Month: April 2006

That's the way I [don't] like it

Talk about a total beat down this morning. The past month or so, I have been listening to Tony and Cappy on the morning show over at Mix 102.9 instead of my iPod, like I had done previously. (Side note: When we moved to the new building last year, before I moved into my office, I was in the center of the building, surrounded by all kinds of electronic equipment, so I got almost no radio reception. Hence the purchase of the iPod to give me something to listen to during the day. Now that I’m in a window office, I get reception again.) So, like I said, I’ve been listening to them instead of my iPod – it gives me the chance to hear new songs I don’t have loaded, plus a shot of news, weather, and traffic; and the guys are usually pretty funny.

This morning, I was out of my office when they started a bit which involved Cappy having watched a movie (Starsky & Hutch) last night, recognized music from one of the songs but he had no idea who sang it. I walked in in the middle of them playing the song clip, and instantly knew it. I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of the band or song, but it’s one of those 70’s era tunes that is easy to recognize. I was even singing the hook of the song after the clip ended. I didn’t bother calling in or emailing the answer since I figured it was simple enough that it would be answered in no time flat.

Thirty minutes later, the bit was still going on. At that point, it was getting very old. I couldn’t believe that they were still trying to figure out the song, and that all of the listeners calling in had to be that dense, that they were still guessing incorrectly. So, I shot off an email to the DJs. A few minutes later, I got back an automated response, that read: “Thanks! We’ve got it now, but we’re going to have some fun with it and say we still don’t know what it is on the air. You’re in the know, so shhhh! Ha ha…”

Somehow, they didn’t realise they had already dragged out the bit too long, and they kept it going for ANOTHER 30 minutes!!! That’s right – an entire hour of them playing a 5-10 second clip of this damn song, pretending not to know it. And the listeners would call in and suggest a song, then they’d play a clip of both songs, and of course it would be wrong, since they were “playing dumb” for the bit.

Finally, an hour after starting the bit, their shift was almost over so they had to wrap it up. They take one last caller, and she has the “right” artist, and it “triggers” their memory and know it’s that artist, but a different song. The only problem with that? It was STILL wrong, but they were convinced it was right. That’s the point I almost started bashing my head into my keyboard out of aggravation.

They were claiming the song was “Hot Stuff” by Donna Summer. The major problem with that – the song was not used in the Starsky & Hutch movie (and a quick check at IMDB proved that). The song is actually KC & The Sunshine Band’s “That’s The Way (I Like It)”. Maybe it’s just me… but I really don’t think those two songs sound alike at all.

So gee, so much for them having “figured it out”, huh? 😉 They had to stay over into the next DJ’s shift, so she could take a call correcting them on the song. From the sound of things, she’s still getting calls about it almost 2 hours later, since she keeps playing calls about that whole screwed up bit. The whole thing gave me a monster headache, having to hear that same clip over and over and over and over and over again. I have a hunch this is enough to drive me back to listening to the iPod (at least in the mornings) again for a while. Argh!

We’re having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave

I think living in Texas this year is going to be a little on the unbearable side. Normally, our seasons go Spring-Summer-Indian Summer-Fall (with a dash of winter thrown in); then we start all over again with Spring the next year. 2005, however, went along the lines of Spring-Summer-Indian Summer-Extended Summer. This year, Extended Summer kept rolling on through January and February and into March. Roughly towards the end of March we finally got a break in temperatures, and the season actually switched into Spring. Over this weekend, however, it already showed signs of switching back into Summer.

On the 17th, we had literally the hottest day in recorded Dallas history. 101° was the “official” temperature, with some places reporting up to 113°. And that is without our normal heat index even being added in!! Prior to this year, the hottest April 17th occured back in 1925 – with a high of 94°. The heat was so bad here Monday, that there was such a high demand on electricity due to A/C’s working overtime – the electric company started doing rolling blackouts. I was lucky, the area I live in is not one of the “pre-determined” areas that the power was being shut off at for 15 minutes at a time. I was also lucky I didn’t have to drive home through any of those areas, since it was also effecting traffic signals.

While I’m being a weather geek here, let me also add the following info, quoted from a Wikipedia article on the Heat Wave of 80:

In Dallas, Texas, high temperatures exceeded 100°F for 69 days between June 23 and September 6. Dallas reached an all-time high on June 26 and 27, soaring to 113°F (45°C) on both days. In the summer of 1980 in Dallas, there were 29 days that either tied or broke records for those respective dates. Wichita Falls, Texas would hit 119°F (48°C), the second-highest temperature ever recorded in Texas.

What they fail to mention, is that we also had 42 straight days of triple-digit temperatures that summer. I turned 6 at the end of that summer, so I don’t have the best recollection of it or how hot it was – but I do have some memories from it. Mostly due to the fact that I had an Aunt visiting from England that summer, and I remember going places in and around downtown with her, outdoors, in that sweltering heat. If we’re already hitting temps over 100° in the middle of April … how bad is it going to get when summer actually DOES start?

Thankfully the weather took a sudden dip in temperature, due to storms that have moved through our area. It’s sad, though, to know this probably won’t last too long. We’re already in a drought situation – pretty much have been since last year – and it’s likely only to get worse. April is usually a fairly rainy month here in Texas, and we’ve barely had any. This summer, the drought is likely only to get worse, as we go through day after day of scorching heat and no rain.

