Toi thong cam co, Paula Abdul

Just got my nails done. No, just got new nails, acrylic tips (check it out, it's not as hard to type as i thought it would be). This is new for me, and my girls love it. Curly asked, "Can I have some?" I feel pretty.

I got fake nails once before, and I ripped them off later that day. I never had long nails when I was young because of violin, and when I was older-young because of the guitar. When I got them, it was at the Vietnamese place at the mall - you know the one. This one happened to be in Lakewood, New York, but I'm sure you have a similar local establishment: the Vietmanese guys all have really long fingernails resembling that guy from the Guiness Book of World Records (that we looked at in fourth grade). Creepy.

I have gotten pedicures in like-Viet places (in Orem), and I don't like that I can't have a conversation with the person beautifying my gross feet. Frankly, I feel like they treat folks like cattle. Being in the mood to talk (as usual), I decided to look into other options for my fingernail experience while here in Lakewood, once again. I asked some friends, called around, and settled on the local JC Penney salon. The idea of going to Penney's didn't appeal to me in the least, but a friend said they do a fine job, their prices weren't bad, and most importantly for me on this day, they were open early. And - they speak English (presumably), rather than Viet-nese, so we can have a nice conversation.

I arrive early and have a seat with...we shall call her Anna. She didn't look at me or say anything for four minutes - I was sitting right in front of her. When she began, she seemed annoyed. I asked her lots of questions, told her I'm in town for my 10-year high school reunion, and it turns out that we went to the same high school (weird that I don't know her because it's a small school), and her husband and I graduated in the same class - I know him, and have since third grade. But they're not going to the reunion because he has to work, and that makes me sad.

This blog is getting too long, so I'll cut to it now: We were talking about camping, and I gave my theory that, as much as kids love camping, and it has the potential to be enjoyable when you have the right equipment (= thousands of dollars worth), for a mother of young kids, it's just going outside to do four-times the work you'd do at home. Anna then told me of the last time she and her family went camping together, and this is how it all went down:

***I am not making this up***

A: "Well, it would have been fun, but we forgot to bring the sleeping bags that my husband had boughten. That sucked. And in September, it was, you know, really cold a little bit. Then, when we got home, I had to go to the doctor because of a rash, and guess what?"

j: "what?"

A: "I had got scabies. I was like, 'OH, F***!!' I thought I musta got it campin', but my husband and son didn't have nothin' like that, so I knew I musta got it from work."

j: "work, huh? you mean here?"

A: "Some dirty people come in here, let me tell you. And it ain't no fun gettin' that scabies sh**."

j: " ."

A: "For some people, they don't even know they got it - it could take six weeks for anything to even show up."

Then I was quiet, and wishing more than anything that I had gone to see one of any people named Nguyen Nam.