Pedicure with Hugo

My Pampered Pinkies

My Feet Float Like Butterflies After My First Pedicure

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 18 seconds

I lifted my right leg and began carefully cutting my toenails. Despite my caution, I ended up with unevenly cut toes, including my pinkies, but at least they were no longer sharp claws. In the early days after my wife passed away, I neglected this task, and my toenails tore a six-inch hole in the bedsheet as if it was slashed by one of my butcher knives, which left me frustrated and helpless. As soon as I started cutting my other foot, a sudden sharp pain shot through my lower back as I crossed my legs. Despite the discomfort, I managed to finish the task, although my attempt to declaw my foot was ineffective.

Applying the lidocaine patches to my back has been quite a challenge, especially since I live alone. As I carefully maneuvered to use them, the awkwardness of unpeeling and placing them on my back was one of the daily frustrations of my life. After I found the spot where I wanted to put the patch and unrolled it, my hands would become stuck as if it were a sticky bug strip. I would always manage to get the patch into place, but some wrinkles would cause discomfort and be unpleasant.

Although I noticed improvement over the following week, it was a stark reminder of the challenges of living alone. Despite the eventual decrease in pain, it served as a poignant reminder of the hurdles of living independently. As I read in Atul Gawande‘s “Being Mortal,” the inability to perform simple tasks like trimming toenails can indicate struggles with daily activities, particularly for older individuals.

Last Saturday, I had breakfast with my good friends Ana and Hugo. I sought their advice on where to get a pedicure and hoped they could recommend a nail salon. Instead, they suggested that we all go together, which wasn’t surprising given our close friendship. The following day, at 5:30 in the evening, I strolled the short, mostly level distance of 450 feet from my residence to Elegance Nails IV, located in Cleveland Plaza in Cranford. Upon arriving, I first encountered Hugo and then Ana. At that moment, I paused to consider whether I wanted to proceed with our plan.

As I settled into the chair and felt the soothing pressure of the vibrating and rolling massage of the backrest, any lingering doubts about my decision dissipated. Without hesitation, I opted for a more luxurious and comprehensive pedicure, reassured by Marta’s exceptional skills and attention to detail. Although it took her a few moments to position my feet correctly, as I had no idea where they should be, her expertise was evident as she carefully washed my feet, exfoliated the calluses, massaged my calves, and expertly trimmed my nails. With each gentle touch, I couldn’t help but let out a few giggles, much to the playful admonishment of Hugo. Despite my efforts to stifle my laughter, Marta’s nurturing and skilled hands created an atmosphere of relaxation and delight, turning a simple nail care session into a truly indulgent and joyful experience. The transformation of my feet, the care and attention I received, and the laughter shared with friends all contributed to a deeply emotional journey I will always cherish.

The Vaster Wilds: A NovelDespite setting my iPhone to Do Not Disturb, a good friend called me, and I informed her I was having my first pedicure. I answered and explained that I was having my first pedicure. She then told me that her Rabbi liked the project we had worked on, but I had to ask her to hold while I chose a color for my toes. Hugo and Ana suggested light blue. When I returned to the call, my friend informed me that her Rabbi had recommended Green to show support for Israel. “Next time,” I said, adding, “No one will see my toes.” The joy I felt from the pedicure wilted slightly; knowing I would return to living alone reminded me of Lauren Groff‘s comment in The Vaster Wilds: A Novel, “To be alone and surviving is not the same as being alive.” But the warmth of my friends’ support wrapped around me, a comforting reminder that I was not truly alone.

Whose feet are mine?

Which Toes Are Mine?

Hugo inquired about the frequency of pedicures while his toes were drying under ultraviolet light. The response was “every three weeks.” Knowing that I couldn’t take care of my toenails alone, I accepted that monthly pampering might be essential despite my tight budget. Any doubts that lingered in my mind vanished as my feet floated like butterflies during my morning walk. Despite walking faster and covering more miles, my calorie burn fell from previous walks. I blamed Siri for a defective algorithm failing to measure my calorie burn. I almost asked Siri if I would forever live alone, but I chose not to, as I didn’t want to hear a deflating answer. The pedicure, with its physical and emotional benefits, profoundly impacted my well-being, reminding me of the importance of self-care and the joy I found in a simple but crucial indulgence.

