Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Rest Be Not Idle



There are two surefire ways for me to tell that summer has arrived. First: our city’s streets instantly become trickier to navigate due to the tens of thousands of teens who are let loose from school and into their parents’ SUVs. Just yesterday alone, I spotted two teenagers texting while driving, an act that set my temperature to boil and my fantasies blazing as I imagined wielding my .38 with enough righteously indignant accuracy to shoot the tires right out from under them.


Then I remembered back to my own teenage years and how my misuse of our family’s telephone privileges resulted in my month-long ban from all devices in the home sporting a receiver and dial pad, causing me to camp out for hours each afternoon at a pay phone at the 7-11 up the street, armed with a $5.00 roll of quarters culled from my meager allowance, a couple cans of Fresca, and a call list as long as my forearm. In other words: I could relate. Thus, yesterday's offending teens lived to text another day.

Secondly: summer has just not officially arrived until my friend Wicked is released from her own form of school-based hell and she emerges from her home after the requisite week’s worth of recovery suddenly bursting with reinvigorated sociability. Summer has arrived when Wicked’s e-mail responses not only arrive in a timely manner – say, within 24 hours and not twenty-three-point-six days – but also actually make sense. Instead of something that sounds like it was composed by Bill the Cat, with the addition of references to alien abduction to distant galaxies, weirdly concocted cocktails, and how much the brain, ow, hurts, I get something relatively succinct, along the lines of: “Want to go get a pedicure tomorrow and catch up on all the latest gossip?”

To which I reply: you betcha!

On the recommendation of another friend who is always sporting such spiffified footsies, we scheduled to meet late yesterday afternoon at Rose’s Nails, which is tucked away in one of those ubiquitous urban strip malls that always seem to house the most untenable-sounding businesses – Wills While You Wait, Janitor Express, Nursing Shoes R Us, or, in this case, a Chicago-style pizza house whose single window is decorated with an over-sized photo of Frank Sinatra and whose two lone employees seem to think nothing of hanging outside directly in front, chain-smoking cigarettes and practicing their own form of Rat Pack glower on passersby.

But Rose’s is as friendly as can be, run, as these types of establishments tend to be, by a gaggle of Asian gals in darling outfits and mile high shoes who seem to exist for the single purpose of beautifying your nails in whatever manner you so choose – whether it be a simple foot massage or fake nails in lengths so outrageous, you wonder what type of work the woman who insists on sporting them actually does. Um. Never mind.

At any rate, Wicked and I were there for the $16.95 pedicure, which includes a marvelous soak in warm, jetted water, nail and cuticle trim, dry skin de-flaking, and a moisturizing foot and lower leg massage, followed by our choice of polish. After our toes were satisfactorily coated – Wicked's in a deep fuschia, mine in a vampy red – Wicked’s gal looked up at her and asked, “You want flower?”

To which Wicked instantly replied, “Sure, flower sounds good!” Which of course prompted my gal to ask me the same. I hesitated, however. Wicked and I were just speaking about how once you land yourself firmly in your forties, achieving age-appropriate fabulousness means walking an ever thinning line between trying too hard to look youthful and just giving up and giving in to elastic waste bands and sensible shoes.

My worry, naturally, was this: Will sporting a flower motif on my two big toes mean I've just committed a fashion felony of the first order, or is it, rather, a good-natured way of just going with the summer flow?


My personal verdict? Anything that makes me smile these days is a good thing. Even if it’s just on my toes.

16 comments:

Doris Rose said...

Brava! you know, all this time I was sure your eyes were brown, but I love the hair cut.(but I think I might have given the Teen-Texters just the slightest bumper bump for laughs and giggles)
LOVE the flowers. Yes, a smile is a good thing.

Jenny said...

First, I loved Bill the Cat.

Second, I love the flower!! It's not over the top, but delicate. I'm also wondering 16.95 pedicure? DEAL!!

As for a Fashion Faux Pas, I think one of the best things about getting older is, who cares? If it makes Moi happy, then that's all you need to worry about.

Big Shamu said...

Well...at least it's not Velveeta.

the Dread Pirate Rackham said...

oh man - that looks cool already. at least your toes are not black. I fear when I go the pedicure lady that she'll recoil in horror when she sees the ten travesties at the ends of my feet. I abuse my toes something horrible...

Jenny said...

p.s. I'll take Flower (and Velveeta) any day over elastic waistbands and sensible shoes.

sparringK9 said...

nursing shoes r us! grrrrrrrherhahahahahahahaha oh you so got the strip mall. i wanna come out there and see: georgia o keefes house, the lightning field, mission churches and the virgin space port. im gonna pass on roses nails...i dont do color. or flowers. but i wear around straw cowboy hats all the time. whatryagonna do? but, but i like it on you and for the spaaaaaaaaaaaaaa trip.

Margo said...

Love the flower. I want one! Very inspiring. I'm always trying to walk the same ever thinning line. I now will say, "Well Moi, does it," whenever I am presented with this option.

Gnomeself Be True said...

That reminds me. I've got to sharpen the garden shears and take a hack at my toe nails.

Ackkk!

MommyHeadache said...

Maybe my memory is a blur - but the similarities between our prison camp style germanic upbringing is uncanny - but I recall that I was never allowed to make outgoing phonecalls as there was a phonelock on the phone and if I needed to call out had to use the payphone. Quite honestly I can understand why she did it! I hope I will never let my kids have cell phones unless they pay the entire bill themselves.

moi said...

Doris: My righteously avenging alter ego is a red head with green eyes.

Boxer: Ack! and . . . thbbft!

Shamu: Actually, I have mucho affection for Velveeta. But not on my feet.

Pirate: You come with us next time! You get flowah for Iron Horse!

Boxer: Although . . . too much Velveeta and the elastic comes naturally. Balance, grasshopper, balance.

K9: I rarely paint the nails on my hands because I'm tough on them – typing, gardening, housecleaning, cooking, head scratching. But I like a spiffy toe for summer. P.S. Come veeeesit and we make tour!

Margo: Actually, Wicked is the gal to thank for jumping into the decorated toe fire. Me, you can blame for what you put those toes INTO.

Gnome: Le sigh. Boys are so gross.

Emma: the similarities between our prison camp style germanic upbringing is uncannyAnd explains quite a bit, don't you think? Cheers!

Bretthead said...

When one of my boys stubs his toe I tell him to call a toe truck. They laughed the first five or six times, but now they just get mad.

Pam said...

Adorable flowers. Not overly girly-fied and perfectly acceptable. Teen-texting while driving would be fine until YOU are they one they hit from behind because they aren't paying attention.

moi said...

WTWA: Your days as smart ass dad are obviously numbered. Enjoy them while you can :o)

Pam: If that happens, I most likely will move the .38 from fantasy to reality.

Aunty Belle said...

Ohmigoodness--ya gotta see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsWrY77o77o

czar said...

Is that swath of white in the middle a camera flash or an apparition?

moi said...

Aunty: "No, honey, dat your nail, it do like dat." Bwahahahahahaha!

Czar: Hey, now that I take a closer look, it looks like a miniature pit bull.