Minor Milestone and a story

The Minor Milestone:

I’ve been working on facial hair reduction for like, sheesh, 2, 3 years?  who counts?
I started with the laser stuff, and that worked well on the cheeks, but not so well on the upper lip and chin.  I think that’s because the hair there has deeper roots, too deep for whatever type of laser our friend had.  And I had lots of gray hair (yeah, go to my front page, check my age), which the lasers just don’t touch.

I did laser for about a year till I gave up and headed for regular needle electrolysis.  Yes, it hurts some.  I think I started at once every two weeks (but I really can’t remember), an hour at a time.  Maybe it was every week. I could look it up, but that would involve more work than I care to exert at this moment in space and time, and I’d also have to get off the futon.   Anyway, let’s assume every other week, hour at a shot, for like 2 years now.  I did have to switch electrologists when my first one lost her sublease and closed up shop.  The newer one has seemed to be going great gangbusters – more and more smooth patches on my face, more areas where I find 1 or 2 or 3 hairs on like my whole cheek.

So, today, she’s working away, and she says "I think we should move down to 45 minute sessions starting next time.  There’s not enough here for me to work on for a full hour."

Wow.  Save some $$, save some pain. Although the upper lip is still the biggest concentration left.  You don’t know tears till you have needle electrolysis on your upper lip, right in that little groove right in the middle, right under your nose.    Screw waterboarding, I’m gonna strap those suckers down and electro their upper lip. That’ll make ’em talk! 

So, kind of a milestone.  wow.  Neato.

A Short Story:
Not really a story, as in fiction, this happened.

A while back, I found this website for a lady who holds retreats around the country teaching folks cooking and a nutrition approach which, although not 5 element, was very interesting.  She has a tab on her website called "Teacher Training".  It’s under construction.  So, I email her, and we end up talking for an hour a couple of months ago.  Sounds like we might be compatible in the kitchen/classroom, we leave things open for which retreat I might want to go to.  They turned out to be inconveniently scheduled right at Sweety’s finals, when I didn’t want to be away.  And fricking expensive.  One of the 5 day retreats was over $2 grand at a swanky retreat in a resort town and that didn’t include the room costs or airfare.

Anyway, I’m tantalized, but not positive I want to go to one.  Then, this week, she emails me and says I can be her teaching assistant at one in July if I pay for my airfare and hotel.  Sounds good to me, so I write back asking into more info.  She writes back that it’s not a teaching assistant so much as it’s the kitchen assistant job, and I probably wouldn’t even get to hear her lessons, I’d be schlepping food from the grocery store, washing dishes, setting tables, working 5:30 AM to 10:30 PM.  The kind of help she normally just hires a local as a temp for.

I write back and express disappointment, as it’s not what I envisioned in terms of learning her system or sharing knowledge, and she writes back and tells me not to get all prima donna (and misspells it) and there’s no place for big egos.  Well the whole deal goes down the toy-toy in about 3 email exchanges during the day today.

All in all, my thoughts:

Not sure what I could have said that could’ve made that conversation go differently.  So, for that, I have regrets.  I’m not pasting all the exact emails up here, but ya never know.

On the other hand, I’m not sure I really wanted to go either.  On reflection:
1) this lady is catering to very rich folks – these are extremely expensive vacations.  Some would easily top $3000 for a week.  Not sure that that’s the kind of market I want to pursue, or even mess with. Seems like one could be of more service to more people in a slightly different business model.
2) she even stated that she’s a perfectionist, and a control freak.  Well, maybe necessary to run a business like hers, but that doesn’t mean I should go schlep for her.
3) This particular retreat would be in a sunny southwestern climate, pools, sunbathing, etc etc etc.  I’m not in that mode this year, at least, not around regular folks.  Might have been uncomfortable.
4) I would have missed out tending to Sweety during extended finals and practical exams at the end of this, her 5th and pretty important, trimester. 
5) If the lady would have expected more regular help out of me at her quarterly retreats, she wasn’t gonna get it.  Not going to travel that much. I hate traveling, cept for real vacations.

So, that was that.  Not naming names.  But I still wonder what I could’ve done or said differently.

Oh well.

Getting close to bedtime.  Such a wuss…  😉

all the best to all of you.
lv
Jude