Yesterday I got fed up with my hair always getting in my face and found a salon that could take me. The stylist understood what I wanted, got me straight in the chair since I’d already washed my hair, and took off a good six inches of hair with a trimmer before settling in to shape and layer what was left.

The result—a lovely cut just above shoulder length with nice layers that fluffs up in the back. I must admit, I feel sassy as all get out with this do. And the cost was remarkably low so I added a 60% tip as thanks. Even with that it was a good twenty bucks less than I used to pay at Regis before the pandemic. I’ll definitely be coming here again when the hair starts getting annoying.

I hate vaguebooking, I really do, and I apologize for not going into details but I don’t want to do that until I know more. Suffice it to say that my friend T did me a solidly good turn today with something and I’m eager to see how it turns out. I’ll give more details as I get them, but for now please think good thoughts for me!

In other news, guess who’s getting her hairs did tomorrow? Lord, I want this mop cut back to just above shoulder length (I haven’t had a salon haircut since 2019—during the pandemic I cut it once myself and my sister trimmed it the last time she came out to visit) and I cannot wait to get all this weight off my head. You have no idea how flipping heavy hair is until it’s gone.

And finally, I made the most wonderful discovery yesterday. I have loved Oscar Meyer liver sausage since I was a kid. As long as it was perfectly fresh (once it started oxidizing it got yucky) it was delicious and with a dill pickle and some potato chips it was my meal of choice.

In the last few years, unfortunately, it has gotten harder and harder to find the Oscar Meyer brand. I’ve tried other liver sausage/braunschweigers and they just don’t taste right. I’d resigned myself to never having it again until my friend Esther Friesner asked a question on Facebook about memorable childhood food favorites and it got me to thinking.

One Google search later and it turns out that—ta-da—H-E-B carries Oscar Meyer braunschweiger. We now have a tube of it in the fridge and two in the freezer for future enjoyment, yay!

Oof. It’s a temporary thing—the temps tomorrow will be down in the low 80s, and will drop further into the 60s/70s for the rest of the week with some rain thrown in for good measure. But I had to turn the upstairs AC on today just so that we didn’t roast in our offices.

I also went out to water the garden (dunno why, it got an absolutely thorough soaking on Sunday but I like to check on the new lantana and see how it’s doing) and found two gouges in the mulch of the memorial corner. To be blunt, I’m guessing that certain smells are coming up through the dirt and any local carrion eaters (and we do have them) are trying to get at the source. Unfortunately for them, the source is buried a good two feet below the surface and has a big whacking azalea planted on top so they’re SOL. So I patted the mulch back into the gouges and I’ll keep an eye on it over the next few days. While I like the idea of J.J.’s body gently decomposing and feeding the azalea bush and the surrounding greenery, I don’t want some damned vulture trying to dig him up as a snack. I do have a perfectly good carbon steel and properly sharpened gladius and I’m not afraid to use it.

A big mass of warm air just moved into the clavicle of Texas and we’re supposed to get storms starting around 4:00 PM with the threat of strong winds, large hail, and tornadoes, some of them major ones according to the Weather Channel. Whee. Looks like I’ll be running to the store once I post this for food, then putting the car in the garage and parking Lyndon’s truck behind it (if weather comes from the west, as it is today, the house and garage provide some protection. There’s too much stuff in there to park both vehicles, unfortunately).

Worse, everything is going to head straight into Arkansas after this, not that Arkansas needs any more crappy weather. And more is supposed to come next week. Fabulous. So how is your Sunday shaping up?

Woke up to nicely moderate temps in the high 60s so I decided to go out and spread a big bag of dirt on the southern flower bed with the new lantana which has been drying out to dangerous levels, then add the rest of the mulch that I hadn’t used on the memorial corner to make sure that everything stayed nice and moist.

Phoo. I was dripping with sweat by the time I got that finished, which doesn’t bode well for all the new topsoil I need to spread over the back half of the back yard. It’s worn down to the clay due to erosion and needs new soil before I can have a hope in hell of getting any grass seed to grow.

And yes, I know, why don’t I put down sod? Because topsoil and seed is cheaper, and I really need to raise the level of the ground back there anyway. Never mind—I’ll brace the left knee and take lots of breaks while I get to spreading.

I also decided to brace the crowds at H-E-B tonight. For those who aren’t familiar with the name, H-E-B is a privately held grocery store chain based out of San Antonio with stores throughout Texas and parts of northern Mexico. The company also owns Central Market, which is the local foodie altar, so I really wanted to check out the offerings at the brand new H-E-B store in Plano.

And I was not disappointed. It’s huge, has a BBQ restaurant on site, the array of pre-cooked and ready-to-cook meals in the deli section is freaking amazing (Lyndon liked the chicken tikka masala I brought back for him and the sushi rolls I bought were yummy), and I picked up a loaf of asiago cheese bread because why not? I could easily drop $300 in that store without blinking, so it will have to remain an occasional treat, but it was fun to check out the offerings.

In addition to meat, fowl, and certain kinds of fish, our local butcher shop (Hirsch’s Meat Market, and they are AWESOME) also sells things like eggs and locally made ice cream (they used to sell milk from a local dairy, and God I miss that stuff). Despite having a Kitchenaid stand mixer with an ice cream maker attachment and lots of experience in making my own cold, sweet stuff, I decided a few weeks ago to try the LMIC’s marshmallow and graham cracker ice cream (mainly because it meant I didn’t have to make it myself).

It was certainly tasty, as you might expect. But I did wonder why they didn’t go just a little further and make S’mores ice cream. Which led me to wonder—what would go into homemade S’mores ice cream? Graham crackers, obviously, and marshmallows but ones that had been toasted to get that lovely caramelization, and some kind of chocolate ribbon would work, I thought.