For anyone who has happened to miss it, Detroit’s national embarrassment seems to be concluding. Kwame Kilpatrick has signed plea deals that should wrap up the legal circus that has been running for the past several months.

I’m more than a little biased. I’ve thought he should get out since sometime in his first term, when the now-legendary red Navigator story broke, and his re-election was one of the main reasons I finally said “Enough is enough” and moved out to the suburbs. I figured if the citizens of Detroit were that eager to have their pockets picked by someone who’s supposed to be in office to serve them, then I wasn’t going to stick around and continue to fund it. (Detroit is one of the few municipalities in Michigan that has an income tax; and while I still have to pay about 1.5% of my income to them for the privilege of working within the city limits, at least it’s not the 3% it was when I lived AND worked in the city.)

Don’t get me wrong - I don’t hate the man. I just think he’s got a sense of entitlement the size of Alaska and a sense of honor and decency the size of, oh, Hamtramck. (For you non-Detroiters, Hamtramck is a 2.1 square mile city that is completely surrounded by Detroit and has great Polish food. That last bit isn’t really relevant, but I happen to love Polish food, so you got it anyway.)

By the way, that link above may cover a fair bit of ground, but it cannot possibly do justice to the absolute freakin’ soap opera that Detroiters have been living for the better part of a year. Perhaps TBS will consent to do one of her inimitable comprehensive summaries of what’s happened?

In any event, I can only breathe a huge sigh of relief and thank the good Lord that the soap opera seems to be winding down at last (though there are no guarantees of that). But I’m not going to rest easy until I see who gets elected to replace him. Considering that the city has an adult rate of functional illiteracy of oh, around 50%, I’m not overly optimistic.

Please note the new comment policy (look near the top of the page for the link). If you can’t abide by it, please keep your comments to yourself. I really would rather not enable comment moderation and/or ban anyone, but I will do it if I have to - this is my blog, not a sewerbound mud fight, and I will not suffer it to be hijacked. Thanks much.

Now that THAT’S out of the way…

Wedding plans continue apace. Canuck has bought his suit, we’ve booked the florist, and we’ve been assigned our liturgy assistants. We’ve also just learned that we will be kneeling (and occasionally standing) through the entire Mass. I didn’t know about that before, but I’m glad I found out when I still have almost five months to train… :-p

I’ve also found someone to do my dress alterations, and am hoping to get an appointment with her soon. My tiara (gah!) has come, and is very pretty (even if it is a tiara). It’s actually not a true tiara, but more of a glorified barrette, except that it’s on a comb. TBS and my stepmother insisted that I needed something to give me a little height and a little glitz, so we compromised on what is perhaps the most un-tiara-like tiara that was available for purchase. (And it has now been discontinued. Go figure.)

I’m trying to figure out how to post pictures of the bridesmaid dresses, but as soon as I do they’ll be up…and I’m going on Thursday to procure a more suitable undergarment to wear under my dress. (I originally went for “pretty” - now I’ve realized I need to go for “practical”.)

I’ve got to skedaddle - TBS and I are going out in a short while to run some errands. More updates soon - or is that like Custer saying “I’ll talk to you right after I wallop those Indians”?

So. Ten things I’d like to see in action. This has been a challenging one…not just to come up with ten things, but only ten things, ten things that no one else has mentioned, and also to hopefully not have to confess anything on the list when I’m next celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I’m not sure I did so well on the last part…

1) Paris Hilton as a deckhand on The Deadliest Catch. Preferably with her inheritance being contingent on a favorable review from the captain and the rest of the crew. And automatic failure if anyone gets washed overboard as a result of her incompetence. Even if she’s the one who gets washed overboard.

2) A reality show wherein our elected leaders (bare minimum: House, Senate, and President, though state and local leaders and the SCOTUS members would be a welcome addition) have to survive for three months on the average U.S. salary and in an average-sized U.S. home. No credit cards, no HELOC. TBS got mad at me because that was originally her idea. Nothing in the meme says it has to be my original idea. But in the spirit of fair play, and since I didn’t think to give her credit, I change this to: “How fast Congress would jump to fix Social Security if they and their loved ones had to live on it.”

3) Stephen Harper and Barack Obama cage-fighting. Yes, I’m being facetious. But it would be interesting to watch their techniques and see who ultimately won…Tell you what: I’d settle for watching them debate each other on the merits of Canada’s social welfare system. Hint: in this case, the Canadian is going to be less enamored of it than the American.

4) Sara and her beloved actually going through with that Inquisition-themed wedding reception.

