The Wooly Mammoth is now Extinct

The early hours of this morning found me sitting in my library with my computer on my knees, trying (in vain) to learn a few Amharic phrases to use with the kids.  As I stared off into space, trying to memorize a phrase containing two back-of-the-throat gutteral sounds, I noticed a long fuzz on the bare skin of my knee and reached over to pull it off...only to discover, with some horror, that it was attached.  What??!  I'd have been proud to wear that hair on my head, but on my knee...well, that was like a declaration of war.

Now you need to understand about me that, come winter, I admittedly get extremely a bit lazy about shaving my legs.  It's cold in this part of the country and I figure I need the extra layer of protection from the icy temperatures and brutal winds that we experience here.  Actually, I'm just too lazy to shave my legs all that often and think that I can get away with it more easily in the winter because I'm wearing long pants.

But the time has come to do a little spring cleaning around here.  The weather has finally warmed up at least enough to have me hauling out last year's capri pants; I've even been wearing them around the house, though admittedly with a sense of discomfort knowing that my legs have been more than a little on the furry side.  Geoff has been kind enough not to say anything notice, and so I've let myself be lazy about this particular job for a little longer, but...

...No more.  Not after today.  Not after the hair.  Not after thinking that I could take a straightening iron to it to remove the gentle wave of it.  Not after wondering about practicing my hair-braiding technique not on the Naomi mannequin, but on my own legs.  Though I hate the job of shaving my legs, and though I cut myself every. single. time. despite the quality of brand that I use to do the task, and though I have strong Germanic roots which ought to leave me fully comfortable with the display of wooly legs, I simply cannot bear to have hair long enough to blow in the breeze continue to exist on my legs.  While I am respectful of any of my dear readers who have chosen the alternate route, I simply and absolutely prefer the clean shaven look myself.  My winter look can be no longer.  Thus it was that my morning shower was extended by a couple of extra minutes (in itself a heady luxury, considering that my showers are usually a utilitarian 3.5 minutes long at most) and, ignoring Matthew's banging on the door when he thought that my allotted time was surely over, I took my time before emerging smooth and  clean-shaven from that steamy heaven...though I see now that I missed clump on the back of my right calf.