Green Nails - but no ham - at Green Tea Nail Spa in Willow Grove

       Just picked up "Them" by Joyce Carol Oates. Look how young JCO was when she wrote it back in 1969 and won the National Book Award for it. It's part of a trilogy.

Who knew? Wiki knew. Wiki knows all.

Lucy painted my nails this lovely subtle green around noon.

Sitting next to me was Cindy, who loved "Them." Her nails are a soft pink which will go well with the Floridian climate. She and her husband are driving there. Most of her children live there.

Cindy lives on nearby Ball Road. We couldn't believe it. Wonder if she knows Madeleine Bertis. Probly. George Schuler, who now lives at Ann's Choice, told me about Mrs. Bertis.

I have a couple of Ball Road stories I could tell Cindy if I ever see her again.

She asked me if I'd ever read Omensetter's Luck by Robert Coover.


Coover, born in 1932, taught at Purdue University. He was Cindy's literature professor!

I am in awe! She's a retired English teacher at Hatboro-Horsham High School. Wonder if my niece Nikki Cartagena had her? She remembers all her students the way I remember my New Directions' members.

Lucy and Vicky don't like getting their pic taken. The orchids last a long time. Mine, from Produce Junction, die within a month.

This was a snack the manicurists were noshing on.

Lucy offered me one. These women are so kind. They will do anything for you, include picking up things on the floor I drop.

The snack was delicious, sorta like those Chinese noodles you find at Chinese restaurants like the nearby Mandarin Garden.

When I got home, my blood sugar had skyrocketed to 250. Normal is 80 to 120.

Read my other blog post about Green Tea Salon.

What's this?

After my nail polishing, I went to the Willow Grove Giant to shop and pick up my diabetes Novalog pens.

"How ya liking your internship?" I asked Matt.

"I love it," he said.

"Esp'ly," said pharmacist Hannah, "b/c he has us to work with."

I showed Elyse Bonner my Green Nails and she loved them.

Like me, she loves the cold weather.

Invigorating!

How many poems do you think I've written about my nails? Possibly as many as five, and now of course I'll be writing about my green nails.

Recently, a lit mag, whose name I can't remember, asked if they could use one of my Nail Polish poems.

What? I'm gonna say no?

And, now, if you'll excuse me, am gonna start "Them." Cindy told me other great Oates books are about Marilyn Monroe and the new book "Sacrifice" where she takes on Al Sharpton. Fearless. Novels pour out of this woman like steam out of tea.

LAVENDER NAILS

The green gel wowed us all

but stays on until

forcibly removed

that’s why I stopped at

Abington Nails

each salon as stylized

as Edith Head gowns

in MGM films

How ‘bout that

long black leather couch

a movie star couch

where starlets once got parts

in the days of

Double Indemnity

Scarlet Street and

Blond Ice.

 “Hello” said an

acrobatic man

named “Ozzy”

“like in Ozzie and Harriet”
his English fine for a

Chinaman.

He showed me a

card, like a many-colored

lollipop, and quickly, I

pointed out lavender,

which would match my

new lavender wall-to-wall

in my bedroom and drapes

dyed to match with two

plastic bottles of Rit

dye

Ozzy, who knows nothing

of the reruns of his namesake,

nor even the proper spelling,

paints my old Christmas green

nails with layers and layers of

lacquer to remove them

then secures them

with aluminum

foil. I close my eyes and

meditate.

May I have good health?

May the people I love prosper?

May my creativity increase?

The soft sounds of the salon

lull me into tranquility

as each client leaves

their name repeated

along with holiday wishes

They remember names!

Before I stopped into the salon

I went into Santander Bank on

the corner, where I stood

unacknowledged, behind the

teller “Lucia,” then clucked my

lips and fled.

“Ruth!” he interrupted.

“Ready!” I swiveled my

chair around and lay my

hands on the white-topped table.

My naked white hands were revealed,

small hands with green pop-up veins

like maps of the back roads of Ohio

The green gel was peeling off

green, the color of an unusual

gown by Edith Head, but lovely

nonetheless

we mustn’t all conform

To think that the twenty-first century

has brought spaceships to Mars

tiny telephones with photos of our loved ones

the mass exodus of Chinese and Vietnamese

to purchase useless buildings and

put nail salons on every corner

My lovely green gel was peeling off

but I had no time to mourn, as Ozzy scraped

it off, dead now, of no use to anyone

a mangled bicycle thrown out on the curb.

His sister Jen painted on the lavender gel.

A longer process than your normal polish

but this is the age of

spaceships to Mars

so I sat and let myself dream.

See me on the starlet’s couch?

Instead of watching a film noir

I’d rather be in one.

The mobster’s moll? No, they’d

just as soon kill me.

The rich woman in furs and pearls?
Yes, c’est moi, shirking my people

and running off with an

acrobatic Chinaman.