Day 33 - Redemption of Auntie Cleo

This morning I had a volunteer meeting at the DuSable Museum. All I could do was listen because these women spent the majority of the time giving "feedback" also known as complaining about the last few events that they had volunteered for. Bless the heart of the volunteer coordinator, Arlene. She is stuck in the middle of a frustrated group of volunteers and an apathetic staff, but Arlene takes it like a champ. One highlight was my introduction to Blair, she shared her bagel with me and we will both be volunteering for the next movie in the park. I joined the historical committee, which as far as I can tell is about the chronicling the exhibits and programs so that we have something to show prospective volunteers. I think that everyone should volunteer to the causes that he or she is interested on a regular basis. It really is a reciprocal source of joy.

Afterwards I drove down the street to my hair appointment at Christian Fields. I get there 10 minutes early expecting to wait 30-40 minutes to get into the chair. Oh no, I check in and before my butt hits the chair in the waiting area, Lorenzo invites me over to the shampoo bowl. Lorenzo is good looking, at about five foot nine, muscular, tattooed and dreadlocks tied up in a headband. He's the shampoo boy! I'm looking around and 5 out of the 9 stylists in the salon are men, it looked like something out of a Zane novel. Lorenzo or as the people on the block call him, Renzo, washed my hair and talked all about playing basketball and being a role model, it was a little preachy but bearable. This salon specializes in working with "natural" also know as the coarse, untreated hair that most Black people are born with. The place was clean and the staff was professional and welcoming. Since most people are getting braids, twists and locs, the smell of hot curling irons and smoke coming from high voltage blow dryers was absent. Instead, there was a trendy little cafe in the salon, serving fresh fruit and smoothies, I could get used to this. It took Dana about 3 hours to twist my hair. The salon conversations and the classic R&B music was pretty standard. The funny thing about locs is that all kinds of people have them, the salon was full of thuggish men as well as sophisticated professionals, very diverse topics of conversation. On my way out, everyone commented on how nice my hair looked, Christian Fields himself asked if he could touch it. They were so sweet, and it could be just a hustle but I don't care, what girl doesn't want to be told that she's pretty? I will definitely be back.

The final activity was meeting up with my aunt Cleo at her hotel near the airport. She called me while I was at the museum and I told her that I was not happy about what went down last night. She said that her and her friends were at Michael Jackson's house in Gary, Indiana yesterday and she thought that my texts were in reference to today. Really?!?! She reminds me of my brother because they both operate without regard for other people, when you tell them that they hurt your feelings, they say oops (maybe you'll get a sorry, but don't hold your breath), and keep moving on. If you press them, trying to get some sort of reasoning or remorse, then in their eyes you are the obstinate one, you have to either a) swallow really hard and admit that staying mad is not going to help or b) stay mad and do without their company until you succumb to option a, because they have no problem cutting you off. The sick part is when you are on good terms with either of them they are kind, generous and funny, the type of person that you would want to be around.

So, I chose option A this afternoon. We had dinner in Rosemont and then we drove to the south side, so that she could take a look at my place. I was so nervous, because I knew that whatever she saw would be reported to my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandma. I can attest to their, in some cases my, scathing judgments on the lives of our relatives. I got turned around on the freeway three times, had problems with the windshield wipers and parallel parked in a crumby fashion, we made jokes through it but when we were about to leave she wanted me to ask Lauren to come so that I didn't have to drive back alone. Lauren and Cleo were very cordial, the one deal breaker was Misty the cat, who has free range on the kitchen counters. My aunt would not even drink the water that I gave her, assuming that it was unsanitary. Our place is very clean and it doesn't smell like animals, but I guess that everyone is entitled to their opinion. I was concerned that my aunt would say something offensive but she held her tongue for the most part. On the car ride back to Rosemont, I told her all of Lauren's relationship woes, and she agrees that this woman is ridiculous and needs to spend more time working on herself before trying to get a man to commit to her, AMEN!