The story of shedding the winter fur is complete for this year

And it was EPIC! this year.

You probably read the story of getting the clippers (or you’re going to click back a page, I’ll wait) well getting the haircut was an even bigger slog over two days. I don’t like to dunk on DART, but Thursday was very dunkable. The barbershop I go to for the flattop is two buses from Casa de El Poeta and closes at 1800 weekdays and Saturday. Well it’s about a half hour ± from the house to the shop by bus, and I was tired of dropping $10-15 for a ride that only costs me $1.50 on DART. Well after what I went through on Thursday I decided to cough up the $$ on Friday.

First up, I was going to catch the 1636 bus on Thursday at the corner so I left early to not be late because there was a gusty wind blowing that was hard to stand up in, a few minutes after 1600. I know I got to the stop at 1625, because I activated my pass a couple of minutes after I got there and the timestamp on the pass was 1627 9 minutes before the bus was supposed to get there. Google Maps has the trip from the transfer station to the barbershop at 3 minutes, passing 5 stops. If I had caught the 1636 I would have been there by 1700. But there wasn’t a 1636 to catch, the next scheduled run was 1706, which was canceled, and the bus that was scheduled to be there at 1636 showed up at 1703. I got to the transfer station at 1712, with my transfer supposed to leave at 1715 and let me off at 1718 almost directly in front of the shop.

Notice I wrote “supposed” to leave. And the next schedule was supposed to leave at 1745 and still get me to the shop before closing at 1800. Well I gave that one up as hopeless at 1755 and set my sights on home. The next bus home was supposed to leave at 1759, and the next schedule was supposed to leave at 1830, again “supposed”. The next bus home showed up a couple minutes before 1900 and I got to the house wore out by trying to keep my feet against the wind just before 1930.

Friday I summoned a Lyft (which I’m still insisting sounds like a cantrip spell in D&D) and coughed up the $13 to get to the barbershop a little after 1700, waited my turn and got an excellent haircut, and then the stylist offered me a ride home, and I was home by 1820.

Anyway this was what I looked like Wednesday at the start of the process.

The more heroic look after buzzing off the chin fur.

The first pictures with the green shirt were taken on Wednesday, the one with the blue shirt was Friday evening. Notice in the last picture the long eyebrow hairs coming from the bridge of my nose are gone. And that was the saga of taking 3 days to get a shave and a haircut.

Advertisement

In the process of shedding my Winter Fur

And unlike other mammals that grow a winter coat, mine requires clippers and a razor to remove. It’s still a work in progress, but I did take pictures of the major stages along the way. I’ll post them in the next post. So far I’m at the “needs a haircut” stage but I’m clean-shaven. And like any partially complete renovation, I look goofy.

The trek to buy the clippers was a slog, because after I bought the clippers I decided to get a massage because the massage place was in walking distance of the Harbor Freight where I bought the clippers. Checking Google Maps, it’s about 0.6 miles or almost exactly 1 km. And as it was 95°F Tuesday, April 5th, I was hot and tired after making that walk as I haven’t had time to acclimate to heat, but I had a good rest and cool down at the massage place’s hot room. I know that seems like a paradox, to cool off in a hot room, but that’s in reference to the normal temperature of the establishment at about 72°F and this room is roughly 78-80°F. And 15°F is plenty of differential for cooling off from getting hot outside, without getting chilled by cooling off too rapidly.

The massage was a good one with a lot of work on my injuries from Before Times, and man do I have a lot of old injuries. Both knees, both hips, ankles and left foot and calf muscle from where the truck hit me. I still have the bump on the back of the tibia where the bumper of that truck hit me. My calf is a mesh of old surgical scars and missing bits from other wrecks, which is odd because the parts on a bike that take bites out of calf skin are on the opposite side of the bike from the calf with all the scars while the calf that lived in close proximity to the things that chew up legs for decades are pristine (except for the shaving scars).

And I have run out of things to write about because I still haven’t checked my lottery tickets from Wednesday night (it’s Thursday morning as I write this). So Imma put this to bed now.

Today was a struggle

And I’m not exaggerating (much). All I wanted to do was get rid of my winter fur. What I got was multiple hours of travel and standing around waiting for buses that never showed.

First thing I did was remove the beard and wash my hair. Well after drinking my coffee and eating breakfast. Then I grabbed my clippers and mowed off the longest parts of the face fur.

After the clippers and a shave I showered and washed the mop for the last time until winter. Then I set out on what was later to turn out to be a major trek.

Seriously, the trip from the house to the barbershop and back home took hours, each way. The first stumble was when I got to the stop a few minutes before the scheduled arrival, only to not see the bus. Seriously I had eyes on the stop for more than 4 minutes before the scheduled time, and never saw a bus. I got there and paused my fitness tracker, opened my bus app and activated my afternoon pass right at the time the bus was scheduled, and didn’t get on the bus until 35 minutes later. I was on time, the bus was either way early or never showed.

When I got to the transit center the bus was a minute or two late leaving, but on time when I got to the barbershop. Well, as on time as missing a bus can get me. Shearing the rest of the fur took some time, but 2 hours after I left the house I had a decent haircut, that complemented the shape of my head. So I walked across the street to catch the next scheduled bus 20 minutes later, and leaned against the signpost facing traffic to make sure I didn’t miss the bus this time. And I waited, and I waited until the scheduled time for the bus had passed, but no bus did. I waited some more, until the scheduled time for the next bus. No bus, until 15 minutes after it was supposed to be there and 10 minutes after I was supposed to be home I got on the bus. Because of the way the schedule worked for the bus from the transit center to the stop closest to the house I was about an hour late from the first Google maps estimated arrival. But I looked good when I got home.

And I could still smile, because I looked goooood!