Kay Buena's Blog

         There it was, coming up on Christmas at the Sauerosa, here in Austin,Texas. However, there were certain complications having to do with age and the price of beans, who has fleas or has flown, and who cares?  All expectations from different generations revise the inner eye’s implications that that’s all there is to this thing we call Christmas in America.  But  the holiday season is not always so: something  to be faced with a lackadazical dismissal, or the casual retort that “Christmas is too commercial.”  Or “isn’t it sad that our family is not all together for Christmas,” which is true from my point of view.  My Brother’s family is living near Dallas along with my good old dad , who at 87 is doing a whole lot better than I am, but that’s about 200 miles away plus some.  And here, very near Austin, lives my very wonderful 3 year old grand child, so as it is said, “This is zee plazce” for Christmas this year for me.  ‘Cause Christmas is mostly for kids and the wonder their eyes and future’s behold. 

     When last we rode in the car with my granddaughter, she exclaimed “look at all the colored lights, they are so pretty.” Which, as per usual, she was right on that one, they were pretty.  When I think of all the Christmas’s when my family would discuss the important issue of where should lights go, what color? “Should we go over the top, and make the house look like a “bar”  or remain with in the boundaries of civilized normality?” (?)  We could never agree.  However, I remember how much trouble it is to get the lights out from storage and check to see if there are bad one’s needing replacing or whatever; how are we going to attach them? — with big old nails or some clever under the gutter type of effort, or do we just debate until the Christmas season is over? However this year we did surround the doorway with ever-green and colored lights, got a Merry Christmas sign in Hawaiian with incredible bling, and a solar powered Christmas flamingo, who turns red at night. (All of which can be boxed up, except the flamingo, who appears to have an all purpose all season appeal.)

     I have the most lovely granddaughter, who makes all my efforts to decorate, however complicated or overrated, worth the effort I put in to this sort of thing, which used to be no big deal to me, when I was not so old and creaky, or er…freaky.  Ah, let’s go with this comment:  Grandma Caroline AKA (Kay Buena) is her usual nut case self, however is physically and memory challenged these days.  I am now 60 years old.  There it is for the world to see.  Now, as a notorious nut case, who tries to appear ever so normal and acceptable to most any given group, I have finally gone and done one of the strangest things that a woman my age has ever done.  I have dyed my hair gray.  This is not as easy as it seems. I think I’ve got this figured out; mainly, no one wants to have gray hair.  Ergo: there is no gray hair dye — simple as supply and demand.

      Ever notice that if you go to the drug store or even the beauty supply store, there are few if none available gray hair dyes at all, unless you count the strange sparkly kind of a glop for teenagers.  Now there are available rinses to make grey hair more silvery (taking out the yellow, mainly by adding purple) all of that can become a pain, however, what be gained by giving in the towel?  So right there in the beauty supply store I went into my “art mode” left brain trance and pretended I was mixing paint, starting with the light blond (of most of my hair) or light yellow, then going from there to formulate that start into a steel gray.  I came up with a box of cool (as mixed with a purple undertone) light brown, then added what seemed like a real purple to me (a so called “brightener (to take out the yellow or brassy tones of blond hair)) which appeared altogether purple on the hair swatch. (yellow+ brown + lesser amount of purple = gray.) Or at least that could happen when mixing paints.  Thing is, hair dye is not paint.  However by putting Vaseline on some hunks of white &/or platinum blonde and rolling them up out of the way, so as that part NOT be effected by the new hair dye…I managed to make my hair look somewhat normal, with some authentic white streaks to avoid tedium, and unless under the direct light, the overall effect seemed to be gray.  However under certain lighting, the brown parts look curiously as though they are dark fuchsia. Not that either one of those colors really exist in nature if you think about it.  Except on a Russian Blue Cat — which was the color I was going for all along. I squint my eyes and pretend I got there.

      Oh well, it could be worse, once feeling patriotic, I added some bright blue vegetable dye and my hair was turquoise for over 4 months.  In those days, I gave up and covered my hair with scarves. 

      But all things considered, being here even though being old, is better than not; mainly because if one were not presently occupying their given life space, when a disheartening comment of an inflammatory nature concerning one’s very nature is not disclaimed, it stands (whether right or wrong); ergo: it is one’s duty to be on guard at all times, as old gals like I, tend to become disturbed or a bit unglued by many a benign comment when it is directed to our person, or become aggravated when some detail which goes un-nit-picked remains ignored. It is our job to remain present and counting. Why that is, I have no idea, although I suspect there has been some Divine interaction in this, I can’t call it destiny, but one thing is true:   It is a far far better thing to stay out of beauty supply stores and either buzz cut all the dyed hair off, or keep the roots blonde.  Don’t you hate ambiguity? It’s so unclear.

    As to what that had to do with Christmas? Not much, however me and my hair survived Christmas and new years, and on Christmas day, watching what went on here at our house during what little time I got to spend with my Grand daughter was all together a taste of  joy that had been missing from here for many years.  And if I may be so bold as to point out: Cinderella’s fairy Godmother’s hair is that gray of a Russian Blue cat, I had in mind all the time.  Wonder who does her hair?