Martians, baggage and hair

So... the Danish Martian has arrived for his semi-annual Christmas visit and donation of luggage to the Travel Gods. The last time he came for Christmas, British Airways lost his luggage. (We think The Grinch stole it.) Thus, when his bag was not on the carousel this time, we knew he was Cursed. However, the curse is broken: A 90-year-old elf showed up at my house at 2 a.m., 2 days after the Martian's flight, bearing the bag, contents intact. It was even almost ok that he woke us from a deep, deep sleep without any prior warning that he might be coming....

So the Martian is here with clothes, a toothbrush & presents!

For our first fun family activity, the Unnamed Male Relative (UMR) was in attendance for Miracle on 34th St in mom & dad's new (awesome) media room. The Martian swears he didn't sleep through the *whole* thing, although the jet lag was getting to him. The UMR has since flown off to Brazil to be a Martian for his sweetheart in Belo Horizonte... but we watched the 'new' Pirates of the Caribbean movie without him. I feel for the heroine in that movie: Who could choose between Orlando Bloom & Johnnny Depp? Yummy!!

As an early Christmas gift, the UMR gave us a Frank Capra movie collection,. which we have not yet watched, although we're working on that now (if only I were not busy writing this nonsense.)

Today's entertainment was a visit to the hair salon. My original plan was to run to the mall for a quick cut, but dad convinced me to do the Salon thing. Thus, the resulting hair is *his* fault.

I figured that a drop-in, with no appointment, at a nice salon would be unlikely, but to my surprise they had just had a cancellation and *poof* I was in. The Martian had also wanted his hair cut but didn't think he needed a 'stylist,' so he headed to the Mall to leave me for coloring & cutting. The stylist asked me whether I wanted to match the lighter ends of my hair, and I said no, I wanted to match the more natural, darker brown. So he mixed a color, painted it on, and you know the rest.

The Martian's reaction to the result, a couple of hours later: "Hmm. I am surprised you made it so dark."

It's not brown by any stretch of the imagination. It's black. I look like a freakin' vampire. A wicked witch. But with lots of curls. OK, it's funny in a "wow, you got a cute haircut, but what were you thinking on that color choice?" way.

The good news: Color fades. The bad news: When it fades first on the 'silver' parts of my hair, I'm going to have NEON gray showing.