Assume the position!

So my husband and I decided to get out of town and we're leaving Friday for Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Bring on the margaritas baby!!

My husband turns red as a lobster in the sun within the first 20 seconds of a hot blazing sun. Which means I have to spend the rest of the vacation rubbing in blue ICEY on his back and chest. But this year, he has decided to tan before the trip by the use of a tanning bed.

There was a 2 for 1 sale at the local tanning bed salon. My caring hubby signed me up for tanning too. Personally, being the dark skinned German that I am, I usually tan pretty quickly without any sunburn. But since I have free minutes at a tanning salon, why not give it a try?

My husband also bought BRONZE tanning oil. Supposedly it is to quicken the tanning process and make you look like a bronzed goddess. Sounds good to me.

I went to the salon for my first session. I say my last name and the clerk says, "Are you Jolene?" Ok, sure. Jolene works. Apparently my husband slurred when he said my name when he signed us up.

The clerk says, "I'll put you in bed #3. Here is your bronzing cream."

I am pysched. I want to be a golden tan goddess. The clerk asks me how long I'd like to tan. My husband warned me to start S L O W. I say "6 minutes please."

I jog up the stairs to the "bed lounge." I see door #3. That's me!!

I quickly strip down to my birthday suit and then start looking for my red tanning eye glasses that are necessary for tanning. On the wall you see all the horrible diseases you can get if you don't wear protection glasses and also all the warnings of overexposure to tanning lights. Gotta find those glasses!! Got the glasses on, slick back my hair and goo myself with the tanning lotion.

There is a full length mirror in the tanning room. I stand before it looking at myself in my altogether complete with red eye glasses. I look like a naked swimmer at the Olympics. I suck in my gutt and look at myself sideways. Yup, firm swimmer body.... NOT! With all this lotion on I could easily slide into the tanning bed now.

Laying in the bed, I close down the clam top and I try to relax.

Shouldn't the lights be turning on? Did I miss a step?

Can't see through the ultraviolet sunglasses so I start feeling the inside of the bed searching for the ON switch. I don't want to take off the glasses as I don't want to catch one of those horrible eye diseases I just saw on the wall.

I find a button. MUST BE IT. I flip it.

And I lay there.

Shouldn't the lights be on now? I think that is the point of laying in a tanning bed.

Now I'm pissed. I am wasting good bronzing tanning time.

I sit up in the bed and take off the glasses. What did I push? This big red button? OH NO!! It says Emergency Off only.

Well, crap. I have to go back downstairs and tell the girl the bed is OFF.

Back go on the clothes. My tanning lotion is now being sucked up into my clothing.
On goes the shoes. Fluff my hair and down the stairs I go.

I see the clerk behind the registration counter and I say, "The bed isn't working. The lights don't come on."

Hmmmm, she says. Did you push the blue button on the wall?

Well, no I did not!! I didn't tell her I pushed the red button IN the bed.

She informed me the bed would work if I pushed the blue button so back upstairs I go.

Strip down to my Olympic swimming bod, find the glasses, put on the lotion, lay in the bed, push the blue button on the wall, close the clam top and I lay there.

Shouldn't the lights be coming on?????

Nothing. No Heat. No Lights. No golden body.

Crap. Double Crap and a big sh*t.

Out of the bed I go. Put on my clothes although I was tempted just to wrap myself in the towel but I opened the towel and it was the size of a dishtowel. That wouldn't cover my left butt cheek.

Fully clothed, minus shoes, I stomp down the stairs to the clerk behind the desk.

"It's not working. I see the numbers go down on the blue button machine, but no lights."

The clerk said to me "You didn't touch the red button did you?"

Well yes I did!!

"Do NOT touch that red button!!"

Too late. I not only touched it, I flipped it.

Not too pleased with me the clerk leads the way upstairs to Room #3. She points to the red button like I didn't see it and again states firmly "Don't touch this."

Ok, got it.

She leaves, I strip down for the third time. Buck naked and throw on the lotion. Pop on the glasses and lay in the bed.

Push the BLUE button. WALA. I feel the lights bronzing my well toned body.

1 minute, 2 minutes. Ummmm, I'm geting a little HOT and claustrophic.

3 minute, 4. Ok, if this doesn't shut off soon I WILL push that damn red NO NO button!!

5. Sweating and I have the clam top wide open.

6. And then a LOUD click. Lights turn off and I am "cooked." Put a fork in me. I'm done.

I hop out of the bed and look at myself in the full length mirror. I do NOT see a golden goddess. I do NOT see the tanned muscular girl that is on the label of the lotion. I see a flabby woman wearing red eye glasses stark naked.

I put my clothes on, now for the 3rd time in less than 10 minutes and I go down the stairs.

"Thank you for your help." I give her the bottle of lotion. I leave the building as I hear her say, "Come back again Jolene." Will do!!

Later that night my skin starts to itch. Like a sunburn itch. Sure enough my body does have a glow. RED! I am burnt. But it's a good burn that will undoubtedly turn me into the bronzing goddess I desire to be.

I will go back again in a few days. But instead of 6 minutes, maybe I'll go down to 3 and I will NOT touch that red button. Ever.

Horse hair

Call me crazy. Call me nuts. Call me desperate. But I did it.

My hair lately has been so coarse. No body. So dry and lifeless. Of course it's probably because I have dyed it for 30 years and blow dry it daily.

Once on a cruise, I splurged and got a facial. The stylist who was from Argentina or some erotic place that creates beautiful women with gorgeous hair told me that my hair was "VERY VERY DAMAGED." It sounded better with a sexy accent but the truth still was clear. I had crap hair. Miss Argentina 2008 cleansed my skin and put some magic potion in my hair that would "heal" my hair. Well surprise of surprise, after spending $150 on cruise products, my hair was still crap.

