Baby It's Cold Outside

Per me si va ne la città dolente,
per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,
per me si va tra la perduta gente.

Through me the way into the suffering city,
Through me the way to the eternal pain,
Throuigh me the way that runs among the lost.

Dante, INFERNO CANTO 03 Mandelbaum Tr.

The poor east coast! Sorry about the snow. Brought back delightful memories of my childhood in Suburban Washington DC. Shared memories with grown and dispersed siblings. I’ve been in So. Cal too long. I’d love to be there now. Snowed in and walking down the middle of the divided highway to the neighborhood grocery store to buy canned food and stale bread.

I have to confess I’m feeling no pain here: sunny and in the mid seventies F. Afternoon breeze near the coast taking on the faint fog of a chilly night as the wet wind blows inland from the Pacific ocean.

Went out with J to get our faces threaded. We go to these Indian ladies in a half empty shopping mall, doing henna tattoos and using sewing thread to twist it around their fingers and snip off my ‘stache and shape my eyebrows. I paid $35 to get my whole face threaded. Along my hairline, I now have a tidy line of demarcation. The benefit is that a lot of what went was gray hair. I felt some especially long wild hairs yanked out of my chin. Gross.

The lady who did me, Saba, was extra patient because I couldn’t hear half of her instructions to me about where to pull my lips tight, my hairline straight etc. Not to worry, I’m an old white lady: I tip good. She did mention that I should consider coming more frequently…

While waiting for J to finish, we observed two independent groups of local high school girls – one set waiting to start, the other waiting for their friend to finish. As they sat in the waiting area, texting to friends naturally, they realized they have friends in common and knew who each other was. An interesting example of how the Internetz is keeping them all hooked up. Also an interesting example of the kind of small town community I grew up in but now exists mostly in first-generation immigrant communities. In this case, girls of obvious Mexican descent, speaking accent-less English. You wouldn’t find that in the days spas I’m more likely to frequent, baby.

Now, this wasn’t exactly Dante’s Inferno-painful. But the cocktail at BJ’s after went down particularly well: Jack Daniel’s and butterscotch liquor with smooshed sugar on the rocks. Think I’ll have another and toast family and friends suffering the eternal pain trapped in suffering snow-bound cities, without electricity. Thank goodness for iPhones.