SPARKY VISITS THE SYBARTIC SPA

Adjusting to getting old is not only hard work; it seems to be a full-time job. In terms of personal grooming, the activity that ties me up in knots like a pretzel is attempting to trim my own toenails. The fact that I am on blood thinner medication makes the endeavor even more tentative as I do not want to poke myself and be faced with ugly bleeding.

I expeditiously accessed my congregant thinking style and, amazingly, decided to ask some of my soup ladies for assistance. This represents a major breakthrough for me since, according to the stainless steel model that I have worn all these years, I am self-contained and do not hesitate to give assistance to other people but asking for help myself is not a part of the package. Using the metaphor, which, if truth be known, has been suggested to me before, I visualized riding in a pressurized cabin in an airplane and, if the oxygen was depleted, masks would drop out of an overhead compartment and my task would be to put on mine before I turned to the assistance of people around me.

The response of my friends to my asking for help was nothing short of astonishing and I was given an enormous amount of data with great eagerness and not even a touch of shame. In fact, my friends seemed delighted to be asked about this information: I concluded that it represents an important part of intimacy but I had to struggle with that idea for a bit.

Equipped with totally new information I then decided that I was going to check out a spa and compare it with a referral from my primary-care physician to podiatry in order to assess my comfortableness with either option.

I have just returned from the spa having learned an enormous amount of important information. The spa was totally brand-new having opened three months ago. It was located, very conveniently, near my house. I walked in and all the ladies who work there were Vietnamese and I doubt the tallest of them was more than 5 feet in height. Of course, and I expected this, I was the only male person on the premises. Through a complex selection procedure which was totally unknown to me, I was assigned a tiny, lovely older woman whose name was, delightfully, Nga. (Pronounced Na) She put my feet in a spotlessly clean footbath and I had a series of delightful unguents and emollients rubbed upon my feet.

Then my toenails individually introduced themselves to my Spa Lady and were taken care of in an extremely detailed manner. A gentle foot massage followed with much talk between Na and me. Among the many pieces of information she shared, I found out that Vietnamese people really enjoy hugging each other and we sadly agreed that Western cultures did not have such freedom.

Since I had been dared to have my picture taken while getting the pedicure, that was my first order of business and the picture was taken with much giggling from both the staff and customers.

What have I learned so far? How self nurturing it is to ask your friends for help, how respecting your body is a sign of positive self-esteem, and how stupid I have been to not have done this earlier.

I will proceed to contrast this spa with a referral from my primary-care physician to podiatry in order to compare the village approach with the high-tech approach.