. In other words, nowhere near shoulder length. But I kept my cool and thanked the stylist for her time. A week cruised by and each morning brought a new mysterious flip of hair in whatever direction it wished. By the weekend, actually the morning we departed for our daytrip to our Nation's capital, I concluded my stylist had done quite a number on my head. And so I did what most females feel reluctant and dread to do: called the salon back for a re-cut. To tie a shiny Christmas ribbon on my experience, when the stylist arranged me in her chair for my return visit, and nicely began to ask what she could do for me, she kind of did a double take at my hair and its awkward flips and she said, I cut this? As in, Are you sure I was the person responsible for the mess on your head? It gets boring from there, because basically, she wound up circling my head making grave attempts to repair what had been done, leaving me with now what I like to call, plainly, really short hair. I'm not sure about it, but luckily I've got Craig, who smiles sweetly and reminds me that I'm cute no matter what. Aww. Our trip to D.C. was successful, but I will maintain that D.C. in the winter is ugly. The blossoms and green in the spring really spruce up the place, to be honest. New York City, on the other hand, is never ugly, never. Not even with the current transit union strike which is stranding millions of New Yorkers and resulting in chaotic commuting throughout Manhattan. New Yorkers are amazing, they are a different breed of human. They are strong, they are rocks. They combat adversity in a manner many of us Midwesterners might not reach within our lifetimes. I mean, they are walking across the Brooklyn Bridge in subzero temperatures to get to work. They are riding bikes, rollerblading, standing in lines for cabs! I've read a few mumbles of misery but overall the consensus of the people is Pay the Workers Better Wages, Give Them Medicine. Not, Get Back in That Booth or Bus Seat So That My Comfortable Life is Back to Normal Again. I feel and will forever feel much love for my Midwest upbringing, but people: we're not as strong as New Yorkers. Not in the same way, at least. I admire anyone who has survived anything living in New York. Nevertheless, back to D.C.: we had a brilliant day...toured the monuments (Lincoln is hidden behind scaffolding! Being restored! Sad KB! It's my favorite one...) and shot a handful of images with the new digital (but again, D.C. in the winter is not as attractive as in spring). We wandered through the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art as well as some rooms of the West, but the West Wing is so expansive, it could take months to properly pay respect to that museum. I basically wanted to direct Craig's attention to the magnificence that is Dali's Last Supper. Its location in the museum isn't necessarily prime--alone on a wall across from an elevator. But nevertheless, we beheld its beauty. Craig liked it. He smartly noticed that the disciples on one side mirror the disciples on the other, only one side of the table's guests appear aged and the other more youthful. It's a gorgeous painting, I could admire it for an hour. Dali's paint brush must have been soaked in brilliance and power, I can only imagine. The folds of the table runner are so real, and the broken bread, you want to touch it just to confirm it's actually a painting. Speaking of which, another misfortune is that it's behind glass. Paintings behind glass lose a little. In addition to Dali, we saw Modigliani portraits (see above for reference) and I love Modigliani eyes. They're so haunted. These, for instance, are blacked out, but you can feel the weight held in them. The other portrait I tried to keep in our camera was of Chaim Soutine, with one eye substantially higher than the other. It's an interesting effect. We saw a whole wall of Georgia O'Keefe flowers, several Picasso's, a room of Monet's including two from his Cathedral paintings, and a divine John Singer Sargent painting called "Street in Venice" which was my private favorite (I didn't even tell Craig). I stood there long enough to imagine a brief story of why the woman walks alone. I also noted how she could be walking a street in Venice today in those clothes, despite the fact Sargent painted this in the late 1800's. So anyway, our experience with the National Gallery of Art, while brief, was inspiring. Following that we debated which Smithsonian Museum to see. It was kind of Craig's turn to pick our next stop, so we headed into the Air and Space Museum, which, without being into Howard Hughes, the Wright Brothers or our Solar System, wasn't as thrilling for me, but he enjoyed himself, which mattered to me. By the time we exhausted that museum's resources, well, we were fairly well beat. So, we jumped back on the Metro and rode it back to the car, and battled our way back to Richmond (traffic leaving D.C. wasn't light but we managed). Altogether it was a good day, but we have a lot of return trips planned in our minds. There is an ample amount of learning to be done in D.C. A cute exchange took place between us as we walked along the Reflecting Pool. I spotted squirrels chasing each other and told Craig they were "political squirrels, one's a Republican and one's a Democrat." He corrected me, "One's a president and the other's an intern." He's funny. Now, in an hour or so we will leave for our Holiday travel adventure. My goal is to complete the James Frey book (finally!) because Craig got me the sequel titled My Friend Leonard. We're looking very forward to time with family, good food, conversation and time to just rest.