A spot of bother

I saw my hair on the bus yesterday. I was seated behind a young woman with long, thick wavy hair with stray strands of grey weaving in and out. I recognised my hair immediately. I mean, mine had a few more red highlights in it, but it was essentially the same. The girl, clad all in black with soft edges and small breasts, could have been me, too, right down to the tall, slightly chubby boyfriend next to her. It was nice to see me again.

Actually, what I really liked about her hair was that it was hers, colour and all. Sometimes I'll sit near the back of the bus, and not a single head in front of me has the hair colour it started with. A little sad, really. There's something about the sheen of hair without dye, it reflects the light in scores of different shades.

Yep, working on my people-watching. I spent about seven hours in transit yesterday, but that was because we had to head back to younger daughter's school for a barbecue. With luck, I'll keep it down to 4½ hours today.

Writes of Passage Number Two:

This happens more often in Ottawa than in Victoria, but every so often, a girl will board the bus who is bandbox perfect in every way. Her hair is groomed, her clothes are impeccably coordinated, and her make-up meticulously applied. I can only sit in rapt contemplation of such girls. They are always girls; women don't have the time for such perfection.

Take a girl I saw on a Victoria bus. She was sitting with her boyfriend on a sunny morning and her get-up was subtle, yet carefully planned around a theme. The polka dots on her dress were echoed in the polka dots on her Alice-band. She was all in bronze and black, even her eye shadow and lipstick fit in with the colour scheme. I wondered, as I always do with such females, how many hours it took to shave, shampoo, moisturize, gel, and paint to show herself for a few brief hours before it was all to do again. Then I saw her nails. Bronze polish with, get this, polka-dots. I glanced at her boyfriend. Well, I was reasonably sure he had showered, and maybe he had spent a few minutes artfully tousling his hair. Other than that, tee-shirt and baggy shorts, and, dare I say, oblivious to the effort that had gone into producing the vision seated next him?