Good Friday… or was it?

I should have known when I got in the shower and reached for the shampoo that it wasn’t going to be a good day.  The shampoo had been victim to yet another Bean 1/Bean 2 sabotage.  Running around the house towel clad and dripping, I searched manically for travel-sized shampoos, but there were none to be found (this is not the first shampoo sabotage), so I settled for Mrs. Meyer’s Oatmeal Pet Shampoo. 

The little Beans were on spring break, and I had taken a vacation day.  Suzie, the babysitter, was taking over for the morning so that I could work on an uninspired freelance project.

At the neighborhood coffee shop, I decided to enjoy my coffee and prosciutto croissant before getting started on the freelance.   The rains had come.  The coffee house was cozy.  I was little Bean-free. 

When I finished my breakfast, I decided to check Twitter.  After Twitter, I decided that I needed to check Facebook.  Then I realized that I really needed to check email before starting the freelance project just in case there were any last minute instructions.  And then I realized that there was no way I could get started without the latest on the royal wedding. 

Finally, there was nothing left to check, but it was too noisy in the coffee shop to do freelance, so I decided to head over to Total Wine instead.

After TW, I didn’t have anything to do, and I toyed with the idea of getting a pedicure, but my finances are a disaster, and I’d just spent a small fortune on wine, and pedicures aren’t really a necessity.  So I called Wendy, the voice of reason, so that she would talk me out of blowing thirty bucks. 

But the voice of reason didn’t answer, and I took that as a sign that I should indulge myself… just this once.

The pedicurist was young, skinny and annoying.  She wore a black bra under a gauzy white top with a long string of black beads, skinny jeans and teetering heels.   In broken English she kept trying to talk me into extras like salt scrubs, herbal soaks and paraffin baths, but the voice of reason was sending me subliminal messages, and I held firm on a basic pedicure. 

Then Suzie called. “Jenny, Moose is drinking saline solution.”

“He does that sometimes.  Take it away from him, and if he exhibits any strange symptoms, call me.”

I leaned back in my pedicure lounge and watched as another pedicurist took a bag containing a greenish colored liquid to a customer.  The customer put her foot into the bag, and then the pedicurist brought her another bag for her other foot.  Then he covered her feet with a towel.

“What are you having done?” I asked.

“A wintergreen paraffin bath,” she said.

A paraffin bath without the tub.  Too cool.  Then I had a brilliant idea, which was, of course, interrupted by the phone.

“I just saw a rat crawl under your house,” Suzie said.

Why the hell was she calling to tell me that? I mean, what do you say when someone tells you something like that? 

“Okay, I might be a little late.  On the way home I’m going to adopt a homeless cat to take care of the mouse infestation.”

Undeterred by my sarcasm, Suzie called again 10 minutes later. 

“The interstate is backed up.  If I’m going to get to class on time, I’m going to have to leave 20 minutes earlier than we planned.”

This is what I get for indulging myself—a bitchy pedicurist and a babysitter who calls to report saline ingestion, a mouse getting shelter from the rain and traffic jams on the interstate.

At home 15 minutes early Suzie didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave.  Don’t you have class and traffic jams to navigate? Were you just trying to ruin my pedicure?

After she left, it was Jax who ruined my pedicure when he stepped on my big toe and smeared the polish, so I did what anyone who had just invested in a pedicure would have done—I loaded up the little Beans in the Honda and went to the beauty supply store.

While Moose and Jax ran amuck, I found the nail polish I needed and some lavender paraffin.  On the way home, it occurred to me that I’d just lost an opportunity to buy shampoo.

The rest of the afternoon was lost in a fog of laundry, housework and little Beans.  At 4:30 I couldn’t wait any longer.  I opened a bottle of chardonnay.

Later when the little Beans were sound asleep, I took a bath and decided to try my hand feet at a paraffin treatment.  I was going to put the wax in the microwave, but I noticed a warning on the bag that that read, “DO NOT MICROWAVE.”

Plan B:  Google.

Paraffin, it turns out, is highly flammable.  I needed a crock pot or a double boiler.  I don’t have either, so I improvised with a stainless steel bowl in a saucepan of boiling water.  When the paraffin had melted and cooled sufficiently, I poured it into two bags

Pouring liquid wax into plastic bags is not as easy as it would seem.  I left a rather large mess in the kitchen. Then I went to my bedroom where a good book, a bowl of ice-cream and the rest of the chardonnay awaited. In bed I glided my left foot successfully into the bag of wax, but it was when I submerged the right foot that wax spilled all over the bed and my just-washed sheets.

Instead of crying, I poured a big glass of chardonnay and counted my blessings.

If there is a good thing to be said about spilling wax in your bed, it’s that the wax dries, and if you drink enough wine, you won’t notice the mess while you’re sleeping.

Easter

While Good Friday was a disaster, Easter was actually lovely.  The Easter Bunny escaped from the McGregors and showed up at Maison Bean.  Jax ran around filling up his basket, and Moose, who was uninterested in the egg hunt, ran around being Moose.  It was a beautiful day.  Mimi brought over a ham and Papa served a turkey.  After one bite of the turkey, I decided to stick with the ham.  The turkey had a waxy texture and had an odd taste, kind of like lavender.