Two Island / Two Continent Connections

My new "Container Massage Room"

My promise to myself for getting my website done was to have a pedicure.  This is an occasional ritual for me, one I discovered after years of ignoring my feet because they were ugly and finally realizing that it’s precisely because they’re ugly (they really are) that one should get pedicures, specially considering that if my clients open their eyes they look straight at my feet through the face cradle of my massage table. 

I went alone to the place I usually go with a girlfriend but she was away.   I sat in my car and finished the story I was reading on the ferry, picked up a latte – that’s part of the ritual - then strolled into the salon.  It was humming with activity and after picking out a colour (“ Jewel of India”) I was taken aback by the sight of a little girl in the chair next to mine, all thick blond hair and fashionable outfit and a bored look on her face – she can’t have been more than 8 years old.  Her mother was looking bored too, but engrossed in a magazine, ignoring both her daughter and the young Vietnamese woman ministering to her feet.

I had a moment of hesitation, wondering about this, thinking there’s some blog material there – a rant about what the world’s coming to when 8 year old girls are bored with getting a $25 pedicure while the south American Indians I was just reading about in my book were spending every day wondering how to procure their next meal.

The rant fades after I hear the middle-aged woman on my other side say something to the woman giving her a French pedicure.  She says something again and I have to ask where her accent is from.  She says “Australia” then “Sydney” and I tell her I’m from Hobart.  

All rants about spoiled eight year old girls go out the window as I delve into this amazing but familiar connection between Tasmania and surrounds and Whidbey Island and surrounds. A middle-aged woman (like me) went travelling when young (like me) met her husband in the US (like me) her husband is a Vietnam Veteran (same) she has a daughter named Erin (me too).  She has travelled the world as a flight attendant (a much more sensible and affordable way than my way!)  and now lives in Mukilteo across the water from Whidbey.   We exchange numbers so we can make plans to get together with our husbands.

And I think of the time I spent hesitating at Starbucks, sitting in the car finishing up one story, doing one more thing so I missed that ferry but made that one.  All so I end up meeting up with one more connection between my two island lives.

Thanks for listening…

Rosie

For information regarding pedicures and how they became so mainstream, read this article from the LA Times

 - A mix of luck, polish

Vietnamese dominance of the manicure trade started with the help of a U.S. star.

May 05, 2008|My-Thuan Tran | Times Staff Writer