Mom: How did you sleep last night dear?
Me: Pretty good considering that I felt as if The Eye of Sauron was on me all night.
Mom: The flood light from next door is really something isn't it? I need to get some curtains for that room...
How it went: After I mentioned Sauron, Mom stared at me blankly and I didn't know if she didn't hear me (she's hard of hearing) or didn't get the reference.
It turned out to be: Both.
I normally 'deal with my hair' by shaving my head every so often. I've been doing this for about 5 years, so it's not a pandemic adaptation.
A concatenation of events induced me to get a professional cut for once: A barber shop in the middle of our village reopened after a couple of years of being closed. I had gone there every once in a while and the place was staffed solely by the owner, who was close to retirement and was only open sporadically. I wanted to support him by getting my hair cut there, but often needed a cut and he was closed. This and my thinning hair probably combined into me making a habit out of the DIY method.
A small story of a time I got my hair cut there: I kept having the barber take a bit more off, since he wasn't getting it tight enough. He noted that, "I can take it off, but I can't put it back ". I replied without much thought, "Maybe someday, in Heaven, you will gain the power to put it back". He became visibly moved by this. Which made me have "the feels" as well. He was getting up in age and had recently lost his wife, so his mind would understandably be turning to mortality...
The second reason for going back to the barbershop was that in a few days, I'll be flying out for a wedding. I would like to make a good impression--we live 3,000 miles away and I don't see these people all that often.
I had some time and the only vehicle available to me was the GMC Yukon XL. So I thought, why not ride your bike? If I take the bike path, it's only 2 miles and there are no hills. Of course, I haven't ridden my bike in months and the tires were flat and got a bunch of dust and cobwebs on myself in the process of pumping up the tires and set-off on my way.
It was a drizzly day, so the path wasn't the usual zoo, but there were a few walkers, joggers and bikers out. I was in no hurry but still could maintain, what I estimate to be a little more than 15 MPH, with very low effort. When I needed to overtake people, I would slow to maybe half that for safety reasons. I noticed a small child riding a bike following his mom on her bike and I slowed as I came closer to overtaking them. I had to slow even further because the mom turned around and began heading toward me. It looked as if all three of us would intersect at the same point, so I slowed enough that she could pass her son first. As she got close to the boy, she instructed him, "somebody is coming up from behind you, so get to the right". Naturally, he veered sharply and suddenly to the left. I had to come to a complete stop to avoid him. The mom either didn't see this or remained ignorant of the accident she had almost caused.
I got my haircut in the nicely re-decorated barbershop and was regaled by a Spanish dubbed (and subtitled, also in Spanish) version of Twilight. Very compelling cinematography, but even my smattering of Spanish (3 years of high school courses!) I could tell how idiotic it was.
After the haircut, I purchased wedding cards and made it home with no further ado.
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