polishing it all up

The first of my two editing meetings today was at the Des Montes Gallery. Floyd has increased his menagerie to include a rustic longhorn sheep and a giant rabbit, Harvey-style, only visible.

Floyd tends to use every bit of metal and other materials that he finds and since he has lived with animals of all kinds his whole life as a rancher's son and a rancher himself part-time, he knows them intimately. No matter what he makes, he seems to always catch the creature's essence.

In late afternoon after the meetings, I sat in my car in the parking lot for a few minutes trying to remember what I was supposed to do next. Buy food for dinner? Go pick up a prescription? Stop by the optometrist's office to see if my new RX progressive glasses had arrived? So what did I do? I went to Star Nails and had a pedicure! (it's right next door to the optometrist). With a new polish color from Essie called "angora cardi"! (good name for a color that defies description), my feet got pampered into softness. If there's something else as affordable and more satisfying than a good pedicure, I don't know what it is. It deserves a poem, but I don't think I'm up to it at this time. Maybe next week during the five-day poetry marathon I'll be participating in.

I had my first pedicure four years ago at an advanced age (for pedis). My BBF Gayle convinced me to go with her. We sat in adjacent chairs and gabbed and watched our feet be transformed into something admirable. She chose a New York red (the only color she ever allowed) and I chose an iridescent purple. Her mother, she said, would have disapproved. I immediately understood because I'd known her mother for half my life and she was a self-proclaimed Manhattan sophisticate with strict rules of taste. In her fifties, she wore designer leopard one-piece bathing suits from Saks on our little private beach, when she came to visit her daughter in Connecticut. Purple toenails were out. In her opinion, purple conveyed trashy taste.  I liked the way my purple toenails looked, but the next time I chose red. Now when I have a pedicure (about twice a year) I remember that day and miss my friend.