I have tried every shampoo and conditioner on the planet. I have prepped, babied and oiled my hair to get the life back.

Nothing worked. I was ready to try home remedies. Mayonnaise, beer.

But I went online last night and searched for "my hair looks like sh*t" and up comes a website called "Horse Hair and Mane."

Yup, it's horse shampoo and conditioner. I am chuckling as I am reading the advertisement but then I went to the comments and hmmmm, people were loving this product!!

And many people claimed that their hair grew faster and healthier. Pretty strong claims. But then again my hair hasn't grown in 2 years. It has gotten more gray but it really hasn't grown much. And I have a new style in mind for my daughter's wedding in September. That gives me 7 months to get a new head of hair. Game on.

This morning I went to a farm store. I was so hoping I wouldn't see anyone I knew to see me in the horse section as most of my friends know I do NOT own a saddle, let alone a horse.

And there I saw it. "Horse Mane and Tail" shampoo and conditioner. On the bottom shelf. I read the back of the bottle and it clearly had directions for HUMANS and HORSES. In that order. I quickly grabbed the oversized bottles (I guess for horse hair, you need a lot of shampoo and conditioner!) and went through check out.

"Did you find everything you need?" says the clerk. Yes, yes, just check me out. Please don't ask if I own a horse.....

I went home and hopped in the shower thinking this was probably going to be the worst mistake in my life and I will walk out of the shower, towel off my hair only to see all my hair in the towel. I would be BALD! Not a good look for an old lady.

But no. I still had hair. So far so good.

And this is the surprising part. The bottle claims that you can see the difference in your hair in the first application. Yeah, sure.... but I did!! My hair has never felt so soft!! It felt good and it looks healthier.

Now I don't know if it's just my mind working overtime or if I am just wishful thinking but my hair styled better and has a beautiful shine. Honestly.

I am sold.

But now I have a craving for a sugar cube.

Civic Duty

I came prepared. I had my Ipod, two video games, a book, a box of Whoppers, a bottle of water. I was ready. BRING IT ON.

I had been summoned for jury duty. Apparently the court would be unable to pronounce names and I would now be known as juror candidate number 143.

Having parked my car in the assigned space for jurors in the parking ramp at 8:15 am, I went through security at the court house. Which is somewhat overkill in Dubuque as our crime rate percentage is lower than the cost of living. But I stood in line ... three deep... and walked right through the security gate chatting with the nicest security guard on earth.

Up the steps to Court Room #3. I sat next to a young girl that looked s c a r e d t o d e a t h !! I asked if she was alright and she whispered "I don't know what I'm doing here! I'm only 18!!" Aaaah, the legal system knows no age!! She was shaking so hard and I was sure she was going to start crying any sec.

Obviously, she couldn't handle being my jury buddy so I opened up my book and started to read. And then... I heard some noise behind me... and I turned to look. Only to realize I was not looking anymore. I was STARING!! The woman behind me, was striking. She was no spring chicken and yet she had purple hair!! All I could think of was "This woman is BRILLIANT!!" She dyed her hair to look like a kook!! And she was very successful. She wore the most bizarre clothes which only accented her purple hair even more! This was sheer genius. Who would pick an old lady with purple hair with weird clothes to sit on a jury? I was jealous. I should have thought of this ploy.

And then this strange lady started to talk with me. Or I should say talk to me. I tried very hard to ignore her. I didn't want to be associated with a nutcase. I quickly turned to look at the frightened 18 year old but she was long gone in her own little world of panic. No where to look now but back at my book pages and pretend I was invisible.

The court clerk came into the room and told us we would be watching a video. It was entitled "How proud you should be to be selected" or something patriotic like that. The video was filmed back in 1967 when bellbottoms were all the rage, but it actually made me WANT to participate in this process. Forget picking the kook or the frightened teen. I am normal. I can be objective. I would want ME to be on MY jury!! Pick me! Pick me!!

Video over and off we shuffled to the actual court room where we would be sitting as actual jurors in this case. I thought to myself that this was really going to happen. I was going to be a part of the judicial process. Wondering if the case would be civil or criminal, I watched as the lawyer came into the room and set up his laptop on his desk. Was he the prosecuting lawyer or the defense lawyer. Was this man representing the "state?" He was dressed the part. Three piece suit with matching shoes. Very professional. I was impressed.

Then an older man with long gray hair and a shaggy beard dressed in old jeans and a flannel shirt came into the room and sat by his lawyer. This must be him. The criminal. I tried to keep an open mind. What did he do that brought him here today? Was he abused as a child? Or was he unemployed due to the economy. My mind was full of questions.

But just as quickly as the lawyer and his client came into the court room, they left. We, the 50 plus juror candidates, just sat there. What happened? Are we going to be selected now? Did the criminal and his lawyer look us over and decide we were too intimidating? Too scared? Too purple?

Ten minutes later a rolly polly man in a wrinkled gray suit came in and introduced himself as the court magistrate and said he had an announcement.

"Good news, this case has been settled 10 minutes ago. Your services will no longer be needed this week. Bad news, since your summons is for two weeks, you will need to check Sunday night to see if your attendance will be necessary for next week. But for now you are free to go."

So that was it. I had done my duty. At least for this week. My book went back in my purse next to my untouched Ipod, video games, box of Whoppers and bottle of water. And I filed out of the room behind the lady with the purple hair. But I will be ready again if called next week.