Living in a foreign country means that our lives are often very different than many people’s lives. I mean, sure, life in Latvia is different than life in the USA; things are handled differently and often much slower, but it’s more than that. Often our lives are still quite different from the other people who live in this country. There are some things that I can’t bring myself to do by myself, without a local to help me, mostly because of the language difficulties. I can shop by myself, pay bills and do a number of other things equal to the level of my language abilities. But, there are lines to be drawn. I don’t like going to the bank on my own… well, it depends on what I have to do there, but today I discovered that we are perfectly able to go and receive a Western Union Money Gram on our own. Woohoo! But there are other things, like, I refuse to go to the doctor by myself. It’s just way too important to know exactly what they’re saying. And I also will not go to get my hair cut alone. Again, it’s just way too important to be able to communicate very clearly. Thus, I have not had my hair cut in over a year, partially due to stubbornness & lack of language help, but now this longer hair is starting to grow on me (no pun intended). I think when Ieva gets home in a few weeks we’ll go together.

Chris doesn’t like to get his hair cut on his own either but he can’t go as long as I can without a trim. Often Andis will take him, which is fine, but it just hasn’t worked out lately. Chris has been mentioning lately that he really needed to get it cut and then, the other night, he asked me if I could cut it. HA! I told him, “No! I’ve never cut hair before!” He dropped it, but I couldn’t. I started to think about it. I started looking at his hair, and noticed that I could see how the hairdresser had cut it last time, and I started to think, “Hey, maybe I could do it.” Then I got excited, and told Chris I’d like to try it. That’s when he got nervous. So, for the the next few days, I kept bringing it up, and he kept having a reason for me not to do it. “I’m too tired,” or “We have a meeting tomorrow, so maybe not before that.” It all just sounded like excuses to me. I kept trying to encourage him that maybe I had a hidden talent for cutting hair that I don’t know about, so I really should try it! It didn’t work. It didn’t even seem to appease him when I said I looked on the internet for some instructions on cutting hair. I mean, come on, he learns all kinds of stuff about computers on the internet, so why wasn’t it feasible for me to learn to cut hair online? *wink* So, this evening, we were eating dinner and I announced that tonight I would be cutting his hair. Maybe he was resigned to the idea, or maybe he just didn’t have any ready excuses, I mean reasons… but tonight was indeed the night.

I admit I was a bit nervous, and there were a couple of times that I was glad he couldn’t see my face behind him as I cut some spots a bit shorter than I intended… but 1 hour and 15 minutes later, Chris declared that it was “not too bad, especially for the first time.” I think that means there will be a second time. I wonder what he would look like with a mohawk…