Happy birthdays and henna'd hair

Ron's 40th birthday is tomorrow. He's a handsome guy, and still will be when he hits 80. My favorite feature of his when we first met was his hair. It's dark and wavy and even before he became a professor, he looked like one, which, for some reason I'm not really interested in delving into, was sexy to me. Okay, wait. I'll delve, but only for a moment. It's because I had a crush on my 11th grade English teacher who had a Ph.D. So he was always my idea of what a professor was.

Back to Ron. I even wrote a silly poem to him for one of his birthdays, back before we had kids, about his hair. Silly as in I meant for it to be funny.

His hair is still dark and wavy, and long and slightly unkempt again, just like it was when we met. Only it's mixed with some grays now. And on him, it works.

I, on the other hand, have colored my hair for more than 10 years. My first gray popped up when I was 21, right smack dab on my 21st birthday, as a matter of fact. And it wasn't the last. Jane D back in Pittsburgh has gorgeous gray hair and a gorgeous complexion to match. Tired of coloring mine and tired of pumping it full of chemicals, I decided to let it grow out, see what kind of gray I could end up with. The result wasn't what I would call gorgeous. I figured, that's okay, I would just embrace the gray and my age and revel in what the years had taught me.

Turns out that what the years have taught me is that having a five-year-old point out how gray your hair is turning isn't necessarily all that embraceable. It's not vanity, it's . . . okay, it is vanity.

In an effort to convince myself I was coloring my hair to make it healthy looking again, I bought some henna. See, I believe I'm a natural redhead who accidentally ended up with light brown hair. There was just a mix-up somewhere along the way, and henna is the natural, healthy solution.

Only when you first color light brown (splashed with gray) hair with henna, it's not red. It's orange. Bright orange. Bright, flashing orange, as in the color of orange Listerine. I know because we had a bottle sitting on our sink when I was drying my hair. When Simon saw me he said, "Did you mean for your hair to be that color?"

So until my hair fades to a more acceptable shade of Thanksgiving Dinner Sweet Potato Pie, I've decided I may as well make the most of it. As I said, Ron's birthday is tomorrow. And I believe no 40th birthday party is complete without a hired clown. Besides, I could really use the cash to buy some head scarves. How convenient to know just the country where I can get them.

Happy Birthday, Ron! You'll always have better hair than me, but I promise to never resent you for it. I love you!