Plums, Banyas, Zenubi-Wan Kenobi, Snapping Turtles, Etc.

There's a crappy cell phone photo of my little piggies, newly painted to look like ripe little plums.

I don't often get pedicures. The last one was probably eight months ago--no, it was last May, nine months ago. But today was a kind of treat day for me and Kelly Workout because poor Kelly was laid off from her job on Wednesday and so she was totally willing to spend the afternoon in hardcore treat-yourself mode.

Welcome to the Recession! Pedicures for the Proletariat!

(Actually, we went in whole hog and had manicures (Kelly's first!), too.)

Luckily, Kelly's got eight weeks of work followed by six months of severance pay, and she had an interview for a new job lined up before she even knew that she was going to be laid off, so she'll be okay for a bit. That, plus her partner has a few jobs on the horizon on one of the many movies soon to begin filming in our poor little state. (Apparently the next Spiderman movie is being filmed here, as well as some romcom with Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant--who we both agreed is not aging well.)

Anyway, we had our little tootsies done after a good-bye lunch for Sergei, the newly visa'd, pastry-addicted Belorussian. His contract was not renewed (they strung him along for a time, suggesting that they would renew it, then saying that they were trying to hire him permanently, then saying that they wouldn't renew--and why he hasn't yet gone postal is beyond me). Anyway, his last day was today. (He's trying for a job in California and is flying out there next week for an interview.) I tried to talk Sergei into blowing off the rest of the workday and coming with Kelly and me for some sweet, sweet foot lovin'--I even told him I'd take him for a sauna and massage after, since I hear that Russians are big on the banya and there's a place near my house that does a sauna and a soak for, like, $11--but he wouldn't bite. He said, "That sounds nice, but I still have to finish my work today," and I was, like, "Screw that. Let's go. What are they going to do? Fire you?" But he decided to be a good little webbis anyway.

After the pedis, I came home and ran into Kelly First, who updated me on the cosmos. Apparently Comet Lulin is passing our way in the morning. She followed up the verbal warning with an email that read, in part:

Sky Watch. And I quote: "There will be a brief dark window in which to observe Comet Lulin paired with the star Zuben-el-genubi, located to the lower left of bright Spica. After tonight, the moon interferes with the comet, which sports a plasma tail and an unusual anti-tail."

Moonset is at 5:34am.

Got it? all you have to do is find Spica and Zuben-el-genubi is to the left. And there you are. I am not so sure that I approve of this moon interfering with comets either.

So I haven't yet decided if it's going to be worth it to stumble out at 5:34 in the morning to find Spica and Zuben-el-genubi. (What do you think? Would you do it?)

Sky Watch cracks me up. It's like one of those old-timey recipes that starts out with something like: "Clean a freshly caught snapping turtle by cutting the turtle's head off and hanging upside down overnight to eliminate the blood. The next day nail or otherwise fasten the upside down turtle's tail to a stump so that most of the shell hangs off the stump but is parallel to the stump surface."

(Those are actual directions that I found by Googling "turtle recipe," by the way.)

I'm always, like, wha--? Is that a joke? Where in the hell do I even get a freshly caught snapping turtle? Do I have what it takes to cut off a turtle's head and then nail it to a stump? (And have you ever seen a snapping turtle up close? Those things can do some real damage if you don't know how to handle them correctly.) And where in the hell is Zuben-el-genubi anyway? Isn't that Obi-Wan Kenobi's uncle?

I don't know, but probably 5:34 a.m. is going to find me and my little plum-hued piggies snuggled up in a warm bed.