Thoughts while hennaing

I'm coloring my hair today with henna. It's a long process - usually takes 3-4 hours. (But it is SO much healthier for your hair than chemical dyes!) There isn't much you can do (aside from housework - and who really wants to do that?) as you wait for your hair to color. You sit there with your hair all gloopy (that's a technical term) wrapped in saran wrap smelling of henna, lemon juice, nutmeg, paprika and spiced tea (although mostly henna). You are subconscious of drips and you get horrid itches that are probably more phantom itches than true itches. There is always a tad of anxiety of what color your hair will turn out since it can be anywhere from sunny yellowy strawberry blonde to indigo depending on how the nutmeg reacts or how old the henna is or whether you put in too much lemon juice or not enough paprika or where the particular henna plant that your henna came from or how well you actually covered your hair (if you didn't have a friend to come over and do it for you.)

So you try to find simple things to do (like updating your neglected blog). You might knit (if you aren't afraid of the henna dripping on your wool) or sew (ditto on your fabric) or stamp (ditto on your cards, although come to think of it I wonder how henna would react to paper and what you could do with it. Hmmmmm) You might read a book or do some laundry. You don't dare run to the store (afterall the cashiers already think I'm weird enough as I am always there with my kids) or other outside errands (not because wearing saran wrapped henna is weird, it just takes forever to explain to people over and over.)

And then you get philosophical and start thinking about things like whether hurricanes are worse than blizzards or if you would trade earthquakes for tornados. Why none of your children's feet look like yours (do I have recessive toe genes?) Why did cnn.com feel it necessary to change the look of their website again? Do chocolate graham crackers count as a cracker or a cookie? Why does the kitten have to dig a hole to China when using the litter box? Why does the kitten do any of the things he does?

And speaking of Jack (that would be the kitten), he is just the funniest thing to have around. Besides being a gorgeous cat with the softest bunny fur coat in pure white (except for his orange striped tail) and the clearest blue eyes, he is hilarious. He has the ability to leap over things and attack his "prey" (usually his "big brother" Prince Charming - the bandied legged ginger cat) spread eagle. I swear he leaves the ground in that position and can fly like a flying squirrel. He will chase anything. By anything I mean his a piece of paper, a roaming dust bunny (although in our house they are more like dust cows), a mysterious nothing that only he can see, small little jumping bugs and even his tail (particularly if there is tape stuck to the end - and no; I did not purposely put the tape on his tail, but I didn't work too fast helping him get it off either) :) I wonder what he would look like if I did henna designs on his fur.