You will find me curled up at the foot of the bed

That is MY silky pillowcase that that spoiled rotten dog is sleeping on so comfortably. My mom's hair stylist, Miss Kay, told me that sleeping on a satin pillowcase would keep my hair from getting tangled at night, which reminds me that I never told you about my very long visit to Miss Kay's salon.

My mother's Christmas present to me was a haircut and color at Kay's Kreations, which is in a tiny town outside Charlotte, NC. You would never believe that a little crossroads like Stanfield would have so many hair styling options, but right across the road there is Wyndola's Beauty Shop, and just a little bit farther down sits Elaine's Hillside Cut & Curl. Now, you probably won't be surprised to hear that I am not a woman who is comfortable with being primped and pampered. I generally wait until even the dog is commenting on my gray roots and then run down to Hair Cuttery, not the really busy one near the university or the one that is nearest to my house but where the ladies become very bitter when you interrupt their socializing to ask for a haircut, but the nice professional one up near the Target. Of course my experiences there haven't been entirely without incident, but generally they do a pretty good job with a minimum of fuss.

Miss Kay has been doing my mom's hair for more than 15 years, and I had never met her but Annamarie had, once when she was spending the weekend with Grammy. She came home from the salon with one of those disembodied heads used to store a wig (she was going through a wig fascination and had a couple of cheap ones at home) and she immediately proceeded to give this severed head a makeover using Sharpies. It was a very dramatic look, more Saturday-night-at-the-club and less Sunday-morning-at-worship. For months Ron or Thomas or I would round a corner in the house and let out a startled little shriek at the scary woman staring at us from under her disheveled hair. She finally "disappeared" one evening.

Anyway, Miss Kay and her stylists could not have been any sweeter, and the salon was lovely, but the whole experience felt exactly like being at Truvy's beauty salon in Steel Magnolias. I was there, no kidding, for four hours. It does take forever to foil my very thick hair, but not literally FOREVER. It was a fabulous opportunity for people-watching on a busy Saturday, though, which is one of my favorite activities. One of the stylists (they all had fabulous hair...I am always wary of salons where the hairdressers have bad hair) was talking about how glad she was that Christmas was past, because ever since Thanksgiving her nerves had been tore slam up. I had to agree.

Miss Kay gave me the best highlights I have ever had, and I just may wait to get them redone when I am down visiting Mama'n'em around Easter, even though I will be way overdue by then. This time I will bring a snack and some sudokus.