Adventures in henna

There is one thing to which I've successfully converted mom, without really trying: henna. Over a year ago, a few of her friends staged individual interventions to tell her politely that her hair looked like crap and was giving off the impression that she'd let herself go. So I introduced her to henna, which I've been using for a couple of years (i.e., since I saw myself in photos from the Japan trip and thought, holy crap, I have that much gray?? and saw that it was aging me). It's natural, and once you figure it out, it's pretty low maintenance. Because it blends with your existing color, you get more time once it starts to grow out. I generally touch up once a month, and I have it down to a really quick procedure. I've also learned that it doesn't really stain most materials (it does stain plastic) so I don't take the time for most of the precautionary measures. But I digress. I henna-dyed my mom's hair on a previous visit over a year ago, and she's been doing it ever since. Except she's taken to waiting for me to do it, so when she heard that I was coming to visit, she decided we would henna. Which is fine: I, too, need a touch-up.

Usually, this goes pretty smoothly. Dad makes the coffee (using coffee instead of water tones down the red, makes it more brown); we mix everything (coffee, henna, a bit of cider vinegar to increase its adherence to the gray hair) in the kitchen, and then go upstairs and apply it to one another's hair. Then we put on shower caps and hang out for  a bit while it works its magic.

Today, it was a little more complicated. This morning I had plans with friends (shockingly, there are people who have known me for a very, very long time who still take time out of their busy weekends to suffer my overbearing personality). I came back around noon, had some lunch (leftover tofu scramble, in which my parents happily partook as well). I asked dad to make the coffee.

Mom: Oh, good. I could use some coffee.
Dad: Drinking coffee? I was just going to make henna coffee.
Mom: Drinking coffee.

While dad made the coffee, I asked mom to prepare the latex gloves and shower caps. Mom found a big bag of latex gloves and tried to convince me to take some home with me. They're medical-grade, she said. No thank you, I said. Are yours medical-grade? I shrugged. This went on. And on. Eventually she gave up, but I heard her leave a message for a friend in which she offered to share some medical-grade latex gloves.

We had coffee. During the pouring of the coffee, some spilled. Mom got up to get a used napkin.

Mom: I reuse napkins until there's no more to use. Had you been born in Russia, you'd understand.
A.: Um, where do you remember my being born?
Mom: If you were born in Russia during the war.

I could continue calling her out on details (she and dad were both born before the war), but I knew what she meant; I could have also pointed out that people who grew up during the war, here, too--not to mention many other wars--often engaged in similar behavior. Or, more importantly, that many of the behaviors that served you in times of deprivation were not the same that served you amid abundance. She talked about ration cards and once being hypnotized by gypsies who took hers (but she knew better when a different set of gypsies tried it next time around).

These stories--which, in and of themselves, were interesting--continued as I mixed the henna. What was not interesting was that she kept interrupting her own stories and my own stories to ask me if I was listening. When on the fifth time I said, "yes! I'm listening!" she asked me what my problem was and I told her that I was trying to concentrate on the henna.

Finally, we went upstairs to the bathroom. There was an argument about why we weren't doing this in the shower (because we weren't washing anything off yet; just applying). Then why not outside? I shrugged. I had the gloves, was applying the henna to her. I told her not to move. But she couldn't resist, and she knocked over the entire tub of henna mixture. I went downstairs to make more. The whole time, there was "let's do this" and "let's do that" and "are you sure we don't need more this?" and "why aren't we doing this outside." Finally, we both got thoroughly hennaed. As did the bathroom. But it looks like everything's sorted.