Get Up
One thing on my list to do before my brother's wedding was to get my eyebrows threaded.
I do this every several months. In the past, I've been known to get a little too jazzy with the tweezers, and all of a sudden I've got eyebrows like Vanilla Ice.
I've been going to the same place for about two years now. They're down the block from where I work. The shop is small and poorly appointed. There are three old barber's chairs and a big mirror and not much else.
A few months earlier, I went down the street during my lunch break to get my eyebrows threaded. The shop was boarded up. There was a handwritten sign taped to the corrugated metal saying something like: "We've moved! Come visit us at our new location on Nassau Street between Fulton and Ann."
Okay. I made my way to Nassau Street between Fulton and Ann. I looked around. I saw a shop that advertised threading. It had a different name. I walked inside. It didn't look anything like the old place. It was all painted, and the chairs were nice and new-looking and there were pictures on the walls and relaxing music playing. Wow. I asked if this was the new location of my old threading establishment.
"Yes," they told me. We accept your old cards too."
The old place had a buy eight sessions, get one free card.I asked where the ladies from the old place were. They said they were off today.
The threading was actually a dollar cheaper. And the ambiance was much nicer. They did an okay job, too, but I was suspicious.
A week or so later, I walked passed the old location again. There was a new sign up, also handwritten. It also said they had moved, but this time, the location given was just across the street. When I looked across the street, I saw a shop with the same name, the same old barber's chairs, the same original women inside.
Ha!
Yesterday, I was about to go to the new place, because it was cleaner and prettier and cheaper, but I paused and turned and went to the old place instead (at its new location). I told the lady my story about the sign and the new place, and she said, "What can you do?" She shrugged her shoulders.
I said, "So they have nothing to do with you guys?
"Some people," she said, "they are very dishonest. But what can you do?"
I said, "I knew something was up. But here I am; I came back."
I wasn't expecting a gold star, but I thought I might get at least a smile. She only shrugged again and sighed. "What can you do?" she said.
After work, I went looking again for a dress for the wedding. Formal dresses rarely come with long sleeves, and now that it's almost June, my odds of finding one were even worse. But if I was going to stand out like a sore thumb at this Orthodox wedding, I wanted to do so in style.
I finally found a dress I fell in love with. But it was sleeveless (halter-topped), and not long enough. So I went to another store and bought a long black slip and a black long-sleeved dress shirt.
I came home and assembled my ensemble. I looked a little like Betsy Johnson in a car crash on her way to a funeral. But I liked it. I liked it a lot. It had pizzazz.
I modeled my outfit for Brian. He laughed. I said, "What's the matter? You think it looks silly?"
He said, "No sillier than any other formal attire that's rigged up to pass muster for those stringent Orthodox standards." Then he paused and said, "Is that wig gray?"
"No! It's blonde. Ash blonde."
It looks like gray. Maybe it's the lighting."
With my blonde/gray wig and Betsy-Johnson-funeral-car-crash ensemble I was hoping to look glamorous. Not like a psychotic Orthodox clown. I have to think about this some more.