Let me see that Chong...that Chong, Chong Chong Chong Chong

Wow, less than a week into the blogging world and I'm already slacking - what a shock! I'm going to blame it on nothing interesting happening in my life over the past week. (That's not true. Friday afternoon I came home to a flooded laundry room because the water heater in the apartment above ours busted and leaked its contents through our ceiling. Somewhat ironically, on Saturday we found our new apartment. We'd decided to move long before Friday's flood, so that was really just the icing on the cake of all the things that are wrong with our current crappy apartment.) But without visual aids, that flooding story wouldn't have been super interesting, so I was too lazy elected not to blog about it.

Since it looks like I'm striving for interesting, I am instead going to post a short tribute to...my hairdresser. Hold on to your hats!

Moving to a new city is hard. You have to find all new people to perform your personal services, after using the same ones for 22 years, based on the stellar recommendation that they're who your parents use so you don't question their judgment because it's too much work to find someone else anyway. I actually had really good luck on the first try finding a doctor, a dentist, and an optometrist who I love, and they all are less than 10 minutes away.

But as for the most important job - who will handle my hair? That question took longer to answer. I tried a few different locations, and although no one did a bad job, something always felt "off" (yes, even taking irrational pet peeves into account).

Then I met Chong. I love everything about her, from the 17 one-armed half-hugs she gives me every time I see her to her standard "How you been?" greeting. Even though I've been getting the same exact haircut for about 5 years, that doesn't stop her from always trying to convince me to get highlights. Once she told me that if I decided to go for it, I should let the receptionist know that I wanted "a haircut and a pasha." I spent about a week wondering what color "pasha" was until I finally realized she had said "partial." Accents are funny.

Most importantly, Chong can wash, cut, blow dry, and style my hair in 20 minutes flat. One of these days I'm going to ask her to come live with me since it takes me an hour and a half to get ready for work, and most days I'm still late. I bet she even knows how to repair leaky ceilings.