Orange You Glad That Color Wasn't Permanent?

Last week, I decided to change up my hair and go chocolate brown so I asked my friend Nicole (the only person I trust with my hair) for some advice. Since Nicole moved to Sacramento, it's not as easy just to walk over to her place to get my hair done, so she had to buy the products for me and ship them to my place. Once I got everything I needed, I called her to go over the step by step process of dying my hair. She walked me through it as I wrote every detail down in my notebook and she assured me that it wasn't that difficult and she had faith that I could do it. I have dyed my hair before so I had all the confidence in the world that it would turn out okay. Since I still had blonde in my hair, the first step was to brush the copper color over all the blonde sections, wait 20 minutes and then wash it out. It did that and patiently waited the 20 minutes until I could lean over the tub and rinse it out. When I took off the towel on my head, I noticed that my hair was bright orange. I wasn't that nervous considering that it was still saturated with the copper and I figured that it would all wash out. As I bent over the running water in the tub and the bright orange started to wash out, I noticed that my hair was still creepy clown orange. I immediately started to freak out and thought about what I was going to do for work in the morning- wear a headscarf?

There was no way I was going to show my face in public like this! I looked Merida from Disney's Brave. I looked at my notes and read that Nicole told me after I did the copper dye, to dry it and then apply the chocolate brown dye. I held my breath as I followed the steps, had faith that everything would be fine and the dark brown would cover up my nectarine head and I wouldn't have to apply for a position at The Ringling Brothers Circus. After another 25 minutes of patiently waiting with my now dark saturated hair in a clip, I was relived when it turned out perfect. After my heart stopped beating a mile a minute, I texted Nicole and asked her if that was normal. She said, "yeah, it is and I probably should have told you that your hair was going be bright orange beforehand!" Phew!

I'm Taking The Pessimistic Route On This One And Calling The Gate Halfway Down

This morning, as my husband and I do every morning, we left the apartment at 5:50 am to walk those couple of blocks to our parking garage. We noticed that the automatic gate was stuck halfway down and knew that we were in for it. The security guard who works in the parking garage every morning moves about as fast as a turtle and as much as this was a matter of urgency for us, as we had to get to work, we knew that he could care less that the garage door wasn't working. Once we got inside the building, I alerted the security guard of the situation. His response? "If your car can fit under the gate, just go ahead, you'll be fine!" I looked at Anthony and started to laugh. Um, unless I drove one of those red Fred Flintstone cars for kids with the yellow top, I don't think either of us will be driving out of the garage anytime soon. He told us that he would get right on it, so we walked to our cars hoping that by the time we got down to the first level, he would have solved the problem.. Nope.

When we got to the ramp leading to the street, the security guard was standing next to the gate scratching his head. This had to be a ridiculous sight. The security guard standing in front of the half closed gate scratching his head, my car halfway down the ramp in park and Anthony's truck behind mine waiting in line to get out, like we were in some sort of parade. Finally, the security guard told us that someone had thrown the chain that would manually lift the gate up on top of it and he would have to get something to get it down. Oh Lordy! Now we were really going to be late for work. A few minutes later, he returned with a broom, walked down to the gate and attempted to get the chain down.. After a few tries, the chain successfully came free and he began to pull up the gate. We were so close...yet so far away! Not only was this guy working as fast as a turtle stuck in quicksand, but the gate seemed to be moving as slow as molasses. Finally it was open enough for me to get out and surprisingly, I was on time to work! Happy Thursday! : )

Sidewalk Conversations...

Last week was unusually hot in LA and since my parking garage is a few blocks from my apartment, I have to do that daily grueling walk from my stuffy parking garage down the street to my apartment. It was no fun last week when every day seemed to be at least 100 degrees- especially when you are carrying 20 lbs. of groceries (I can't leave anything behind!) So, here I was, at the corner of disgustingly hot and my building, waiting for the light to change. I'm pretty sure I had pit stains, a sweat mustache, red cheeks and my baby belly was out and about when a 'homeless' guy stops next to me and asks me how I was doing. I say 'homeless' because he appeared (and smelled) homeless yet he was carrying a brand new cell phone. I answered, 'fine' and asked how he was. He didn't make eye contact with me (in fact he was looking above my head) but rambled on and on about how he was fine until he went into the Metro PCS store down the street to get his new phone and they wouldn't give him one. And he's been a loyal customer for four years! The nerve of them! He wasn't going to take it anymore and made them call their manager to settle this out. Mind you- THIS IS THE LONGEST LIGHT EVER! Finally, just as the light changed, he asked me how my day was and I replied 'great!' His response? "Well, you are modeling all day so I bet your days are always great!" I wiped off my sweat mustache and smiled. Thanks?  

