The fog of war with my own body is gradually lifting, and I want to feel pretty again. I've just called my favorite Pasadena salon to arrange for a mani-pedi, an upper lip threading and eyebrow waxing.
I discovered this place about five months ago while wandering off the beaten path of Old Pasadena. When I saw the sign for threading, a technique I'd read about in Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck, I wandered in.
This place looks and feels like a high-end spa, especially when compared with the little strip-mall, whole-in-the-wall place I'd been frequenting in my Altadena neighborhood. But, in spite of the luxurious setting, the costs for services are modest. The deluxe (massage chair, foot bath) mani-pedi costs just $28 and lasts twice as long as those I received from my no-frills salon. And they'll whip those threads across my upper lip for a mere $6.00.
So now I'm a regular, rubbing elbows with the bow-head set of Pasadena. The bow-head set you ask? You may have seen them and not known what to call them. Their blonde little girls wear enormous grosgrain ribbon bows with the wingspan of a baby California condor. The mothers have an enviable amount of leisure time that they use playing golf or tennis, shopping, lunching or having mani-pedis.
Their resemblance to one another is uncanny. As I sat waiting for my turn, I eyed a tall, tanned blonde woman with her pony-tail poking out of the back of her cap. She wore a pink polo shirt, white bermuda shorts and a rockin' diamond ring.
A half-hour later, another woman in a similar uniform sat down beside me. I told her that I'd just seen her twin. except for a different color top and cap. "Was she really buff?" she asked. "Yes, as a matter of fact, she was. I was staring at her muscles," I replied.
"I know that woman," the flaxen-haired woman continued. "She was a top-seeded tennis player, but now she's into golf. Plays every day. I only have time to play two or three times a week. Our kids go to the same school."
As this is going on, the owner shouts out that Dee Dee Myers is trying to book an appointment. "No. No time for Dee Dee Myers. Her feet take too long. Almost two hours."
When bow-head mom and I sit down beside one another for foot baths, she tells me about the many moms from her children's Pasadena K-8 prep school who frequent this salon. Dee Dee Myers' name comes up again.
I'm dying to ask if it's that Dee Dee Myers - you know, the beautiful blonde woman who was a White House Press Secretary to Bill Clinton. Is she the one with the two-hour feet?I missed my opportunity that day, but perhaps I'll find out today.
8 comments:
Mani-Pedi-Threading sounds glorious. Throw in a massage and it'll be a perfect day!!! Enjoy your day... let me know about tomorrow! love, nancy
It's good to hear you sounding like your old, social-satirist self! I gather you're feeling much better! Yay!
My Enquiring mind wants to know if Dee Dee also wears a pastel polo and white bermudas. Or does she wear Lily Pulitzer? Back east in the 60's- 70's (Preppie Handbook days), all the Wasp debs wore Lily Publitzer, and coordinating Papagallo shoes (and last time I looked, they stil love Lily). My friends and I wore Landlubber jeans and tie died tee shirts (or tee shirts with fists and the word "Strike!" on them), macrame belts and clogs, desert boots or earth shoes. Which of course made us feel that we were far more socially conscious.
Now, sad to say, most of us bear an uncanny resemblance to the Dee Dee set (well groomed, middle-aged, fit), except that instead of bermudas we wear designer jeans and instead of polos we wear tops from Anthropologie, Planet Blue or Bloomie's. And, of course, we have Obama bumper stickers on our fancy cars. And our daughters, when they were bow-head age, never wore grosgrain. And some of us are brunette (though, thanks to the wonders of chemistry, none of us is, gasp, visibly grey)!
I've never heard of threading, though. I'll have to Google that, and then make an appointment!
Gee, a massage does sound good.
It's funny that the preppies and the hippies at Vassar have all ended up looking the same.
No, you wouldn't see a grosgrain bow on the West side. If I saw one, I'd assume the family was visiting from Pasadena.
Susan, you crack me up and I love it! A woman I used to work with recently emailed me pictures of her 4 year old and the bow was twice the size of the poor kids head. She was also wearing a dress that could have come straight from Lily Pulitzer for girls. I'm sure you've figured out that I'm the other end of the spectrum, much to my mother's everlasting horror. LOL
LOL! Yes, your friend has the look down, Ann.
I've noticed that the bow-head look is very popular in certain pockets of the South. Believe me - you don't see it in West Virginia, where camo still rules.
Awwww shucks. I just read about threading online, and it doesn't make you look younger, only less hairy. Sort of like garotting your hairs instead of, say, shaving or ripping them off with wax. But I don't want to be less hairy. Indeed, now that I'm getting wrinkled, hairy may be better. I was hoping it was a way to lift wrinkles with an ultra-fine, transparent thread that got tucked away somewhere (like up your nostrils, maybe, or deep inside a pore). Yeah, yeah, I was hoping for MAGIC!!! Not girlie-mustache removal. But hair removal? Gosh, I just pluck those nasty little things right out with a pair of tweezers from Long's. Using a thread would be like trawling for a few shrimp with a big, deep sea net. Or pulling back a little girl's hair with a headband the size of a condor.
Ahh, but threading is the ultimate in efficiency and efficacy for taking care of the little fuzzy wuzzies that crop up above my lip. The thread can pull out tiny hairs that a tweezer or waxing couldn't reach.
Big Will looks great in camo.
Post a Comment