I’ve been growing my hair out for the past two years now, with the goal of growing it long enough to cut it and donate it to the Locks of Love organization.  That’s something my aunt inspired me to do a few years ago when she did it herself.  She’s growing her hair out again to donate it again, she says she’ll be able to cut it again next summer if all goes well.  She told me that hair grows about 1/2″ a month.  I don’t know how she knows that, but I think she’s right!  Locks of Love wants ponytails of hair that has NOT been dyed or permed and they want them to be at least 11″ long.  My aunt says that they even accept gray hair.

Anyway today I went to a local cosmetology school and had them put my hair into a ponytail and cut it off and send it to the Locks of Love.  Then I had them style my hair in a cute “do” that will be easy to maintain all winter long.  They only charged me $10 for the hair cut and style, which I think is very reasonable, and they did a good job too!  I feel so good about donating my hair that I think I’ll do it again in two years, and encourage my friends to do it too!

I was reading a story on today.msnbc.msn.com about how pre-teen girls are getting bikini waxes!  The article was talking about how girls as young as six years old are having hair-removal waxing done, from their faces, backs, and bikini areas.  I think that is way too early for something like that!  What kind of body image problem are these girls going to have as they grow up?  How can a mother be so irresponsible as to encourage this type of thing?  Why are we trying to force our kids to grow up so fast?  This is just plain silliness!

Geez I hate going to the doctor’s office. I call ahead of time to find out if the doctor is “running on time” or “running late” so I won’t go in “on time” and end up waiting for over an hour in the outer office before being called into the “inner sanctum” to wait for another hour! So I called the office right before leaving my office to find out how the appointments were running and they said he was “on time.” So I went to the doctor’s office and ended up waiting for an hour in the outer office before being brought into the inner waiting room. I went to the desk and asked if I should reschedule my appointment because I couldn’t wait much longer and they said “oh no, he’ll be seeing you any minute now.” Well, I ended up waiting another twenty minutes before being ushered into the inner waiting room, and I ended up waiting THERE for another forty five minutes before being seen by the nurse, then another thirty minutes before being seen by the doctor! I was MOST UNHAPPY with that wait time, and I let the doctor know how much I would appreciate it if his staff would not lie to me when I call ahead to ask if they are running on time. If he is running an hour late, they should tell me and then I’d come an hour late or they should let me reschedule my appointment. This is NOT good customer service at all!

I was just thinking about the television news story I saw a couple of days ago about Richard Simmons going to testify in Congress about how important it is to keep phys ed in school.  He was talking about dedicating his life to making sure that kids get exercise, and even suggested that he might run for political office if that’s what it took to keep kids fit.

I was remembering how many times I’ve seen him in his sequined tank top and shorts and his flamboyant personality and trying to picture him sitting in the Senate’s chambers.  What a picture!

I don’t know what got the most talk at work today, Tim Russert dying or the prison break in Afghanistan! Both news items are totally shocking! I liked to watch Tim Russert’s Meet the Press show on Sunday mornings when I had Sunday off of work, he asked some great questions. He will be sorely missed by many people. Quite a few of our customers today were talking about him, and how he died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest. I think that has scared quite a few of them; a lot of them look like they could keel over any day themselves!

And the prison break in Afghanistan, all of those Taliban prisoners set free! How very scary is that? We don’t need any more terrorists running around blowing themselves up and taking lots of people with them! I hope that the authorities can track them down and recapture them!