Naturally Animated

Last fall my delightful step-mother, Mary, had the great fun of going on a Disney cruise with her 5 year old grand-daughter, her daughter and her son-in-law. I have been entrusted with preserving their trip memorabilia in a digitally created scrapbook.

I've been working on pages about the restaurants on the ship. One is called "The Animator's Palate" and a little online research tells me the decor comes to life, from black and white to full color, as the dining courses progress. Even the wait staff's vests change from black and white to bright color.

I don't know how long Disney's embraced this concept in their dining scheme but I can tell you that women have known about it for years.

Every 4 to 5 weeks I do my own "Animator's Palate" thing and restore an inch or so of colorless hair to something akin to my blonde of earlier decades. Like the Animator's Palate, by the time breakfast is served this morning, my colorlessly gray roots will emerge in full bright blonde.

There's a whole dishonesty which permeates haircolor. Most of us who do the deed ourselves--at home, locked in the bathroom with a box of color and a pair of plastic gloves in the wee hours of the morning while the household sleeps in blissfull ignorance--are something of a secret society.

Even the name of the color itself is dishonest. "Natural Medium Blonde." Can you really call haircolor "natural" anything? My natural color these days is truly a strange colorless shade of Blah. I've yet to see that on a box. "Natural Colorless Blah."

I accepted the haircolor thing as an inevitable addition to the monthly grocery list when I found myself clipping a coupon for it. Great. I'm in my forties, I color my hair and I'm clipping coupons. Life is good, eh?

At least I can find comfort in the knowledge that the great machine of Disney Inc. has embraced the concept with the "Animator's Palate." And that I knew about it before they did.