The only reason I think the drought MIGHT break, is I think there’s a very good chance the hurricane season will be even worse this year than last. (Keep in mind, these are all just guesses by me – I have no real training in meterology or anything. haha.) But, I do think that Houston or even further west on the Texas coast is likely to get hit by a pretty decent sized storm this summer. If that does happen, we’re likely to get some of the cast-off rain from the storm as it moves further inland, since we’ll be on the east side of potential storm paths. So, yeah, if that does happen, like I think it might, then we’ll end up with some rain this summer. I’m just hoping I’m wrong. I’d rather have a drought and water rationing, then see the kind of devastation that hit New Orleans happen again. :-\

Either way, it makes me wish all the more I was in Los Angeles. Even if something happened and they had a hotter year than normal – it would still likely be cooler than it is here.

Hair, long beautiful hair

For the last several years, my hair has been VERY long – like, almost 2 feet long. I think the average length was 22 inches – that’s all the way down to beneath my waist. The shortest it has been in almost a decade is down to the bottom of my bra band, but it was usually about waist length. Prior to that, a shoulder-length cut is the shortest I ever let it get.

For the last 20-odd years, I just refused to have my hair shorter than that. For the absolute longest time, I HATED the thought of having short hair. That, of course, was rooted in my childhood. When I was about 4 years old, I had beautiful long, straight, light auburn hair, until my mother decided to have it chopped off into one of those Dorothy Hamil hair cuts that most girls had at one point in the 70’s. She kept it cut like that for years, and of course I grew to resent it. In the mid 80’s, she decided she wanted to perm my hair, but I didn’t want a perm. I did, however, see the opportunity to strike a deal with her. If I allowed her to perm my hair, I was allowed to grow my hair out as long as I wanted. That lead to many many years of perms (some bad, some not) and my hair growing longer and longer. My form of bargained rebellion. Haha.

After I got older, I didn’t have to have her “permission” to grow it or get it cut any longer, so I ceased getting perms. (However, many many many years later, my hair still has a residual curl to it from all the perms.) My hair did become a shield, though, and I kept growing it out as a way to hide.

Over the past few years, I’ve been doing a lot of changing on the inside. A lot of growing up and soul-searching and trying to find out who I really am. The last 6 months or so, I’ve finally felt like (and seen) that I was starting to make progress in healing from past emotional wounds and becoming someone new, someone stronger, albeit more jaded. All these changes… I think they finally made me ready to start making some changes on the outside, to reflect the ones on the inside. My hair is the easiest to change, so it was the first to go.

I met with my hair dresser on the 13th to talk about cutting my hair. He’s been wanting to cut it to about 2-3 inches beneath my shoulders for YEARS now. So when I was in his chair for my bang trim, I asked him how short he wanted to cut my hair. He gave me the usual response. My next question was “What if I said you could go even shorter?” He paused, turning me towards him slightly, giving me this total deadpan questioning look. I grinned and added “I’m talking a cut that’s ‘Locks of Love donation’ short.” He got this huge grin and asked when I wanted to get it done. I told him as soon as he could fit in me in for an appointment – his next response was “Well, how about right now?” So yup. I did it.

He pulled my hair back in a ponytail, took an electric razor to it to get through the thickness, and soon enough, I was holding a 13 inch long ponytail in my hand. After that initial chop was done, he cut more off to style it into a cute bob with long layers. So the average length of my hair went from 22 inchecs long down to about 7 inches long. MASSIVE change, but I love it. Absolutely NO remorse at all over the cut. I think a lot of that is because I know my hair will be going to a good cause, since that ponytail is being sent to Locks of Love.

Since the hair cut? I’ve been getting TONS of compliments on it. Various people have told me that it looks sexy, sassy, spunky, cute, mature, and sophisticated; as well as getting told it makes me look younger. Someone said it made me look 10 years younger – but I sincerly doubt I’d pass for 21. I do think it looks good on me, although I’m not sure I agree with all the adjectives that’ve been used to describe it. Haha. The only drawback so far, is that it takes a lot more maintence than my old style. I could let the long hair air dry, brush it out, and I’d be good to go. But this shorter ‘do requires gel and blow drying to straighten it and flip the ends under. It’s all good though, it’s worth it for the way it makes me feel.

I am also a massive packrat. I can’t help it – my father, his mother, her parents, etc – were all packrats as well, so it’s in my blood. I hold on to absolutely everything, no matter how pointless it is to keep it. I’ve been “forced” to clean out the attic the last few weeks, and I’ve been reluctantly trashing things. Since the hair cut, however? I’ve actually been EAGER to clean, throwing away even more than before. It’s as if the outer change to get rid of my safety blanket, so to speak, has made it easier inside for me to let go of material things. I made major strides in cleaning over this last weekend. The only reason I stopped cleaning was because the trash was too full, and I was out of containers to put the recycling or good will items in. It was odd – I was actually upset that I couldn’t clean and trash more. I never want to clean, so that’s very unusual for me.

It’s amazing, really, what something as seemingly simple as a haircut can do for your mood. Now it’s time to dye it, and I’ve got a new color picked out for that as well. A nice light caramel that my hair dresser suggested instead of my normal auburn.