5) Kit’s middle child doing one of her Fatima impressions. (Too cute!)

6) Fr. Erik’s skate-punk trap. (Schadenfreude…)

7) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s face when Christ returns in glory. Ideally with a slo-mo freeze-frame option.

It isn’t so much that I want him to go to Hell or anything - I pretty much have to hope that everyone will be saved. I just want to see him realize that the Jews are still “the apple of God’s eye” (as Casper ten Boom so aptly put it). Oh, and it would be nice if God granted him a vision that confirmed that yes, the Holocaust actually happened. And that it was wrong. [wry smile]

8 ) Mac’s infamous worst-hair day. I just am having trouble wrapping my brain around how awful it must truly have been.

9) Jesus saying to me “Well done, thou good and faithful servant…” (As opposed to “Begone from me, you wicked servant,” of course.) Hey, there had to be something serious in this list!

10) A Catholic bloggers’ convention. Bring your dog(s). Lots of liquor, ice cream, Land Shark lagers, chocolate, salt licks, and brown sugar bacon snacks. Mmm. Kit can come up with the menu, provided Wiley doesn’t eat it first. We can make commemorative rosaries with the Exterminatrix of Heresies as the centerpiece…

Let’s see…who hasn’t done this? I tag TBS, Canuck, Foxfier, and Heather Siekierski. And anyone else who wants to play.

We had been going to go with Coco Myles dresses. They were modest and affordable - my two biggest criteria - and since I knew of no other options, it seemed like a slam dunk. So I’d e-mailed the information out to the three lovely ladies attending at the wedding.

Did you realize that footwear could be controversial? I hadn’t realized that.

A massive e-discussion ensued about the relative merits of dyed shoes, metallic shoes, and the dreaded (insert ominous music) Black Shoes of Fashion Death. Shortly before the point where my head would have exploded from information overload (fashionistas, be warned: I was the one who suggested black shoes), I suggested that everyone hold off and not order the dresses yet.

I am SO glad I did that!!!

My stepmother and I went shopping for dresses a few weeks ago. We found Alfred Angelo separates that are a modest bride’s dream, at least in comparison to the bulk of what’s available through regular retail bridal stores. (I wish I’d known about them when I was looking for MY dress…but that’s OK.) Then, the other night, TBS, Jill, my stepmother and I all went back to the shop to finalize the color. I was debating between Berry and Indigo. Well, Indigo was every bit as gorgeous as I’d remembered it; but it also made both TBS and Jill look like the walking dead - and hey, much as I’d like to outshine every woman in the room, that’s just sadistic and wrong.  :-p 

So, Berry it is. (If you’re wondering just which berry, I would say they’re closest to a mulberry color.) The tops are a soft satin jacket style with 3/4 sleeves and rhinestone buttons. The bottoms are georgette cocktail length A-line skirts. Simply lovely.

And best of all, we’ve already established that they will be wearing silver shoes. Boo-yah!!! 

I will post more about this over the weekend, but suffice it to say, for now, that I am downright thrilled. They’re modest, they’re pretty, they’re re-wearable…and they’re ORDERED!!! 

Well, except for the one for my Canadian bridesmaid. But I’ve sent her the information.

In addition to a longer post on this, expect me to post the meme Kit tagged me with in the next day or two…I’ve been a’percolatin’…

And then I thought, “What are you, nuts?!?”  :-p

But pity for poor Mac’s hair won out in the end, so I am going to tell you about my history with hair coloring. Please note that I no longer fool around with coloring my hair, whether at home or at a salon. I have learned my lesson. Perhaps if I won the lottery…

Anyway. My first instance of home hair coloring was the summer after my senior year of high school. My father had told me in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want me dyeing my hair before I’d graduated. He really didn’t want it after that, but I chose to make graduation the dividing line.  :-p

So my friend Diana and I decided we were going to dye each other’s hair. Here’s the problem with that: Diana knew what she was doing. I didn’t know what I was doing. Don’t worry; I got my karmic come-uppance a few years later. I’ll get to that.

Diana had looooong (probably about waist-length) chestnut hair. She wanted to dye hers black. And if memory serves, she bought permanent dye for it (but I could be misremembering).

I had long-ish (about shoulder-blade length) medium brown hair. Because I was afraid of my father murdering me for coloring it, I opted for a one-week coppery rinse. (I do have some natural reddish highlights, so it wasn’t TOO outrageous.)

Poor Diana even asked me if we should get two for hers. I, having no idea, said I thought one would be sufficient. Remember, I didn’t know what I was doing. But I thought to myself, hey, how hard can it be?

