Julia's Gratitude Journal

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Gratitude! It's everywhere! It was the cover theme on last month's Oprah magazine, and I listened to an jour-long show on NPR about how being grateful for the little things that give you pleasure has a measurable effect on lifting depression and calming anxiety.

Not the we're depressed or anxious! Ha ha! No! Not even about the manuscript for the next book STILL not being done! Hang on for a second while I shotgun a King-sized bag of M&Ms.

 Gratitude is also referred to as mindfulness, but gratitude doesn't sound so New Age-y. If mindfulness is your yoga instructor setting up an essential oil diffuser, Gratitude is your grandmother starching the linen napkins and reminding you to count your blessings. We did such a great job a couple month ago, let's all pitch in and think about what's lighting our candles (metaphorically speaking) as we walk into the darkest time of the year.

I'm going to put homemade chocolate chip cookies at the top of my list. I made a double batch the other day, and while I gave away about a third of them to the Smithie and her boyfriend Ishmael, I kept the rest of them for myself. All to myself! (Picture me laughing maniacally and rubbing my hands together.) They've last over a week so far - a major change from the days when the house was full and the cookies would vanish within 24 hours.

I'm also super grateful for Hallmark Christmas movies. You can fight me on this, artsy movie lovers. For me, there is nothing better after a long, busy day than stretching out beside the woodstove and watching a hard-charging corporate executive relocate to a small town, become a gingerbread-house baker, and fall in love with the boy next door who turns out to be a prince. It's like consuming McDonald's fries and a chocolate milkshake - you know it's not good for you, but it hits every pleasure center in your brain.


I got some delightful news a couple days ago that makes me very grateful: the Sailor is getting two weeks' leave and will be home over Christmas! I haven't sen him since his little sister's graduation in May. I may even let him have some of my chocolate chip cookies.

This definitely counts as a small thing that give me great pleasure: nail polish. Think about it - what else can you buy for around eight to ten bucks that lasts for months and lifts your spirits every time you put it on? Okay, a box of condoms, but what else besides that?

I've been mindful of polite drivers lately, as the summer construction season which tore up approximately 85% of the streets in Portland continues into the winter. It's nerve-frying to be stuck in stop-and-go lanes with weird merges and people trying to pull in and out to get to stores and offices. It's made even worse with snow and slush on the streets. which is why kindly drivers who wait their turn, gesture for you to go ahead, and signal their intentions well in advance make me smile. My friends in Massachusetts, I'm sorry you'll never know this kind of happiness.

In the "grateful for the absence of" category, I'm thankful for the continued good health of my kitty Neko. There's no reason for her not to be healthy - she eats moderate amounts of a balanced diet,
stays strictly indoors and is in the prime of life at eight-going-on-nine. It just that for several years the other pets were constantly going to the vets for skin allergies, hawk attacks (not even kidding) getting hit by a pickup and, of course, doggy cancer. I'm pretty sure my bills alone paid the salary and benefits of one full-time vet assistant. Now dear Louie has gone to the Great Dog Park in the sky, and Juno and her allergies are living with the Smithie. One yearly visit for feline leukemia shots is a pretty sweet deal.

Speaking of health, I'm deeply grateful for the ACA. I've just been reviewing my application for 2019, and I'm getting a BIGGER subsidy to help pay for good-quality health care for me and Youngest. Just for kicks and giggles I went on the insurance company's website and priced the same policy off the Marketplace. Oy vey. If it weren't for the ACA, my health insurance would probably be a bottle of vitamin C and some Band-Aids. Thanks, Obama!

So, I couldn't afford the non-marketplace insurance, but I did spring for some really nice sheets, and I'm so grateful when I snuggle down in them with my disease-free cat at my side. Higher thread count and better cotton is totally worth it, guys.

I'm grateful that the Smithie has done so well as a columnist for the Portland Press Herald that she and I will be doing our first mother daughter appearance together next Tuesday, December 11! It's a twice yearly program put on by the newspaper called "Maine Voices." It continues to amuse us to no end that people will be paying good money to hear us talk to each other. Hopefully, it won't sound like the third act of The Glass Menagerie.

Finally, as the holiday season gets into its full swing, I'm always grateful for Mariah Carey singing "All I Want for Christmas is You." Most modern Christmas songs drive me screaming up the chimney after I've heard them for the 100th time. (I actually heard the beginning of "Do They Know It's Christmas At All" yesterday and broke land speed records racing across the living room to change the station.) Not Mariah's classic. I could listen to her warm up her pipes every day for the next ten years, and it still makes me want to dance across the floor, waving my hands in the air and admiring my nail polish.

 

Perfection at my Fingertips

Sylvia Fowler: [Showing her nails to Mary] Mary, how do you like that?
Nancy Blake: Too, too adorable.
Sylvia Fowler: Ah, you have no idea how it stays on. I get it at Sydney's... A wonderful new manicurist, Olga's her name, she's marvelous.Isn't that divine? Jungle Red!
Nancy Blake: Looks like you've been tearing at somebody's throat!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Global climate change. A contentious presidential primary. Afghanistan's a mess. The economy's on life-support. Clearly, it's time to talk about...

Manicures. Sorry, guys, I know you were hoping for a discussion of the Sweet Sixteen, but Ross's beloved Hoyas went down to defeat on Sunday, so we're not talking about college hoops in deference to his loss. I've been thinking about manicures a lot lately -- perhaps because the weather's been so unusually warm (that's going to be the extent of our climate change discussion) and warm weather always means bright, happy nails for me.

