I had parked the car and was walking toward the movie theatres when my eye caught the window advertisements of the #1 Manicure and Spa in Morgan Hill. On a whim, not having any idea of what a "manicure" entailed, I entered and inquired as to the price of a basic. The Vietnamese man grabbed a menu from a stack of about ten menus and showed me my options.
I learned that for ten dollars I could get my nails painted with one of the numerous colors I saw in nail polish bottles lined against the wall near the front of the shop.
Mr X (not his actual name) seemed reluctant when I selected a glittery purple paint to put on my nails. He had broken English and I could not tell what I was doing wrong: whether I was selecting something inappropriate for my age, or something totally out of fashion, or perhaps it was my hiking boots that made him wonder why I was there at all. After repeatedly pointing at my choice, however, he finally accepted it and we moved on.
When I first sat down, I looked around and saw three other customers. Two women were seated along the wall sitting with their feet in a foot bath getting a pedicure. A third woman was sitting at a small table like the one I was at, also getting a manicure. Mr X and I chit-chatted in the beginning. I learned that he used to work in the field of electronics, installing cell phone chips but for the last two years, he worked at this spa.
I also learned that he was very adept with the instruments and had a gentle touch. First he had me dip each hand in soapy water. Then he dried them. Then he filed my nails with an emory board. Then he took a metal tip and removed the dirt from under my fingernails. I was a bit embarrassed about that since I don't usually have DIRT under my fingernails. Around this time, he also applied a dab of lotion to my hands. Then he took a block and buffed the top of my nails. Then he took another device and gently scraped the top of the nail. Then he took odd shaped clippers and clipped away tiny pieces of jagged skin above my nails. I was beginning to realize there was more to a manicure than just brushing on some paint.
Then he buffed again. Then he applied a clear undercoat on the nails. As he finished with one hand, I placed the other under a dryer. There was a small warm dryer sitting on my right and a tiny round fan that blew cool air next to my left hand.
Then he put a layer of color on my nails; it was purple. I dried each hand again under the dryers. Then he applied the glitter. After another brief spell with my ten fingers in front of the fans, I was sent to the front of the salon and placed both hands under a black light for ten minutes. That was the last segment of the manicure. It had taken about 45 minutes.
I looked at the finished product and loved it, and I don't think I've ever felt more a sense of being "groomed."
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After watching some episodes of Big Bang Theory, I got it in my head to jump on the internet and look up VLBA. It stands for Very Long Baseline Array and it's basically a set of ten radio telescopes that work together to create a very powerful astronomical instrument that is more sensitive than any single telescope on earth. I found out that they have renamed it Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) after the man who first discovered radiowaves in 1933. Mr. Jansky was working at Bell Labs in New Jersey. He was investigating the possible effects of storms on telephone communications. In setting up an antenna, he discovered unique signals from distant storms, nearby storms, and a third signal of unknown origin coming from the vicinity of Sagitarrius in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The New York Times published an article about the extraterrestial signal. Jansky wanted to set up another antenna to further investigate the signal, but Bell Labs did not want to spend money on something that did not pertain directly to the business. Jansky was removed from the project, and died at the early age of 44. Some say he might have received a Nobel Prize if he hadn't died so early.
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