Alack and alas, as you can guess, it wasn’t enough. And my technique was so bad that I managed to effectively streak her hair with black. As I’m thinking back, I don’t think she could have bought a permanent dye, because I think her hair was normal again for her senior pictures a few months later (though her mother may have had a salon make that happen).

Mine, on the other hand, turned out fine. My father saw Diana walk out of the house, then turned to me and said, “Let’s see how bad it is.” I pulled the towel off my head. He nodded, said “It could be worse,” and left it at that.

I’m a slow learner sometimes. I reeeeally wanted Tori Amos-red hair (she was still pretty popular at the time, and I was a huge fan.) I finally went to my hairstylist later that fall and asked her to dye my hair “Tori Amos red”. She had no idea who Tori Amos was, but she did know my father (she’d been my stylist for several years). She convinced me to “mute it with some brown” so my father wouldn’t have a heart attack.

Well, she “muted” it with so much brown that my hair was almost black. Which was my father’s worst nightmare. So when he saw me, he thought I’d dyed it black, and he nearly had a heart attack.

She and I tweaked it for a while and eventually got it fairly red (still with a fair bit of brown in it, but much redder). And we kept that up for, oh, a year and a half or two years.

Then my then-boyfriend and I broke up, and I was antsy and ready for a change. You know how sometimes an ugly break-up will precipitate someone doing something dramatic to their appearance?

Well, I decided I was tired of the dark hair and I wanted my normal color back. But of course, in order to get it corrected I was going to have to go to a salon, have my hair chemically stripped and re-dyed, and pay a lot of money for the privilege.

My dear big seester unwittingly paid me back for the hair crime I had perpetrated against Diana. She said “Oh, don’t go spending all that money to have your hair professionally stripped and re-dyed. We can just bleach the color out!” She admitted that she hadn’t done it before, but she thought it should be easy.

Those of you with some experience in these matters, you can probably guess where this is going.

We decided to do it on a Saturday, and to surprise my date that evening with my new blonder hair. I asked whether she really thought we could do it in that time, and she said “Sure, it shouldn’t take too long.”

We applied the first bleach treatment. My roots went blonde, but the rest of my hair just lightened a bit.

We did more bleach. My roots were platinum - we had to stop applying bleach all the weay to the crown of my head.

Several bleach treatments later, I cancelled my date. My hair started platinum at the top, and went through several shade gradients down the hair shafts to a deep strawberry blonde at the ends (which, of course, had been dyed the most). I looked ridiculous. And I had to go to work the next day.

I ended up - surprise, surprise - going to a salon and paying over a hundred dollars to have my hair stripped and re-dyed. Even then, the stylist only got it to within a few shades of my natural hair color (it’s hard to tell from pictures), and for several years I was chopping off that über-damaged hair.

The moral of the stories? Hair stylists are professionals for a reason. And never, ever let someone try to dye or bleach your hair if they don’t know what they’re doing.

Even if it should be really easy, and after all, how hard can it be?

Thanks, Dale.

Please join me in praying for all involved.

** Slightly updated story here **

2. Your significant other? Canuck

3. Your hair? Clipped

4. Your mother? Quirky

5. Your father? Smart

6. Your favorite things? Varied

7. Your dream last night? Umm…?

8. Your favorite drink? Depends…

9. Your dream/goal? Sanctity

10. The room you’re in? Messy

11. Your church? Christ’s

12. Your fear? Failure

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Mothering

14. Where were you last night? Bed

15. What you’re not? Perfect

16. Muffins? Delicious!

17. One of your wish list items? Furnace

18. Where you grew up? Michigan

19. The last thing you did? Phoned

20. What are you wearing? Pfft!

21. Your TV? Underutilized

22. Your pets? Spoiled

23. Your computer? On

24. Your life? Unfolding

25. Your mood? Pensive

26. Missing someone? Yep

27. Your car? Jalopy

28. Something you’re not wearing? Socks

29. Favorite store? Amazon

30. Your summer? Busy

31. Like (love) someone? Yep

32. Your favorite color? Yellow

33. Last time you laughed? Recently

34. Last time you cried? Recently

35. Who will re-post this? Seester?

On the other hand, part of me doesn’t like to see governments charging in and taking over. The state exists to serve the citizens, not vice versa; and while stepping in to change a grossly ludicrous name seems to be a reasonable measure, whenever anything like this happens I find myself wondering what the potential next step is. Call it the Yank in me.

But seriously, what I really want to know - who would even try to name their kid “Sex Fruit”?!??! What kind of drugs were involved in THAT?!?!?