When we went off to Florida two weeks ago, I gave myself a quickie pedicure because I realized the day before we left that I'd be showing my feet in public for the first time since August '11. Every since then, I've been admiring my own toes; even when they're only uncovered long enough to take off one pair of socks and put on another, the cheerful coral is like a memento of those warm, sunny days.

Then, last week, my youngest daughter and I spied a sign outside the local day spa. In a bid to get more new customers through the doors (that's today's economic analysis, if you're keeping count) they were running a gel manicure special -- only $20.

Now normally, I'm pretty much a D-I-Y nail painter. I like to change up my color frequently, plus? I'm cheap. But I'd been reading about the super-hard, super-shiny gel manicures that lasted for up to three weeks, and I thought, why not? So Saturday, Youngest and I went in. I selected Cajun Shrimp, a creamy red with coral undertones, and she got Pompeii Pink, shimmery and purpley and suitable for a 6th grader. The nail technician painstakingly applied layer after layer after layer, each of which was baked by ultraviolet light. At the end of the process, my nails looked like someone in the Rolls Royce factory had been hand-lacquering and sanding them. They gleamed. They shone. They looked both expensive and bulletproof.

I had to go home and change my outfit to something worthy of my manicure. Even now, as I type this, I am stopping to admire my flawless fingertips. I'm already planning my next visit. Because if it really does last three weeks, that averages out to less than the cost of a cup of coffee per day. Small price for having one thing in my life that is absolutely, unquestioningly perfect.

How about you, Reds? Manis? Pedis? Or is there some other small beauty treat that makes you feel like you could conquer the world?

LUCY BURDETTE: I was a fiend for painted nails in my earlier incarnation, but now I have to keep them so short, they'd just look silly. The tiniest little extension of fingernail gives me tendonitis when I type--ridiculous!

I've never been a big fan of pedicures--until I tried having one by a pal from exercise class. My feet have never felt so good--and I had no fear about absorbing germs from the masses. My sister-in-law did make fun of me for choosing a color that was pale, pale, pale--next time maybe I'll go wild and ask for Jungle Red:).

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Gel. Rules.
And we are SO au courant, Reds. Did you see in this Sunday's NY Times a whole article on gel manicures? I must say, I am completely won over. My fingernails are now happily #33, which isn't as compelling as Cajun Shrimp but at my neighborhood mani place, the gels are by number. But you know me.It's Jungle Red, if I ever saw it.

It really does last three weeks--but I'd say, actually two, because your nails start to grow out, and it looks a little strange. But it does not chip, does not crack, and is impervious to everything far as I can see. I have actually researched whether there's any health drawback to it, and, interestingly, some people suggest wearing little cotton gloves with the fingertips cut off under the UV light that it needs to harden, because you are baking your hands in, essentially, sunlight. Some salons actually put sunscreen on your hands.

I can imagine some of the Reds HOWLING with laughter. I know, more than you wanna know. But hey. I vote this is a good thing.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Daughters are dangerous, Julia! Mine got me hooked on pedis a couple of years ago, and like any addiction, there is no going back. I love my Vietnamese nail salon (I'm wondering if the Dallas area is world capitol of Vietnamese nail salons?) and even if I can only afford a polish change, I keep my toes done from March to October (flip flop weather in Big D.) But the Deluxe Pedicure? With sea salt scrub, minty clay wrap, and hot stone massage? Absolute bliss. Makes me feel like a million dollars.

I did a gel manicure for the first time before my book launch in February, and you're right--it looked like the finish on a Rolls Royce. I did a dark purple, so it showed when it started to chip at the cuticles at almost three weeks. Next time I'll do a lighter color and maybe can go four weeks. Unfortunately, our salons charge more than $10....

Thanks for the frivolous boost!

JAN BROGAN - I love pedicures - because they last at least three weeks without the gel. I had my love affair with gel manicures last fall - it was awesome how great they looked for how long, but then I had one that left my nails looking like they'd been digging weeds in the Sahara, so I haven't been back. Like we are talking serious NAIL ABUSE. I think, though, it probably depends WHERE you have them done.

I'm pretty much into anything that smacks of vanity, but like Roberta, I have to keep my nails short. I play acoustic guitar, which those nails are always wrecking a chord, so I don't have a lot of incentive to keep them painted. I also get fidgety in the salon, unless of course, it's an event, and I take my daughter. I think pretty much everything you do is more fun when you have your daughter with you (more expensive, too, though.)

RHYS BOWEN: I have the world's most depressing finger nails. They break and rip and have to be kept short. I've had a few manicures in my life but I'm lucky if they last for the big day before they chip. However, I have never tried gel. Maybe this time...
But pedicures are something else. MY daughter took me to my first and I loved the massage chair, the foot massage and the red-purple polish lasted until it started to grow out. Now it's close to sandal season in Arizona I might think of another visit to the salon (why are they all Vietnamese? Did you ever see the famous skit?)

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Of course I love the look of a pedicure but I am really really squeamish about anyone touching these little piggies. I've had two friends tell me they'll never go with me again because I embarassed the heck out of them by squirming as if I was being tortured. I do the best I can on my own and stay with pale pinkish beige on the tootsies. And between gardening, baking and the keyboard most manicures don't last long for me. Plus my nails grow ridiculously fast, like my hair.

As it happens I watched The Women this weekend and got a kick out of the flashing jungle red nails - but my fave nail polish scene in a movie (and kudos for getting that shot from Scarlet Street) is from Lolita. James Mason polishing Sue Lyons' toenails - oh dear!

JULIA: How about you, dear reader? Do you have a standing appointment at the salon? Or does your nail routine consist of a set of clippers once in a while? Let your hair down and dish -- after all, getting your nails done is a great time to catch up on gossip!