The Gelato Virgin (and Other Stories)

What love at first sight looks like

Admittedly, I am a bit dorksome. I take horrible care of my feet and don't like to shave my legs in the winter due to the invariable appearance of mid-shave goosebumps. Bad, very bad. An early spring pedicure appointment seemed like a great way to avoid the usual embarrassment of having unseasonably ill-kempt feet. The perfect camouflage.

I recently re-met Rachel (Oliver) Lassel after nearly nine years of complete absenteeism. (We'd basically forgotten about each other post-college, keeping in touch occasionally via networking sites. Then we discovered the map-friendly happiness of our relative proximity, immediately rekindled our love. Ha.) Anyway, so we have this thing going with the weather. It can be absolute crap outside for weeks, but the day we're meeting somewhere — gorgeous. No lie. Pedicure day shined in at 70º, sunny with a light breeze. Perfect flip-flop weather.

Rachel accompanied me to Beauty Brands on the good ol' plaza, where we got long foot scrubbies and pretty toenails. Ah. Time for lunch. We hit up Re:Verse, which was as trendy as the name implies, but their one server was a nervous-making combination of overzealous and zany. Most of my salad blew away in the breeze, which by this time had worked into a stiff wind. It was funny, actually, because I didn't want to eat it anyway.

Revelling in the gorgeousness of the outdoors, I spied a (new?) gelato place off Brush Creek. I didn't believe Rachel when she said she'd never had gelato. Half an hour in line later — no lie, the weather drew a huge crowd —, we'd talked to a lovely woman in line for so long that it was actually weird when she left without us. Ditcher. But then I had a half scoop banana, half scoop peanut butter cup of heaven that deserved my full attention. Rachel's scoop o' tiramisu proved unshareable unless I won a shovel-spoon duel. For the record, Balsano's homemade gelato is worth the wait. Promise.

Who knew they had mud masks for feet? It's minty in there.

Rach truly enjoyed the massage portion.