We had an amazing and miraculously drama-free time with all of our family here for Kira’s graduation.  Now that all of our company is gone I have a few GREAT stories to share.  Seth graduated from elementary school on the 13th, my birthday was the 15th, Father’s Day was the 16th, Kira’s graduation, my cancer-free day (and my brother-in-law’s birthday) were on the 18th. For five days we celebrated.

When my husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday I had a few immediate responses.

1) A haircut  2) Steaks and Asparagus grilled in the backyard  3)  To Go Fishing

Being the superhero of a hubby that he is, he woke up early, called a salon to schedule a spa day, brought me breakfast in bed and took Sofija grocery shopping to get all the things I wanted for dinner.  His heart and intentions were A-MA-ZING!  If only the “spa day” had been as amazing as my man’s heart…

The following is my Yelp review of the day.  I could actually write a book about that one experience, but I tried to condense it as much as possible.  Enjoy.

My husband called to schedule a “spa day” for my birthday.  Our daughter had gone to Natalie for a cut and color a few weeks ago and was happy with her hair so my husband assumed Natalie’s would be a good place for my special day.  My birthday gift turned into one of the most stressful experiences of my life.  I honestly kept waiting for someone to jump out of a closet with a hidden camera and tell me it was all a joke or for someone to start interrogating me and tell me it would all stop if I would just betray my country.  My appointment was at 1 and I was scheduled for a cut, highlights, and a mani-pedi.  I did not get out of there until SIX THIRTY PM!  Natalie immediately started on my hair when I walked in the door.  Her neighbor came in while she was mixing the color for my highlights and needed a perm.  She asked her sister to wrap the perm and kept screaming at her and telling her that she was doing it wrong and in the process started putting BIG CHUNKY highlights in my hair (exactly what I said I did not want).  I am not sure what is going on with the sister, but she spent TWO HOURS doing my pedicure without ever cutting my nails and then two more hours on my manicure and forgot to paint my thumbs.  She would start to paint and then pick up the cuticle scissors and start cutting again.  This went on until I finally took the cuticle scissors away from her.  The entire time she was doing my mani-pedi she repeated her name to me every 5-10 minutes and then told me how good her hands were while poking me between my fingers and toes.  Poke-“Lana has good hands.  You like Lana’s hands?”  She did this OVER AND OVER AND OVER again.  I made the mistake of telling Natalie that I needed my eyebrows waxed while she was putting the highlights in my hair.  Just before my mani-pedi torture ended, Natalie yelled to her sister to wax my eyebrows.  Against every ounce of good judgment in my body, I followed her to a little room (that was nicely decorated – I feel like I need to say something nice).  I told her how I wanted my eyebrows shaped and she spread just a dot of hot wax on my right eyebrow.  Before removing the wax she began plucking with tweezers.  I asked her if she was going to remove the wax and she said, “Oh yes, yes.”  TEN MINUTES of plucking later I felt her press a strip down and pull out a few hairs.  She then walked around to the my left side and proceeded to pluck on that side.  I asked her to please use wax.  She said, “Okay.” but never actually applied any wax.  I have never had someone take half an hour to wax my eyebrows, nor have I ever had them waxed and left a salon with them looking untouched.  When I couldn’t take another moment of the plucking I said they were good and got up to leave the room.  At this point it was almost 6:00 and my hair had yet to be dried or styled.  As I walked towards Natalie’s chair I almost fell over backward.  I literally felt like the back of my head was being ripped off.  When I turned around Lana was standing there with the wax applicator in her hand and a huge chunk of my hair hanging off it!!  Evidently she had stuck it on the back of my head after she applied the one dot of wax to my eyebrow and forgotten where she put it.  So now, a week later, I have big chunky highlights that I don’t like, infected cuticles, toenails that look like they haven’t been trimmed in months, bushy eyebrows, and a bald spot on the back of my head.  I guess I can thank them for giving me a birthday experience to laugh about for years to come.

For the record… the steaks and asparagus were perfect.