Aging gracefully...

I have this fear that I will someday end up like those crazy cat ladies on Hoarders. However, I'll be a crazy guinea pig lady. Somehow, I'll acquire 50 or 60 guinea pigs who will procreate like mad because I'll have forgotten how to look up the "Guinea Pig Sexing" website and I'll mix boys and girls. Baby guinea pigs will take over the house. I won't have any food, just 50 pound bags of guinea pig cereal. Probably, when the TV show producers come to film my episode, they'll uncover several guinea pig carcasses under the sofa. When they find the sofa.

Anyway, this is my fear. I am hopeful that Steve and the kids will find enough kindness in their hearts to stop this from happening and have me locked away instead.

Since I have been thinking about aging, I thought I might let you in on my master plan to age gracefully. Step one of the master plan is to embrace the silver (OK - gray) hair that I've been sprouting around the temples and above the forehead for the last several years.

(I must digress and say that my 70 year old mom has not one gray hair. Seems I did not inherit this genetic trait.)

For several years now, I've been faithfully trudging to the salon every six weeks for my dose of hair color. I like going to the salon. It smells good, and the stylists give a great neck massage before they work on your hair. They also give you coffee and trail mix, and ask nice questions like "would you like more coffee or trail mix?" This is pampering beyond what I am used to.

A few months ago, however, I decided that a) coloring my hair was really pretty expensive and b) because I fancy myself a non-conformist, I would instead grow out my gray and show the world that it's ok to get old. So there.

So I moved into what I considered the "gray hair" portion of my life. I told myself that my gray hair was a symbol of the wisdom I had accumulated. I told myself that I wasn't fooling anyone, so why keep spending several hundred dollars a year to pretend that I wasn't my own age.

Then, one day, I happened to catch a glance of myself in the mirror when I didn't expect to. I was horrified to see the crazy guinea pig lady peering back at me. "Just go on over to Petco and get all of their guinea pigs," she seemed to be whispering. "And don't forget that 50 pound bag of food."

I immediately phoned my stylist and asked to book a cut and color as SOON AS POSSIBLE. Heck, I would have driven to salon in my pajamas if they'd been able to take me that very minute.

The result is a nice, warm chestnut hair color with no trace of gray. I was brave for a while, but frankly, I don't want to see that nutty lady for at least another 20 years.

"Isn't coloring your hair fun?" my twenty-something stylist asked as she was cutting my bangs.

You have no idea, I thought.