8 Thoughts I Have Whilst Getting a Pedicure

1. Why is it that there's always a leader man of the pack working the nail salon? Why is there a whole den of she-manicurists but only one he-manicurist and he's the only one who talks to customers? I'm not trying to disrespect hierarchy here, but I've entered my fair share of nail salons and there is always Just One Guy and so many women working there, and The Guy is Always the One Who Talks to Customers First. Who decides this and what would happen if there were more than One Guy? 2. Did I tell someone that I needed a pedicure? Because I didn't mean to say I need. I meant want. Children in The Sudan need food and water. I just kinda want not to have the toenails of a pegasaurus.

3. Do pedicurists always tell you that you picked out a "nice color"? Like they work 40+ hours a week in the nail salon but they needed you, you super sleuth of the OPI rainbow, to pick out such a nice color. Because this happens to me every time and I'm all high-fiving myself for being such an outstanding color curator and then I think, Nawwww! They say that to all the girls!

4. When the pedicurist pulls out the scraper that is most likely a cheese grater and starts rubbing it against your foot, why does it feel so crazy ticklingly good?

5. Why does someone like I (who lives a pretty sedentary life), who does not work in a factory or run across hot coals on the regular, need to have her feet scraped with a cheese grater?

6. What would happen if the Department of Motor Vehicles and a nail salon teamed up and while you waited in the interminable line to get your driver's license renewed, you could be getting a spa pedicure???

7. Would it be reasonable to vote for someone whose campaign platform included access to affordable, clean pedicures for all?

8. Is it okay to tip 10% for a pedicure? Someone just took a cheese grater to my foot--I feel like the tip could go either way?

Nude Beaches--wait, what?

If you are planning to take your family for some fun and frolic by the shores of the Ocoee River, you should probably prepare for the nude beach. I wasn't prepared, you see.

I thought I was prepared for a picnic, for river rock jumping, for birdwatching, for tossing frisbees and tattoo research around the Whitewater Rafting Center.

But then there was a public service announcement that the floodgates at the dam downriver had opened, and this woman who appeared to be the mayor of Ocoee told me I shouldn't let the children near the water. Because at any moment they would be wiped out like the people who didn't listen to Noah.

After considering my feelings about forced baptism, I decided I was actually looking forward to letting my children choose when they wanted to be baptized, so we moved our little party bus to the contained lake area down river aways.

The lake area was nice enough for Baby Girl to attach herself like Huckleberry Finn to a waterlogged log. Is that redundant? She probably toyed with it for a good 30 minutes, just submerging it and standing it up like a totem pole and --wait, when does girlfriend go half an hour at home without needing some kind of screentime? Twenty minutes pass and the girl starts pawing for technology like she's going to go into AFib if I don't hook her up with some Netflix, stat.

Okay, now. For realios. That was an exaggeration.

It's more like 10 minutes before they are both going AFib.

Just kidding, my kids are able to play without electronic stimulation at times, but this waterlogged log action was looking pretty Jungle Book from where I was standing.

While Baby Girl was playing Bear Necessities, her brother was getting a whole 'nother kind of bare. The boy discovered that a wet swimsuit + wet T-shirt + sand does not for a comfortable lounging outfit make.

So we stripped him of his attire and attempted to dry the ensemb in the bright and blazing sun.

In the meantime, we attempted to wrap him in a towel. Doing the loin cloth thing lasted for about 0.08 seconds, when, per his boy contract, he made sure everyone knew that this beach? Was nude optional.

HAHA. "Naaakeeee boyyy," he squealed with delight, wearing a grin seen below in Appendix A.

My dear friend Christa gifted our boy with her shirt for the ride home.

So, to review: If you go to Ocoee, plan for the nude beach or at least bring my friend Christa. Otherwise, you're just doing tattoo research or getting flooded by the dam. Or both.

Doing me no favors

Oh, Child, remember that time when I told you we were going to go look at "my friend's house" in two minutes? Well, it just so happens that that friend was only loosely a "friend."  She was more along the lines of....someone I met telephonically yesterday, someone who has never met our brand of hot mess in person before, and who was prospectively going to lease out her rental property to us if we showed up and appeared sane and hygienic and capable of not throwing fists through windows and plaster. So, upon the two minute forewarning of our departure to go house hunt, Child, you took it upon yourself to do what I can only imagine in your brain worked out to mean Getting Ready.

  Child, there is a movie called "The Royal Tenenbaums" in which an actor named Owen Wilson's character Eli Cash goes on a wild drug-induced bender and crashes, quite literally, a wedding.

When you came to me All Ready to go look at the real estate tonight, I saw Eli Cash. In the form of a pixie-haired girl.  Who was not crashing my wedding. But who was unwittingly kinda crashing something else.

It was too late to wash it all off so away we went as a merry trio: Hot Mess Mama, Tater Tot boy, and Butterfly Girl.

On the way home, Little Man fell in the driveway and busted his lip. So all in all, we were a sight for sore eyes and probably unfit to live anywhere besides a yurt, upon whose sides you could paint butterflies.

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