Self-Care and Toes, Mimosas and Vietnam

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I’m currently getting a pedicure.

I’m sitting in a massage chair, getting my back stretched, sippin’ on bubbly and juice, while a very nice Vietnamese lady paints my toes pink.

Did you know there’s a reason so many nail technicians are Vietnamese, and that it has everything to do with Hitchcock’s “The Birds?”

APPARENTLY, Tippi Hedren, in all the blonde glory of Melanie Daniels, was a bleeding heart liberal re: The Vietnam “Conflict”, and went to Vietnam on a humanitarian mission with her entourage, including her manicurist. Her beauty team ended up training a group of Vietnamese women, and after…oops!…we abandoned Vietnam, the profession took root, took off, and took many Vietnamese families to America.

THIS is the price of my self-care.

But, as I’m pampered, as I’m tipsy at 12, as I relax and feel the yoke of the pressure of special needs parenting and the shrapnel fallout of #capitalism slip from my shoulders, I am grateful for this outlet.

Happy Saturday.

*no more babies. this is solely to showcase the beauty of gel polish and pre-child luxuries.

Published by Shannon Frost Greenstein

Shannon Frost Greenstein (she/her) resides in Philadelphia with her children and soulmate. She is the author of “These Are a Few of My Least Favorite Things”, a full-length book of poetry available from Really Serious Literature, and “Pray for Us Sinners,” a short story collection with Alien Buddha Press. Shannon is a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy and a multi-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Pithead Chapel, Litro Mag, Bending Genres, Parentheses Journal, and elsewhere. Follow Shannon at shannonfrostgreenstein.com or on Twitter at @ShannonFrostGre.

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