3 & 1/2 Hour Paint Job

Today I went to a new beauty salon, one that I have been to before in my neighborhood.  Gabi had her nails done and I had my feet and nails done.  Just a mere 3 and a half hours later we went home.  The kids were good for the first 2 hours and then hell broke loose.  Gabi was rocking in a chair about to tip it over and the lady had my foot in her lap so I could do nothing but give the devil stare, which by the way apparently means nothing to my 3 year old.  I am not sure when parents actually start to say this but “when did I lose the control”?  When I left I said "Thank you & Sorry".

My fault, I normally wouldn’t have stayed to get my nails done but it was a time crunch because Rodrigo’s sister’s wedding tomorrow.  By the time I got home I was exhausted but had a nice time at the Salon this time, plenty of people to talk to and I really tried to communicate. A quick swim and a pizza later, the kids are in bed and we are waiting for the big day and celebration tomorrow. 

The Hair Cut

It doesn’t matter if you are a woman in Brasil or America, women go to the beauty salon not only for a haircut; we go to chat about our lives.  Let’s just say that a great hair stylist also minors in psychology. 

So, I found a place to go that is close, big enough to take credit cards and the possibility of becoming a familiar place.  However, it seems that every time I go there I experience less people talking with me.  This time they seemed scared to even have a conversation and the woman who was cutting my hair, talked over me in a conversation with another woman and just kept cutting the same piece of hair for 5 minutes while talking.  Then she grabbed my bangs and did one cut, she just pulled them up and cut them straight across.  My bangs are quite a bit more complicated than that because I trimmed them myself a couple of months ago and they are horrible.  She would have seen those if she paid a bit of attention to my hair, but she didn’t because I was a waste of time.  When she was done she had someone else blow it dry looked at me and touched my shoulders and said “beautiful”.  I thought it’s done?  My god woman, I haven’t had a hair cut in months, it had to be more complicated than that.  But I said nothing, well I tried to talk and everyone was looking at me because she was talking so loud, that it just became so uncomfortable I said “ta bom” which means “Ok”. 

Maybe it is my fault, I should have looked up some beauty terms before going but I thought I could wing it.  I had the same situation at Ben’s school the other day too.  What we were talking about I thought would be easy for me to communicate (Food) but sometimes I can’t get a point across to save myself from a burning building.  God, the little things in life can be so frustrating. 

I was walking home thinking of this blog & really happy that I had 20 minutes to cool down, by the time I got home it was ok again.  Unless someone knows a bit of English or a willingness to chat with me, it can be a very uncomfortable situation.  Busy people and Foreigners mix like water and oil.