Yesterday:
1. Frank and I decide to check out the beauty salon down the street that supposedly offers 20-minute chair massage for seven dollars. We enter what, here, is called a salon. Frank asks about the massages, then we sit and wait. Ten minutes. I glance repeatedly at the a row of stylists working on haircuts. I examine the hostess, because you can tell everything you need to know about your salon (or potential salon) by checking out the person working the front. I then create a mini montage of blissful moments with Heather, my stylist back home at Salon Rouge. I miss her. I see her brushing my hair as we sit together in a breezy meadow. I see her running her comb and flat iron through my untamed locks. She leans down and smiles at me, and gives my bangs a light-as-air spritzing of $30 hairspray.
Snap back to reality. A girl in platform espadrilles asks us to follow her down the block to the salon's other location where, supposedly, massage grows on trees. I give Frank a skeptical look, and we follow.
2. Location #2. Walls are hospital green. Manicure girl is a teenager. White eyelet pillow covers in the waiting area. No chance anyone here will be touching my glorious bod. I give Frank the NO look right away, but he wants to see more.
We wait another five minutes, and the hostess (or perhaps grosstess is a more appropriate title) walks over and asks me and Frank who wants to go first. Frank looks at me, and I tell the girl we want to go together. We've been telling them all along that we just want a dual massage. Two clients, two employees, two chairs, one room. Or two rooms, even. We want to be efficient. Back rubs, then home for cocktails. It's vacation week. The grosstess says there is only one person available. I tell Frank it's time to go.
3. We leave location #2 and walk homeward. One of us suggests grabbing a cold beer, so we do an about-face and head for the bridge and ravine, and the highest up of all the restaurant balconies on the side of the cliff. We wait 20 minutes for our bumbling waiter to bring two warm bottles of Cuzqueña. He asks if they're cold enough. Um, no, stupid. We decide this is the third strike on our quest for afternoon fun, and head back home.
4. On the walk, Frank suggests we give fun another go. He mentions that he and his cousins recently had a really nice lunch at Javier, which has a few nice seating decks and yummy food. We walk back down the ravine, then up three flights of marble stairs to the restaurant. Deck seating is spectacular. Overlooking the ocean, warm sun, fresh breeze, huge yellow canvas umbrellas, cold beer, tasty chicha and cancha, and fabulous ceviche. We discuss at great length the more comical points of the day's misfortunes. And then the unthinkable. Frank spots a black cat sunning itself across the deck. I offer to chase it away, but he declines. The cat inches closer, and Frank starts throwing cancha at it. The cat lies down, and at that very instant I turn Frank's attention to a cluster of shamrocks growing in a nearby flower pot. The cat takes this as its cue to vamoose, and Frank accepts the shamrocks as enough good to combat the evils of black cat witchcraft.
5. Back at home, Frank and I continue discussing the day. One of the kids is carrying around a book. I walk out of the room, and as I re-enter, I see a pressed four leaf clover on the floor. I'm baffled. Where did this come from? All I could think of was Mom. I look at the book, now lying on the coffee table. It's Thoreau's Walden. Mom sent me her copy in a care package. The pieces come together. Mom can find a four leaf clover in a cement parking lot in the dead of winter. It's one of her cosmic gifts. Where does she store her lucky finds? In between the pages of the books on her shelves. I pick up the clover and show it to Frank, and he goes wild. The day is saved. Now the crummy parts are just a funny joke shared between husband and wife, and the amazing meal is a true highlight of our time here.
Isn't it funny... sometimes you have no idea what kind of impact you're having in someone's life at any given moment. Pay attention to what you are doing. At your job, with your family, when you're alone, with friends, or in the company of strangers with whom you assume you have nothing in common. It's all connected. But you know this.
