My Chinese horoscope was right…

My horoscope warned that my plans for the day would be chucked out the window due to unforeseen events.

And they were.  I had planned on a quiet evening at home.  Instead, when I got home I made the horrible discovery that sometime after leaving home for work I lost my keys.  I knew I had them on me because the front door deadbolt was locked.  Crap.  So I trudged back to the subway and retraced my steps, stopping along the way ask subway employs and office building employees if anyone had turned in a set of lost keys.

No dice.

I got back to my desk thinking maybe they fell out of my pocket there and are in the cubicle area.

No dice.

At some point I thought that maybe I could check my home voice mail in case someone found them.  Then it slipped my mind.  Plus, I thought the odds of that were pretty slim.

I headed back home after stopping to get something to eat.  I arrived home at 9:20 PM.  I checked my voice mail.  There was a message from the local library.  Someone had found my keys and returned them to the library since my library card fob is on the key chain.

Happiness!!  Except, the library is now CLOSED.  So I will have to wait until 10 AM TOMORROW to get them.

So I figure I’ll just call the locksmith and get my keys in the morning.

I did consider calling some friends to see if I could crash on their couch, then I thought, “You are being too cheap.”

Well, as you might have guessed, after forking over an uncomfortable amount to the locksmith for getting me in and replacing the high security deadbolt he had to destroy, I’m thinking I should’ve crashed on someone’s couch.

*sigh*

On the other hand, there’s nothing like a hot shower in your own bathroom in the morning.  And I can work from home tomorrow morning before picking up the keys, which will be a trek since the car keys are on the same key chain and I will have to hoof it to the library.

At the very least, I know I need to craft a way to keep a spare key someplace safe but outside my home sooner rather than later.  The silly thing is, I always thought I would lock myself out by accidentally closing the door, not losing the damn keys somewhere.

And, more importantly, thank goodness the keys are not completely lost.  Replacing the car key would have been a pain in the ass….

My new haircut

A while back I was musing on “the Asian hair thing,” which, apparently gets this blog a lot of hits from search engines.  Strange, but true.

Anyway, last week I bit the bullet and ventured into Chinatown to get a haircut.

First thing I noticed, the extra cost was worth it – I got a free juice drink, a nice shampoo and head massage, and, as a very nice added bonus, they rinsed my hair after the first cut – no more itty bitty hair bits annoying the daylights out of me until my next shower.

As for the haircut itself… I think there was a slight communication problem, but I think it was more me not really knowing what I wanted to do, so I was babbling.  I was trying to explain I had wavy hair and what I did the last time.  I think that made it confusing for the hairdresser.  I should have just said that I have wavy hair, I would like a bob, and it’s OK to let the natural waviness show.  But I didn’t.  Instead she just did a bob, expressed surprise I had wavy hair (she didn’t see me before the shampoo), and blew me out.  Along the way she explained that I didn’t need conditioner.  Not sure how that will work once the hair gets longer, but OK… I’ll give it a try.

It was interesting watching her work.  They really do cut Asian hair differently.  For starters, she didn’t use scissors to do most of the cutting.  Instead, she used this razor thing like a knife to cut the hair.  And she may have sectioned the hair differently… That I couldn’t tell.  She didn’t use scissors until the end, when she was thinning out my hair, and no one has ever thinned out my hair before.  Finally, she was very thorough in blowing out my hair.  Instead of just taking the round brush and hairdryer and blowing, she put sections of my hair up again like she did when she cut it.  Then, she used the brush and dryer to straighten out the underlying layers.  As she finished each layer, she let down more hair.  So by the time she was done, my hair was pretty straight with it curving under at the ends.

I can’t say I was thrilled with it… Nor can I say I didn’t like it.  I just wasn’t used to it.  I think because she used a different technique my hair was laying differently, and I just wasn’t used to it.  For me, the jury was out.  But, I bumped into a friend on my way out, and he liked it.  Or, at least, he said he did… He’s a straight guy, so he might have just been saying that to be polite.  But, the female co-workers the next day really liked it, so I guess it went well 😉  And, now that it’s been several days since the cut, my hair is acting more like its old self, and I’m getting used to it.  I think it’s working out well.

It will be interesting to see how my hair acts as it grows out… If the waves come back, and how.  I think I will go back to the same place in two months or so.  I want to keep my hair on the shorter side for winter.  And, maybe if I’m brave enough, I’ll have the hairdresser do what she thinks would look best on my head.  But that could be a big maybe….

And, yes, I feel a little guilty for not going to my usual hairdresser.

(P.S.  The hairdresser asked if I was Chinese, which is usual.  I look Chinese.  She was shocked when I told her I’m Korean.  She also asked if it was my first time at the salon.  I said it was, and then I volunteered that it was my first time going to an Asian place.  I debated whether or not to tell her I was adopted.  I didn’t.. Don’t know why.  There wasn’t any particular reason.  I guess I just didn’t feel the need to.  And I think if I had, it would have been out of some urge to get pity or something….)

We have a sprinkler

There is something quite troubling occurring in Corporate America, or at least my little area of it.

We have a sprinkler.  Or, more accurately, we have a sprayer.

Someone on my floor at the office has been sprinkling on the seats.  Usually it’s a few definitely yellow drops on the seat.  But, every now and then, I walk into a stall and it looks like a fucking she-rhino sprayed the back wall to mark it as hers.

Seriously.

Big, yellow drops of urine all on the BACK of the toilet seat.  The back?  It’s as if some guy walked in there and decided to hose down the place.  But this happens in the middle of the day.  During office hours.  When someone would notice David, Mark, or Paul walking out of the Ladies.

It wouldn’t be a male-to-female transgendered person because, well, a male-to-female transgendered person would act female and SIT DOWN, not stand.

But, honestly, how the hell does a human female spray the back of the toilet set with her urine?  How? Does she have some screwed up sense of space that she thinks squatting near the back of the seat will improve her aim?  Uh, no, sweetie – you squat over the middle.  Place your pee hole over the wide part of the bowl….

And, if, by some misfortune this woman suffers some sort of anatomical disorder that she cannot urinate accurately into the bowl and ends up messing up the seat, then please, for love of decency’s sake, clean up after yourself!