It’s Book Character Day at my kids’ school, and my daughter loves getting into character every chance she gets (she was an amazing Wednesday Addams for Halloween this year). She informed me last week that she wanted to be Vee from Jill Hathaway’s book Slide. Aviva met Ms. Hathaway at an Iowa Author event put on by the Des Moines Public Library last year, and promptly fell in love with her book, Slide, and proceeded to beg me incessantly all winter long to check if her new book, Imposter, had been released yet. I looked up Jill on Twitter and asked for costume help, and got the response “A pink wig!”
Perfect. I happen to own a pink wig. Done and done. I went off to (or rather, failing to) convince my son to dress up as something other than a movie character (yes, I know they’re based on comic BOOKS, but I was going for creativity points). Then Monday night, Aviva checks back in with me about her costume, and I told her about Jill’s tweet, and my pink wig. I got back a disappointed look and “it’s kinda more red than pink, Mom.” Oh sure, when I wanted it to be a red wig, she thought it looked pink, but now….this feels like the beginning of pre-teen drama, but hey, I can be flexible for going the extra mile on book character day! We can pick up temporary hair color on the way home from soccer practice Tuesday night….plenty of time.
Plenty of time…until I left my wallet in my bike bag after my first of the season ride during the day, and showed up at Sally Beauty Supply with a checkbook, a phone loaded with Dwolla, but no debit card, ID, or cash. Haven’t we all been this parent at one point or another? It’s an hour before closing, the post-soccer kid is starving, you’re starving, and you’re $2 away from having the tasks of the day complete, lacking TWO STINKING DOLLARS. I asked if I could use a check without ID, nope….then I asked if they accept Dwolla, they didn’t even know what I was talking about…I was about to leave in failure, and start racing from dinner to home to back to the store in what I’m sure would have ended up a stressful and potentially disastrous evening of putting together Vee’s look, when a woman stuck her head around the corner and said “Did you say Dwolla?”
Turns out, also shopping at Sally’s was Geoff Wood’s sister, who explained that her brother was involved with ThincIowa and Silicon Prairie News, and she was so surprised/excited to hear someone mention Iowa tech startup Dwolla, that she rescued me and bought the $2 temporary pink hair color for our book character day adventures. Which turned out looking very cool in Aviva/Vee’s hair this morning, even if you can’t see most of it in this photo.
That’s Iowa for you, whether you’re looking to restore a 125 year old house, or start a tech company, it’s far and away, the place to be. The living is easy, and the people are especially nice, in a city that often feels more like a small town than a metro with half a million people. I’m Dwolla-ing Geoff $5. I hope he uses it to buy his super nice sister a beer, smoothie, or whatever appropriate thank you for saving my evening last night!
Hatton House Diaries 