Highlights

This is another entry whose title bears a two-fold meaning.

First off, the salon across from my school asked me to be a hair model when I went in to make an appointment for a four-month overdue haircut. My hair was used as the training grounds for another salon in Boston, and it was kind of fun to get complimentary cuts. This salon, though, wants me to be the model for a new line of hair highlights. Mind you, I have daaaark brown hair.

So, the owner asked, "Would you be interested in being a hair model for our new line of highlights? The representative is coming in and we need someone to demonstrate on."

"Oh, maybe!" I said. "Can I pick the color?"

"Actually, the highlights have to be blonde. But they can be sort-of subtle."

At first, I was really nervous, but then, I got all excited and imagined that my hair would look like J-Lo's. "Um, I'll give you a call in a few days," I told her. But, secretly, I said "yes" on the inside. I'll be calling pronto, I think.

For the second meaning, here are some other highlights from my Texas trip:

I saw a sign outside of a house that read "Yard Sail".

Highlight number two...One afternoon, we went to a fishery, and I actually fished because Jon, my brother-in-law, informed me that the fish didn't feel anything when they got hooked since they don't have nerve endings in their mouths. I ended up catching a small catfish (to the right is a picture of catfish that my sister Maria took at the fishery), and Jon unhooked the squirmy little thing and gently tossed it into the water. After our aquatic adventures, Maria and I ventured to the restroom to wash our hands, and lo-and-behold - they had sand soap there. So, we both took full advantage of the texturized soap and not only washed our hands, but also exfoliated as well. There we were in the fishery's bathroom doing face masks.

OK, this one may or may not be a highlight. I have a severe fear of scorpions. I think they are heinous and evil. I remember going to Arizona when I was just a youngin' and shaking out my shoes every morning to make sure the venomous beasts didn't bite my feet. Um, and as I found out, scorpions live in Texas.

Apparently, if you live in places where creatures such as scorpions exist, you're supposed to spray a six foot perimeter around your house and three feet up the foundation with normal bug spray. In addition, spraying the outsides of doors and windows is helpful. All this spraying is not necessary when you have the commercial grade poison that Maria and Jon acquired called Demon. You can only purchase it with a licence, and Jon claims that even when he just uses only a little, he sees bugs within a pretty large radius just drop dead. They even have to keep their dog in for awhile afterward (That's their dog, Chase, above. He was digging in the backyard, hence the dirt around his nose.)

The scene: Maria and Jon hadn't sprayed Demon in awhile. One afternoon, Maria came out of her bathroom and rather calmly said, "There's a scorpion in the master bathroom. Do you want to see it?" I hesitated, but then realizing that it's healthy to confront my fears, I shuffled in almost a fetal position to her bathroom where I slowly uncovered my eyes and watched Jon coax the wretched creature into a lidded container. It was the kind of bad that you keep on watching even when you don't want to. And the kind of bad that you keep on recounting to try to get over your fear of yucky insects with stinging tails and pinchy claws.