Free haircut

Wednesday was our sort-of-off day, with Anziano Knies covering for us at the Institute during the afternoon. He made chocolate pudding for whoever showed up. I went to Conad for some fresh produce and a few other things, as well as the Chinese store for some summer flip-flops to wear around the house. Dee went out at the same time to the Chinese store too, on her own more or less, though at a much slower pace than I. It is so nice for her to get outside a bit. Dee writes: I'm getting my papers organized, and they have really nice cardboard folders with elastic closures. Since this is a temporary living situation, I am not buying file drawers or anything like that.

The folding table I ordered arrived, and I set it up in the back bedroom and moved my computer there. First I had to move a cabinet out from there into our bedroom to make room, which was pretty easy. My trick with hard floors is to put rags under the big piece of furniture, which makes it slide reaallly nicely. I like the new setup, though I have no desk storage there, but the AC in that room more than makes up for it: it was hot and really humid outside, but I was very cool. This will help a lot as the summer gets hotter, and it is much cheaper than trying to pay to install a new AC unit in our living room. He is so happy to have AC! I'm still doing all right in the living room with a fan, but I can move back there if I want to.

 

We actually considered moving our big bed and closets into that small back bedroom, using the big bedroom as our guestroom and summer office. However, it is not clear that everything would fit well, and Dee cannot help move things now in any case. I also cleaned the extra fan that the Sorelle just gave us, washing the blades which were pretty dirty, so now we have three good fans.

In the early afternoon I drove to Metro to get some beef, cheese, sour cream, and plasticware for upcoming Institute events. We weren't really out of anything, but by stocking up this way we won't need to go back there until after my sister has gone home.

We left home for the Institute about 5pm, arriving just in time to relieve Anziano Knies. Our activity for the evening ended up as a wonderful event. We had Jen Johnson, an American from Roma 2 ward who speaks Italian fairly well, come give a haircut demo. She is a hairdresser by profession, and her husband is here working on the temple.  They have been here for three years with their four kids, and they head home this summer. She graciously agreed to do this for us, and she was great with the kids.

Ludo volunteered as the guinea pig. Only a handful of kids showed up, but they were entranced! First Jen gave him kind of a conventional haircut, explaining what she was doing and why in terms of cutting. When that was done, Ludo said he wanted it shorter, so she basically gave him a second haircut. Then he said he wanted it at "zero", so she took the clippers, put the guard on and gave him a butch cut. The fun thing was that the kids got to do some of the cutting -- it is difficult to mess up with the guard in place! Everyone was watching intently. I probably took over 100 photos and a few short videos, all of which you can see here, with a handful of selected shots below:

 

First haircut is complete

 

 

Second haircut is enthralling! I love this shot!

"Zero" haircut -- everybody can play!

 

 

 

 

Linda di Martino is a nonmember girl from Battipaglia (her sister is a member) who comes up to Rome for school Monday to Thursday each week. She came late to Taco Tuesday and was really interested in the haircut event. When she showed up with a bad headache, I offered her some acetaminophen, which took care of that nicely. Now everyone kids me about being a drug dealer. It is not clear from a legal or liability perspective whether I should be offering meds to kids, but as one who suffered with headaches for decades, I err on the side of compassion. It was great to have her come two days in a row.

I've really enjoyed listening to general conference talks over the last few weeks. I have also gone back to some talks from 1988. It's inspiring and a blessing to have all these amazing speakers available at any time. I highly recommend the LDS Library app.