A Journey Worth Taking

We have been blessed with the incredible gifts of hearing, embracing, and walking into the future. I am dedicated to fearlessly approaching the future with determination, cherishing every moment, and striving to become the best version of myself.

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The Hero of This Book: A Novel

Read: November 2022

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The Hero of This Book: A Novel

by Elizabeth McCracken

The Hero of This Book: A Novel by Elizabeth McCracken is a searing examination of grief and renewal and a deeply felt relationship between a child and her parents. It is not a memoir but a remembrance of those we have lost. Ten months after her mother’s death, the narrator of The Hero of This Book takes a trip to London. The city was a favorite of her mother’s, and as the narrator wanders the streets, she reflects on her mother’s life and their relationship.

Thoughts of the past meld with questions of the future: Back in New England, the family home is now up for sale, its considerable contents already winnowed.

The following quote resonated with me.

I’ve always hated the notion, in life or in fiction, that the human personality is a puzzle to be solved, that we are a single flashback away from understanding why this person is cruel to her children, why that man has a dreamy, downcast look. A human being is not a lock and the past is not a key.

I highly recommend this book.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

The woman, a writer, recalls all that made her complicated mother extraordinary–her brilliant wit, her generosity, her unbelievable obstinacy, her sheer will to seize life despite physical difficulties–and finds herself wondering how her mother had endured. Even though she wants to respect her mother’s nearly pathological sense of privacy, the woman must come to terms with whether making a chronicle of this remarkable life constitutes an act of love or betrayal.

The Hero of This Book is a searing examination of grief and renewal and a deeply felt relationship between a child and her parents. What begins as a question of filial devotion ultimately becomes a lesson in what it means to write. At once comic and heartbreaking, with prose that delights at every turn, this is a novel of such piercing love and tenderness that we are reminded that art is what remains when all else falls away.


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Reunion: A Novel

Read: June 2024

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Reunion: A Novel

by Elise Juska

Today, I immersed myself in the distinct world of Reunion: A Novel by Elise Juska. This enthralling narrative, crafted by the esteemed author of The Blessings, transports us alongside three middle-aged friends as they live during a college reunion in coastal Maine. Reunion, my forty-eighth read this year and my 250th since January 15, 2019, stands out for its compelling storytelling.

It’s June 2021, and three old college friends are heading to New England for the twenty-fifth reunion that was delayed the year before. Hope, a stay-at-home mom, is desperate to return to her beloved campus, a reprieve from her tense marriage and the stresses of pandemic parenting. Adam hesitates to leave his rustic but secluded life with his wife and young sons. Single mother Polly hasn’t been back to campus in more than twenty years and has no interest in returning—but changes her mind when her struggling teenage son suggests a road trip.

Yet, the reunion takes an unforeseen path, shattering their preconceptions. Hope, renowned for her sunny outlook, is forced to confront the harsh realities of her life and the fractures in her friendships. Adam embarks on a journey of self-discovery, reigniting the spirit of his carefree contrast to his current responsibilities. A single mother, Polly is compelled to face the shadows of her past,  youth, and a stark, long-kept secret. As the weekend takes a dramatic turn, all three are pushed to confront their past and its implications for the future, leading to profound personal transformation.

Beautifully observed and insightful, Reunion is a page-turning novel about the highs and lows of friendship from a writer at the height of her powers. Elise Juska’s skill in portraying the intricate dynamics of friendship will leave you intrigued and wanting more.

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Land of Milk and Honey: A Novel

Read: October 2023

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Land of Milk and Honey: A Novel

by C Pam Zhang

Today, I commenced reading Land of Milk and Honey: A Novel by C Pam Zhang, the award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold; she returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world. With the arrival of forest fire smoke in my neighborhood, it seemed a timely book to read.

A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles.

There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global eliteZhan, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her body.

The chef’s boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion in this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence. Soon, she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.

Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in language as alluring as it is original, Land of Milk and Honey provocatively bare the ethics of seeking pleasure in a dying world. It is a daringly imaginative exploration of desire and deception, privilege and faith, and the roles we play to survive. Most of all, it is a love letter to food, wild delight, and the transformative power of a woman embracing her own appetite.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Send for Me

Read: January 2022

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Send for Me

by Lauren Fox

Send for Me by Lauren Fox. Send for Me is an achingly beautiful work of historical fiction that moves between Germany on the eve of World War II and present-day Wisconsin, unspooling a thread of love, longing, and the constant push and pull of family. Annelise is a dreamer: imagining her future while working at her parents’ famous bakery in Feldenheim, Germany, anticipating all the delicious possibilities yet to come. There are rumors that anti-Jewish sentiment is on the rise, but Annelise and her parents can’t quite believe that it will affect them; they’re hardly religious at all. But as Annelise falls in love, marries, and gives birth to her daughter, the dangers grow closer: a brick was thrown through her window; a childhood friend who cuts ties with her; customers refuse to patronize the bakery.

This novel explores mothers and daughters, duty and obligation, hope and forgiveness of four generations of mothers and daughters – Klara, Annelise, Ruth, and Clare.

Klara is the matriarch who remains in Germany, where she dies at the beginning of the war. Annelise is her daughter who becomes a refugee in Milwaukee. The poignant letters from her mother ask for help to leave Germany and reunite with her daughter and granddaughter Ruthie, tying together the four generations.

The letters are found by Clara, who pays to have them translated. Can we ever escape from the past, and how does it shape our futures.

I enjoyed reading this book as I prefer historical fiction, especially about the rise of Germany and antisemitism.

Send for Me is also a reminder that we are refugees.

Our lives are forever intertwined between two cultures, the past and the future.

I highly recommend Send for Me.

 

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Nothing but the Truth

Read: December 2024

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Nothing But The Truth

by Robyn Gigl

Today, I started reading “Nothing But the Truth,” the fourth book in Robyn Gigl‘s Erin McCabe Legal Thriller series. The New York Times has selected it as one of the Best Crime Novels 2024. I have also read “The Hunter” and “Gods of Wood,” which are on the same list. Nothing but the Truth is a gripping and timely thriller exploring murder, prejudice, and police corruption.

One of the reasons I decided to read this novel is that it—and the entire series—takes place mainly in Union County, particularly in Cranford, my hometown! Erin McCabe and her law partner get salads from the Gourmet Deli, and she dines with her husband at the Cranford Hotel. In this installment, Erin McCabe, a transgender attorney from the Garden State, discovers that uncovering the Truth can be deadly.

New Jersey State Trooper Jon Mazer has been charged with killing Black investigative reporter Russell Marshall in a racially charged, headline-making murder. The evidence against criminal defense attorney Erin McCabe’s new client is overwhelming. The gun used is Mazer’s off-duty weapon. Fingerprints and carpet fibers link Mazer to the crime. And Mazer was patrolling Marshall’s neighborhood shortly before the victim took three bullets to the chest. Mazer’s argument? He’s a gay officer being set up to take the fall in an even bigger story.

Mazer swears he was a secret source for Marshall’s exposé about the Lords of Discipline. The covert gang operating within the New Jersey State Police is notorious for enforcing its code of harassing women, framing minorities, and out-powering any troopers who don’t play their rogue and racist games. With everyone from the governor to the county prosecutor on the wrong side of justice, Erin and her partner, Duane Swisher, are prepared to do anything to ensure Mazer doesn’t become another victim.

As Erin deals with an intensely personal issue at home and faces an uphill battle to prove her client’s innocence, she and Duane find themselves mired in a conspiracy of corruption more profound than they imagined—and far more dangerous than they feared.



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Let Us Descend: A Novel

Read: November 2023

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Let Us Descend: A Novel

by Jesmyn Ward

Today, I started reading Let Us Descend: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward. She is a two-time National Book Award winner, the youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, and a MacArthur Fellow. The book is a haunting masterpiece that is sure to become an instant classic. It tells the story of an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.

The book’s title is from Dante Alighieri’s Inferno: “‘Let us descend,’ the poet now began, ‘and enter this blind world.” Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, beautifully rendered yet heart-wrenching. The novel takes us on a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.

Annis is the reader’s guide through this hellscape, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her. As Annis struggles through the miles-long march, she turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout the journey, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history, spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.

Let Us Descend is a magnificent novel that inscribes Black American grief and joy in the very land of the American South. Ward’s writing takes you through the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the South, making this novel a masterwork for the ages.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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