I did something I said I’d never do again a couple of weeks ago. I got myself one of those big manicures with the acrylic nails and all. No nail charms mind you. I’m talking about a very simple and quite short but totally fake French manicure. It was gorgeous, while it lasted. And I walked around my house when no one else was looking, arms extended, just admiring it. Beautiful, blunt, sparkling white-tipped, perfectly shaped, sophisticated fingernails.

My 9- and 10-year olds caught me in the act a few times and just rolled their eyes. C. my son, told me he thought they were “dumb”. And there may have been some truth in what he said, because with my owning and caring for five horses, the lifespan of this extravagant beauty boondoggle was about three days.

I have resigned myself to the idea that I can’t have “movie star” hands. But that said, I still feel envious when I see beautifully groomed women shopping at Whole Foods, pushing their cart around, sipping a latte, their hands dripping in diamonds (or cubic zirconia?) and punctuated in short, ivory-tipped nails.

And then thinking about it a little further, I’ve asked myself why I did that to myself? You know? Why would any sane outdoorsy woman have plastic and acrylic superglued to her fingertips and toenails? The acrylic pedicure thing doesn’t work too well with riding boots either, especially riding my young Percheron X at a rousing rising trot for miles. I’ve definitely decided that we use our toes much more in riding than we ever think about. I’m from the “toes up” school, which helps to lengthen the back of my legs and keep my heels down and back without forcing it.

I had a piano teacher once who told me about a student of his who had the long, dragon-lady nails, complete with nail charms and whatever other doo-daddeys can be affixed to those things. He said she was a passable pianist and with practice could have been quite good. But he told her the nails were going to have to go. That she couldn’t play Chopin or practice her scales with those blood-tipped tiger claws.

Apparently, she never came back. Chose the Lee nails (remember those commercials?) over Mozart and the joy of playing the piano.

I have simple, short fingernails and an equally simple but neat pedicure. Occasionally I decorate them with a little barely nude pink polish.

My horses have beautifully combed out manes and tails, shiny coats, clean stalls and corrals. Sometimes, they are better groomed than I, the middle-aged woman with the wind in my hair and the smell of oats and alfalfa in my nostrils.

I suspect I'll give the big manicure another try here in a few years.