thought I was through with this phenomenon some time ago. I realize, it's "perfectly natural" and I shouldn't be grossed out, but seriously - this last week has been filled with thick, matted, slimy tangles of hair coming out of a variety of orifices.

First it was the washing machine. It hasn't been draining properly, so I worked my way from the outside drain line in, looking for clogs. Having never had the pleasure of disassembling a washing machine, I was leery about taking it apart. I'm not sure if it was the killer model that Sally's parents got us as a wedding gift, or if all of them are made like this, but it was absurdly simple to open it up and start diagnosing. Eventually I figured out there's a debris trap at the lowest point in the drain assembly, right before the pump that jettisons the used water. Unscrew the trap, pull it out, and WOW! A stinky, knotted mass of SallyPants hairs, coins, and (I'll be generous and claim this one) a wad of red duct tape. It smelled a little fetid. I felt pretty good about the discovery until I started wondering exactly how these items managed to work themselves through the walls of the perforated metal drum that makes up the spinning innards of the washer. Maybe there's some spooky laundry voodoo going on... When the spin cycle is on high the whole house rattles like poltergeist having a seizure.

The next follicular follies came from a more likely source - our barber chair. We've done a fair bit of cleaning and disassembly on all of the parts, but we still continue to find oily clumps of cut hair. It gets worse though, as some of the bolts were so rusty I need to heat the surrounding metal with a torch to get them loose. It wasn't metal that started smoking and burning though; Hair on fire is not sweet to the nose.

The latest intrigue was taking apart the clamping mechanism that controls the seat movement - raising, lowering, reclining, etc. It's a tangle of springs and clamps and cast iron bits, and they are all fully tucked under the seat of the chair. Nonetheless, every recess, every bolt hole, everything had a 50 year old carpet of oily hairsnips covering it. I really have hangups about touching human hair unattached to a human. I'm surrounded by cats at home, who shower me with derision and hair, and I shrug it off -- But heaven help the other people on the road if I'm driving along (hands in winter gloves, even) and I see one of Sally's hairs stuck to a glove... or my sleeve or wherever. I have a mini freak-out as I scramble to rid myself of the thing.

What's that? Yes, she cries herself to sleep often. Doesn't everyone?

But on the upside of things, the barber chair is nearing the end of the disassembly and cleaning and grossing-me-out phase. We can actually start re-assembling some parts. I've cleaned a lot of the yellow and green enameled parts with Simichrome, which works miracles. We've gotten all the pieces back from both the plating company and the upholstery place here in town (nickel plating on the metal, English Pub Blue for the padded parts).

Sally and I are really impressed with how this is looking. I'm still working on the hydraulic ram that raises and lowers the chair, but other than that, I think we're can start putting it back together. We'll just have to build it on a wheeled dolly for now though, because I have no clue where it's going to end up.

And two final loaves of photos (it's near lunch, so all descriptors will remind me of food) - I took some shots of the pretty-much, mostly-completed, only-missing-a-few-things new offices:

And I finally got around to processing some shots from our new year's get-together in Chicago. It only seems like a few months ago that we were up there...