Now That's A Shit Storm!

First, I would like to warn you that this post is not for the queasy at heart....As some of you may know, my parent's had a fire in their house while we were at my wedding in Austin, Texas (not a good thing to come home to after such an amazing weekend). Although the actual house didn't burn down, the damage was immense and while their home is being restored, they have been living in their camper in the yard. At least they don't have to live in a van down by the river! So, for the past five months, it has been a great big happy and tight-knit Demchak family living situation in the camper. My parents, Nelly (the dog) and Riley and Stella (the cats). 

For the past week, my parents had been smelling something funky around the front door of the camper and my dad was convinced that there must have been an animal that crawled up into one of the panels underneath the camper and died. They were regularly getting the sewage tank pumped out, so it couldn't have been that! My dad was on a mission to find the root of the smell and since he happened to be on vacation that week, he had the time to search the camper thoroughly and finally find the culprit. He cleaned out every single cabinet, drawer, nook and cranny on the inside of the camper looking for some sort of dead animal or rotten food that could have been left behind. Nothing. The smell still lingered. Next, he cleaned out all of the storage spots on the outside of the camper and still he found nothing. The smell still lingered. He was at his wits' end and decided to crawl under the camper and remove all of the panels to see if somehow the dead animal had crawled beneath the camper, died and was stinking up the neighborhood! One by one, he removed the panels, looked around and found nothing. He got to the very last panel, obviously frustrated, and slowly removed it. And down came the shit storm!!!!!!!! Apparently, there was some sort of blockage under the sewage tank and even though the tank was being pumped out regularly, there were some 'stuff' that was left behind, building up in that panel and stinking up the place. And now it was all over my dad. He jumped up, stripped down, hosed himself off (and I am assuming he ran around the yard naked, screaming like a girl). Then he took two showers, hosed down the camper, hooked it up to the truck, drove to the hardware store to buy some lime solution, came home, hosed down the lawn, then doused it with the lime solution, Then, he hooked the camper back up to the truck, moved it back to the 'designated living area' took another shower and called it a day. Since my mom was at work the whole time, when she got home, since nothing looked like it was moved, she had no clue what had happened until my dad told her about the 'shit storm'........EWWW!

And Baby Makes Three....

You Know What They Say About Big Feet...

Here is the play-by-play of my lunch hour today:

Me: Went into Trader Joe's to grab a juice and salad then proceeded outside to sit on the bench, enjoy the day and eat.

The cutest old man ever (still wearing his bike helmet) comes outside of Trader Joe's with a bunch of bananas.

Me: Smiles at cutest old man ever.

Cutest old man ever: Smiles back at me and comes and sits next to me on the bench.

Me: Watching cutest old man ever put his bunch of bananas into his reusable bag to load into his bike basket.

Cutest old man ever: "You know, when I was in high school, I used to work at a shoe store."

Me: "You did?"

Cutest old man ever: Pointing at my shoes.

Me: Thinking he is going to tell me that he likes my choice of shoes.

Cutest old man ever: "Back in those days, I never saw a foot that big!"

Me: A little taken aback/ shocked/ dying laughing inside. "Yup, I do have big feet!"

Cutest old man ever: "Have a nice day!" Gets on bike and rides off.

Crochet Me Not

Even though I absolutely love my long, crochet-knit vest,  here are a few reasons why that article of clothing is not the most practical in the real world:

When wearing the vest to the BottleRock festival last weekend, I took home every single thing that was on the ground that night.....hay, bark, brambles, straw, grass. Every time I walk by my dresser, it gets caught on the drawer knobs and I have to untangle myself and shut the drawer. It's so long that it got stuck in between my legs when I was carrying bags of groceries from my car to my apartment on the busy streets of Downtown L.A. and made me trip. Every single time I stood up from my chair at work today, I was stuck on the lever that makes the chair go up and down. I shut it in my car door. Twice. While walking by an electric wheelchair at Trader Joe's today, my vest got caught on the arm and I was yanked backwards.