6 Dates with SaraJean: A Love Story? (Date 3)

Last time: SaraJean took me out on a date! We went to the top of Mt. Wilson at night. It was great, except … she also asked for a "no physical contact" rule until all 6 dates were over! And with that, it was my turn. =)

Date 3 was the next weekend, on June 9, 2012. At least three things happened around this time:

1) One of the pastors at my church, Pastor Julie, cut off her long, brown hair to donate.

2) SaraJean took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test.

3) Two of SaraJean's friends, Marc & Mika, bought a house.

Why do I mention these three things? 2) might be obvious, but let's go in order.

1) So Pastor Julie cuts her hair, and she's going to donate it. She's been growing it for two years, just for this purpose. Julie also has a little girl. And wouldn't you know it, before Julie could mail off her hair, Julie's daughter found it and had a wonderful time taking it apart and playing with it. The hair was now a tangled mess and unacceptable for donation.

Pastor Julie told me the story at church camp. I asked what she was going to do now. She said she couldn't bear to throw out the hair; she would cry just thinking about it. But the only way to restore the hair would be for someone to separate the strands one by one and line them all up. That sounded right up my alley, so I said I would do it!

The next week, Pastor Julie met me at church and handed me a bag containing her hair. It was definitely a funny exchange.

My plan was to use some tweezers, take out each strand one at a time, and use masking tape to line them all up. It'd be simple enough, so I could watch a movie while doing it.


Three movies later, I had barely done anything. It turns out that the hair looked okay on the surface, but it was deceptively difficult to untangle. And you know what? The average human head has over 100,000 hairs! I can't imagine even counting to 100,000!

Also, I realized I know nothing about hair, especially women's long hair. So, I asked SaraJean for advice. =) She had some good ideas, but it was still too hard, so I improvised.

The photo at left looks like I'm dissecting some crazy hair beast. And, yes, I had to buy hair clips.

One improvisation was to soak the hair in oil, to make it easier to work with. I didn't have lots of conditioner, but I had a lot of canola oil. You can see it in the left of the photo, in the container and in the ziploc bag. I soaked the hair in the canola oil overnight, to see if that helped. It actually did, but not enough.

One improvisation deserves another, right? I bought some conditioner to see if that worked better. However, I didn't have enough to submerge all the hair in it. So I thought, "Well, if I put the hair and conditioner in a bag, and put that in the dryer, maybe it will tumble around and mix better?"

That sooo did not work. Instead, the hair became a ball of even-more-tangled hair.

From Hair

Pastor Julie's precious hair was now truly unfixable. And it looked like … a giant hairball, of course. (Growing up, we had a cat.)

In the end, I had to admit defeat and apologize to Pastor Julie. Thankfully, she took it in stride.

Ok, so maybe that didn't have a lot to do with SaraJean. =)

2) SaraJean's MBTI personality profile is ENFP. She's pretty strong along all 4 scales. Me? I just took the test, and I'm I(S/N)FJ. (I'm in the middle of the scale for S/N.) However, I also took the test in 2005 and was (E/I)STJ. So in the past seven years, I've become more I, less S, way more F, and I am still a strong J. Our personality types will certainly come up in future posts. In the meantime, if you want to take the test, go here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes1.htm. I'd love to know what you get. (Include the numerical breakdown!)

3) Marc & Mika bought a house. This really was relevant! =) Date 3 was my turn to plan, and SaraJean had raised the bar. I had only a week, and her birthday was around the corner. But then, Marc & Mika needed help with their backyard, and SaraJean asked if I was interested. So, that became Date 3. Also, I was planning to pick a place to eat afterward, but our friend Daniel was having a BBQ, so we went there instead. Whew!

I didn't take any photos of Date 3, either. (Sorry!) Does that mean this is the end of this post?

…

…

Of course not. =) Didn't you wonder why Marc & Mika needed help with their backyard? =)

In fact, it wasn't just to dig up dirt. Marc & Mika needed help because their entire backyard–just underneath the top layer of dirt–was full of trash.

Trash like this. This is Marc & Mika's backyard. While I didn't take photos of Date 3, Mika took photos on a day when other friends were helping. Thank you, Mika!

In fact, in the photo, SaraJean is in the very-back-right, in the green shirt.

The backyard looks "normal" from a distance. But if you dig down just a little, you'll find trash. And more trash. Apparently, the previous owners had been foreclosed on and were squatting. They probably didn't have trash service, but they were still generating trash. One improvisation deserves another?

They found all kinds of things. Cement blocks. Pottery. A tire. Food waste. Plastic bags full of leaves. I think there was even a toilet. Here, Mika found an apron!



I wasn't there when these photos were taken. But for Date 3, just imagine me working hard, standing next to SaraJean. =)

From Digging (from Mika)

They filled a dumpster!


Mika likes gardening, so eventually, they WILL get everything cleaned up and looking beautiful. After that, no one will be able to look at the backyard and imagine that it was once, literally, a dump.

So, Date 3 was digging up garbage in a friend's backyard! But I had fun, and I think SaraJean did, too. We got to talk and get to know each other better, we helped out some friends, and we exercised. I still had to figure out something for SaraJean's birthday, but Date 4 would be SaraJean's turn again. What would she come up with this time?

Next time is Date 4: A Kite of Wonder and … regret?