\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There 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,\u00a0and who cares?\u00a0 All expectations from different generations revise the\u00a0inner eye’s\u00a0implications that that’s all there is to this thing we\u00a0call Christmas in America.\u00a0 But\u00a0 the holiday season\u00a0is not always so: something \u00a0to be faced\u00a0with a lackadazical dismissal, or the casual retort that “Christmas is too commercial.” \u00a0Or “isn’t it sad that\u00a0our family is not all together for Christmas,”\u00a0which is true from my point of view.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 ‘Cause Christmas is mostly for kids and the wonder their eyes and future’s behold.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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” \u00a0or remain with in the boundaries of civilized normality?” (?)\u00a0 We could never agree.\u00a0 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.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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\u00a0used to be no big deal to\u00a0me, when I was\u00a0not <\/strong>so old and creaky, or er…freaky.\u00a0 Ah, let’s go with this comment:\u00a0 Grandma Caroline AKA (Kay Buena) is her usual nut case self, however is physically and memory challenged these days.\u00a0 I am now 60 years old.\u00a0 There it is for the world to see.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I have dyed my hair gray.\u00a0 This is not as easy as it seems.\u00a0I think I’ve got this figured out; mainly, no one wants to have gray hair.\u00a0 Ergo: there is\u00a0no gray hair dye —\u00a0simple as supply and demand.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Ever notice that if you go to the\u00a0drug 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.\u00a0 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?\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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\u00a0+ lesser amount of purple = gray.) Or at least that could happen when mixing paints.\u00a0 Thing is, hair dye is not paint.\u00a0 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\u00a0my hair\u00a0look somewhat normal, with some authentic white streaks to avoid tedium,\u00a0and unless under the direct light, the overall effect seemed to be gray.\u00a0 However under certain lighting, the brown parts look curiously as though they are dark fuchsia.\u00a0Not that either one of those colors really exist in nature if you think about it.\u00a0 Except on a Russian Blue Cat — which\u00a0was the color I was going for all along. I squint my eyes and pretend I got there.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In those days, I gave up and covered my hair with scarves.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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\u00a0when it\u00a0is 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.\u00a0Why 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:\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Don’t you hate ambiguity? It’s so unclear.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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\u00a0during what little time I got to spend with my Grand daughter was all together a taste of\u00a0 joy that had been missing from here for many years.\u00a0 And if I may be so bold as to point out: Cinderella’s fairy Godmother’s hair is <\/strong>that gray of a Russian Blue cat, I had in mind all the time.\u00a0 Wonder who does her hair?<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There 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,\u00a0and who cares?\u00a0 All expectations from different generations revise the\u00a0inner eye’s\u00a0implications that that’s all there is to this thing we\u00a0call Christmas in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R4qt-t","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1009,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/surface-pro\/","url_meta":{"origin":29,"position":0},"title":"Surface Pro II","author":"KayBuena","date":"December 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Christmas Then & Now Santa, in case it's break time.\u00a0 Perchance you are surfing the web, please take a gander on that with which we've opened.\u00a0 It's not as if we have a shortage of computers. Well, I just thought maybe if you're in the market. Or maybe Rudolf's a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth"","block_context":{"text":"The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/true-and-unusual-stories\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/SP2.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/SP2.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/SP2.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/SP2.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":21,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/the-octoberfest-in-austin-from-the-sauerosa\/","url_meta":{"origin":29,"position":1},"title":"The Octoberfest in Austin from the Sauerosa","author":"Kay Buena","date":"October 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Though I can close my eyes and remember how Fall\u00a0looked and seemed to me\u00a0in New England, and other foreign spots north of the Rio Grande, here in Austin, Fall looks pretty much like Summer, but with the school-aged kids rounded up like they're supposed to be, unseen nor heard,\u00a0for\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/pianos-i-have-known-and-loved\/","url_meta":{"origin":29,"position":2},"title":"Piano's I Have Known and Loved","author":"Kay Buena","date":"September 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometime between the age of 2 and 4 years old, my parents got me a toy piano.\u00a0 It was white and shaped like a baby grand, but only had two octaves (from\u00a0 G below middle C---to G above middle C).\u00a0 I thought this was the most wonderful thing, although thinking\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":733,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/written-for-my-dear-auntie-caroline\/","url_meta":{"origin":29,"position":3},"title":"Written for my Dear Auntie Caroline","author":"Kay Buena","date":"June 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm doing my Christmas Shopping early this year. I'm getting everyone I know a pair of sox with shoes printed on them. This is to sell over the Internet on a big scale basis; wait; Oh no...news flash. It's been done.\u00a0 really? Then, I don't have to do that yet.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth"","block_context":{"text":"The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/true-and-unusual-stories\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kaybuena.com\/images\/tnCAS2002NovCCLv2%2B20C-20G%2B20R.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":37,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/the-mystical-mystery-of-the-peacock-a-memory\/","url_meta":{"origin":29,"position":4},"title":"The Mystical Mystery of the Peacock (a memory)","author":"Kay Buena","date":"May 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Mystical Mystery of our Peacock & Where did it go? Click on song of the day: Morning Dove\u00a0lyrics are here \u00a0 My husband and I have lived in this house overlooking a visually dramatic valley in North\/Central Austin for nearly 16 years.\u00a0 But, before things became quite so static\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth"","block_context":{"text":"The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/true-and-unusual-stories\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/technologists.com\/sauer\/cams\/back\/cam.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/technologists.com\/sauer\/cams\/back\/cam.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/technologists.com\/sauer\/cams\/back\/cam.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":421,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/part-2-the-3rd-party-existention-so-what-happend-to-bettyjane\/","url_meta":{"origin":29,"position":5},"title":"12. part 2: The 3rd party existention?…so, what happend to BettyJane","author":"Kay Buena","date":"May 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The trio of\u00a0 the two unlikely companions,\u00a0(Betty Jane\u00a0& Data)\u00a0and my wonderful cat, Elmo, were quite aware of the postman, the ever popular Mr. Miller, who knows all and sees all, the perfect governmental employee stood leaning on the door way, rolling his eyes while I scribbled my name on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "(The) Betty Jane Chronicles"","block_context":{"text":"(The) Betty Jane Chronicles","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/the-betty-jane-chronicles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}