Up/Down

Down:  At the Walgreen’s across the street from where I work, they seem to have adopted a new slogan:  Be well.  When you buy something, the cashier will say, “Thank you!  Be well.”  As will the pharmacist, and the person who might direct you to a certain aisle.  So basically “Be well” is the new “Have a nice day.”  That problem that I have with this (not counting the problem of sincerity, which is a sentiment that doesn’t seem to parallel the phrase) is that it sounds bossy to me.  A bullying command if you will.  BE. WELL.  Like if I should dare to walk in there with a cold, they might beat it out of me.  Hearing the phrase raises my ire and makes me want to reply similarly snippily: No, YOU be well!  

I think perhaps I should just walk a farther distance to the CVS on the next block.

Up:  A pair of housefinches are building a nest in one of the birdhouses we hung up in our front yard tree.  I keep seeing them fly in with nest-building materials.  It pleases me, although I also worry a bit about their success.

Down:  Since my pregnancy, my once very straight hair has become wavy.  Now growing up in NJ in the early eighties, I always had a secret desire for curly or "big" hair.  But having spent well over forty years with straight hair, straight hair is what I know how to style.  I know what haircuts look good, I know how to blow it dry, etc.  Now all that know-how has been thrown for a loop:  when I get up in the morning and look in the mirror, my hair, formerly always going down, now goes this way and that.  I lift up a hank to blow it dry and underneath is a veritable mishmash of strands zigzagging hither and yon.  WTF?! I’m too old to learn how to wrangle a new hair texture!  And don’t even get me started on the gray strands which appear and like to stand straight up on the top of my head.

Up:  Owen is still very entertained by peekaboo and all its accompanying variations.  The funny thing he does now is that when he “hides” behind a tree in the yard, and I run through the litany of saying things like – “Where’s Owen?”  “Did he go inside?” “Is he with Dad?” etc. – He will answer, “No” in a very small voice from behind the tree.  So I say, “Is Owen taking a bath?” and the tree replies, “No.”  “Is he inside getting a snack?”  “No,” says the tree.  It cracks me up, as apparently it does Owen too.