Capelli e Cincilla!
Originally published at lianhua.nu. Please leave any comments there.
Yesterday was an amazing day. I still can’t get over how great it turned out, and I feel so loved - and lucky to have a boyfriend like Sean and a friend like Emily.
But enough of the sappiness!!
Emily and I caught the 1 line down to 79th St. and walked over to the LUSH store, where we spent way too much money and almost too much time. :P We managed to both find our moms’ Mother’s Day gifts, though, so it was well worth it. I also got a body wash called Flying Fox that smells like jasmine green tea (I can’t wait to use it!) and some natural scalp treatments so that my scalp will stop being so itchy/flaky. (I’m on a prescribed regimen that is helping, but I think it needs a little boost.) Emily found some good stuff too, and since we both bought 5 items on Cinco de Mayo, we got a free face mask. We’re going to have a beauty night soon!
Then we hopped back on the 1 and rode it up to 96th and Broadway, where Extreme NYC is located, and made it just in time to be a couple minutes early for my appointment with Eagle. It took over four hours to do my hair, but it was well worth it, as you can see from the photos!
Wooo! New Hair! :D It looks and feels so much better. There’s a whole photoset for it over on Flickr, and it kind of tells the story… First, Eagle dyed the roots, so they’d be easier to work with, and then I had to wait for that to set and then have it washed and blow-dried. Then he did the basic cut, with swoopy bangs (wee!) and kind of jagged ends. Then he dyed individual sections dark purpley-red, bright orange, bright red and platinum blonde (to strip the color for the pink), and those had to set and then be washed and blow-dried. Then, he put the pink over the blonde bits, which also had to set, wash and dry…. Four hours (maybe even five?), four washes, four blow-dries, enough foil to cover lunch for a small country and one grande passion tea lemonade later, voilà , a masterpiece!
I still can’t stop playing with it and touching it and looking at it. It’s so gorgeous! I will never go to another stylist again! :D
So, we hopped back on the 1 uptown to the Bronx, and Emily came over to our apartment to get her keys to her car (which Sean and Nehemiah had borrowed so they could go get a rental)… but with other motives in mind as well… because this little guy was there waiting for me:
MY CHINCHILLA!!!!! :D :D :D
It turns out that Sean had been planning this for months, with Emily’s help, even!
The chinchilla was born back in March, and the breeder (Furry Animals… Oh My!) had his picture up within a few days… and, since I’d been seriously stalking their website for weeks, I saw him right away and fell in love instantly. But then, a week or so later, a HOLD tag was put up on him… and I was devastated and even a little angry - because I had wanted to put a hold on him so he could be mine, but Sean had told me that I couldn’t put a hold on him yet. He was apologetic, but I was still pretty sad about it… He kept asking if another color would be okay, and telling me that we would get one soon, and asking questions about them, etc.
Then, when my birthday came without a present from Sean, I kept asking questions… Why isn’t it here yet?! “It’s not ready yet…” Is that because it has to grow up? “No.” Is it a chinchilla?! “No, Jess… Please don’t be upset when it’s not a chinchilla, okay?”
Little did I know… it was actually SEAN who put the damn hold on the baby chinchilla back in March! Then he and Emily (who was amazing at not giving away the surprise) planned out the day that she would take me to get my hair done (something that Sean never does with us and that takes a very long time) and he, in the meantime, would drive over to New Jersey and pick up the chinchilla, and then have it waiting for me when I got home that evening!
I couldn’t stop hugging and kissing Sean last night… He’s such a sweetheart! And I still can’t stop playing with the chinchilla… He’s so soft and fuzzy and cute!
Now I just have to think of a name for the little guy… We’ve gone through lots of random suggestions, but nothing really seems to fit… Wolfgang/Amadeus/Johann/Sebastian/Ludwig (because I live with a bunch of musicians), Orpheus (after Sean and Nehemiah’s start-up company, Orpheus Found) Juan/Pedro/Jose/Jorge/Gordito (in honor of Cinco de Mayo… but Sean shot all of these down haha), Bambino (meaning baby in Italian, since I keep calling him the baby chinchilla)… Any suggestions???