Day 175

175/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

This is the empty facade of what used to be a coffee shop in Pasadena. Now it's the first step towards my mom's dreams coming true, which is pretty rad.  
My mom has been doing hair since she was my age (if I told you how long that actually is, she'd probably kill me). She got her cosmetology license after she graduated high school and worked in a salon to support herself. She shared a tiny apartment with her best friend (and my eventual godmother) Sandi. They both worked their butts off, got married, had kids, and managed to stay best friends. Sandi ended up running a motorcycle shop for a long time before selling it. My mom has done what seems like a million things (including being the spokesperson for a major corporation and starting a non-profit), but through it all she kept doing hair. I don't have a room at home anymore (I let the baby take it over, because I'm an awesome big brother), so I have a mattress set up in my mom's salon in our house. 


And while her make-shift salon in our house works, she's always wanted to have a shop of her own. She was presented with an opportunity to open up her own place along with Sandi and she's taking it. After a lot of research, a lot of negotiations, and a ton of planning, they were ready to sign their lease. They went down to Pasadena to do that today, and I came along for the ride. 


I got to meet their landlord too, and he is one of the coolest old guys I have ever met. I have a feeling he'll be around the shop a lot, and I hope eventually I'll be able to coerce him into posing for me. Within 5 minutes of meeting him, he asked me if I'd ever heard of "a burrito place in Santa Barbara named freebirds." I told him that it was an institution and that I must constantly fight my burrito addiction, and he nonchalantly informed me that his nephew owned it. He automatically reached legendary status in my eyes. 


When all the paperwork was signed and done, they took me over to the store. It's a pretty cool place in an amazing location. I've never been to old town Pasadena, but it reminds me of downtown SB. Lots of people, cool architecture, big stores, and what seems like a good nightlife. And it was awesome to see my mom and Sandi stoked, too. They were like kids in a candy store, and the first thing they did was pull down the "for lease" sign. 




I'm pumped for my mom. What she's doing scares the shit out of me. She picked the worst possible time, economically speaking, to open a new business. Add to that the fact that the idea of a salon is completely foreign to me (to this day my mom is the only person to have ever cut my hair), that she has to take care of an 18 month old and that opening a new business is expensive and it's easy to see how that is scary. But it's her dream, and she has just as good of a shot (probably better) at doing this than I do making movies. Having the odds stacked against me isn't stopping me, so I'm glad it's not stopping her. If anyone can do it it's these two, so I'm excited for them. Hopefully sometime in February (around day 240?) I'll have a picture of their grand opening!