Spa Day

There is nothing more relaxing than a day at the spa.  Right?

Thanks to Living Social (a coupon site that offers extreme discounts on things – if you haven’t check them out – do so now!) my girlfriends and I found ourselves spending the day at a resort and spa. We took advantage of every ounce of discounted spa goodness, arriving at 9:00 a.m. for our 3:00 p.m. appointments.   Some say we are crazy – I say we were dedicated to the sport of relaxation.  We happily started our staycation with a beachfront tiki hut, followed by fruity cocktails and yummy lunch.  We napped, we swam, we tanned, and we relaxed.  

As any good spa-goer knows, you need to start off with a niece steam to relax your muscles.  I spent a few minutes in the steam room, then joined the girls on the lounge chairs with our waters and champagne awaiting my first treatment – a massage.

I’m not one to talk during a massage, pedicure, wax, what have you. I find it a bit awkward and would prefer to drift into the happy place; somewhere between sleep and consciousness where no one is really bothering you and your mind is just kind of jelly.  Apparently my masseuse didn’t get the memo.  She was chatty.  To make things worse her accent was very strong and we spent the first ten minutes with her saying something, me saying a muffled “what?”, face down with my head in that holder thingy, her repeating herself, me muffling  a “what?” her repeating herself and me finally me just saying ‘k’. I figured the “k” was a universal answer, basically covered any question/answer conversation.

 Somewhere during the back and forth it came out that I have lower back pain (actually diagnosed as a S.I. joint that pops out, really, I was NOT about to get technical with my new friend).  My dear masseuse was very sympathetic and decided to put hot towels on the painful area.  Perfect! Thank you.  She then decided each time the towel cooled, she would remind me that she was putting a new towel on and would insist that each night I would do the same.  ‘K’ got it. I said. Over, and over, and over again.  We did the towel reminder/ “k” about 20 times during the 60 minutes I was laying there. 

All was good; we got into a rhythm, her talking about towels, me drifting in and out of my conscious “k” when she got to my legs.  Before you ask – yes my legs were shaved! Geese!

 Apparently, I have spider veins.  They’ve never been a big deal, don’t hurt and quite frankly are much better looking than most members of my family’s veins so I never worried about them.  Not so for this chic.  She screeched! She stopped.  She halted my relaxing mojo to insist that I don’t get my legs too hot, no hot tubs, no hot showers (SHIT! I’m thinking, I just steamed for like 20 minutes, am I going to need an ambulance to the ER?) 

“K”, “K”, “K” I repeat over and over again. Yes I will be careful with my legs. Yes, only cold showers. Yes, I won’t sit too long, I won’t stand too long, I won’t cross my legs too much.  I’ll agree to anything to get her to stop talking about my veins.  This is my day of relaxation and my clock is ticking and now I am brainstorming all the ways I can hide spider veins.

The massage ends, I thank her, take my glass of champagne and head to the relaxation zone with my girlfriends.  Unfortunately my spider veins and bad back have made an impression on this poor soul.  She follows me out to the lobby area, insists on telling me again, loudly about how to cure my broken body.  People turn, whisper, give me strange looks.  Now, all of that stress and worry that she was supposed to massage away is back – I’m showing my friends my legs, worried about back pain and staying far far away from anything steamy. 

One of my girlfriends called the other day, turns out Living Social ran a special on Sunday - $500 worth of spider vein removal for $99.  I might just have to try that….