...where I have root and the fare is liberally seasoned with pith and vinegar.
| The Digital Hausfrau ...where I have root and the fare is liberally seasoned with pith and vinegar. |
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I am on the mailing list for Bath & Body Works, which often sends out decent coupons. Last week, they sent me a coupon for a 30-day supply of their new Dr. Patricia Wexler MMPi Skin Regenerating Serum, ostensibly a $27.50 value. So I went to get it at the store nearby, but they didn't have any. In fact, the lady at the store said that they had only received 10 samples, but that she would be happy to put me on a list to be called if they got more. I gave her my name and number, but the list was about 100 people long, so I wasn't counting on a call.
But that wasn't very fair. I mean, I didn't ask for the sample, they offered!
So I called their customer service department at 1-800-395-1001, and explained the situation, and they were very nice about it. Apparently, this is a problem at Bath & Body Works shops all over. They are sending me a $30 gift card, good for anything at the store.
Do with this information what you will.
And here's another thing about my visit to the naturopath...the check-in lady measured me, and she swore that I'm 5'1". But I'm not! I'm 5'0". Maybe. If I stand up straight. And it's humid out. I explained this to her, and she insisted that her thingie was accurate.
Could it be the yoga? The imported Greek yogurt?
Can a person really grow an inch at 40 years old???
Apparently, some people have miscontrued my expressions of admiration for my sister's recent accomplishment in the field of weight loss, and its attendant verdent envy, as snarkiness. For the life of me, I don't know what in the choice of my words, or the tone of my writing could have given some people that impression.
So, let me say here, for the record:
Losing weight is hard. Keeping it off is harder. I should know. I've been at it since my mother took me to my first Weight Watchers meeting when I was 11 (probably $5 to attend, back then; hundreds in therapy since).
I have nothing but the utmost respect for those who try and wild rampaging jealousy for those who succeed.
I'm trying to turn all of that froth into something constructive. Why else would I have watched an half an hour hour of Dr. Phil this morning -- about some family where all of the brothers and sisters molested each other, no less! -- just to pass the time as I walked a mile and a half to nowhere?
How cool is this? I'm at the salon. I'm trying a new place and there are terminals here for when your color is setting! I got a good brow wax so far, and I'm feeling optimistic.
Want to hear something funny about how stupid I am?
I've been working on a video for Andrew. He's going to use it for camp staff recruitment. I'm not linking to the camp's site, because I don't want prospective parents to end up here, listening to the director's wife talk dirty, but you need to know that it's a camp for kids who lost a parent on 9/11, or at any time in the line of duty as a police officer or firefighter.
So, he wants this and he wants that, and we're having creative differences. And one of the things that we're differing on is that I want the intro music to stop at a certain point, and he wants it to keep going. I think it sounds better if the music fades and the mocked up credit have this cool starship fighter-like sound under them...the thing has a Star Wars theme, and I like it. We go back and forth on this when, suddenly, I look at him, aghast, and suggest that, just maybe, I've made an error and that the SOUND OF A SCREAMING F-18 is maybe not the best choice for the 9/11 camp video. We cracked up a lot.
Spent the day at the lake today. Boy, I hope that I am doing a good job of instilling a fear of cancer in my kids and that they grow up to avoid cigarettes and use sunscreen scrupulously, because I am a total washout. It's not even July, and I am way tan.
Off to the beach this weekend for a long-overdue visit with Sharon and Liza. See you all next week.
If you know me, or if you know anything about my preferred uniform, this is funny.
I was with my friends Karen and Tina on Friday night, having a cocktail or three, and I was talking about how I had ordered some new spring clothes from Ann Taylor, and I was waiting for them to arrive. (Being as short as I am, I like everything, even t-shirts, in petite sizes, which means mail order.) Among other things, I had gotten some fresh black t-shirts without grease stains on them and, I said, a new white t-shirt.
A white t-shirt?, Karen asked. What? For special occasions?
I had this excellent idea. Prep dinner in the morning, and then there will be lots of free time this afternoon when Emily gets home. We can do crafts and read together in front of the fire, and have fun while Jonah's still sleeping.
It's chicken curry night. I left the chicken and cilantro for later, diced the carrots and potatoes into a bowl of cold water, sliced the pepper and mushrooms, and pulled out a big honking onion. My knife slid through it, turning it into a nice small dice. The tears rolled down my face. One plopped onto the counter and, lo and behold, there wre little teeny bits of mascara floating in it.
Into the bathroom I went. How bad is the damage? Bad. Someone died bad. And I am due at the class Halloween party in less than half an hour.
Good thing I'm bringing cupcakes. The little buggers will forgive a lot when you come bearing sugar.
On a totally different note, I cam across this in my wanderings this morning. Read the post titled "Another Excerpt." It's a terrific piece of writing. Makes up for all the Bloggers for Bush I've had to sit through.
Almost.
Boo.
I'm just coming home from the manicure place. Good news and bad news.
Good news: Emily was a champ, and behaved appropirately for two hours.
Bad news: I paid seventeen dollars plus tip to have her fingers and toes polished.
More bad news: I hate my color. It's Essie, of course. "Sugar and Spice" It's hideous. Opaque light peach. Very proper. Virginal. Junior League. Prim, even. It's so not me.
More good news: It's nail polish, not a tattoo.
I figure that means I've come out about even.
It's a good idea, when using the hot glue gun to do crafts, not even for yourself, but for your six year old and her little cohort, to work next to the sink so that, when you drip some of the napalm on the tip of your dominant pointer finger, you can just run it under the cold water, solidifying the infernal mass and making it that much easier to remove, along with the several layers of skin directly beneath it.
You may thank me for this later.
Poor baby Jonah has this. It's not quite as bad as in the pictures, but it's pretty hideous.
And, let me just say, it's not doing much for his disposition.
I have some kind of heinous eye infection/irritation. It started on Sunday night, with a little itch after I took off my makeup. I rubbed it, so it felt better.
Now, for those of you who don't know this about me, let me say it again: I am a picker. I have no problem attacking my own body, sometimes causing not insignificant pain, in the quest for that orgasmic feeling that can follow. I squeeze every pimple, scratch every itch, remove every splinter, chew off every cuticle, and pull every scab. I'm not one of those girls who cut themselves or anyhing, but I did manage to give myself an ear infection from excess q-tipping. How's that for Picker Cred?
The point is that, when I say "I rubbed it," you should know that what I mean is "I nearly clawed it out of my head."
Monday morning, it was bright red and puffy and sealed shut with dried ooze. So I did what anyone would do, and I self-medicated. I found a bottle of only-slightly-expired eye drops in the cabinet and put them in. I took a Claritin, in case it was an allergic reaction, and went about my business. And, over the course of the day, things improved.
Then at night, well, you know: lather, rinse, and repeat. Itch, rub, go to sleep, wake up cruddy.
Finally, yesterday, my friend Shelly smartly pointed out that, if it was in fact the dreaded pinkeye, I'd want to deal with it before the kids both got it. So I found a doctor with a spot open in the afternoon, and got it checked out. No pinkeye. Just some Mystery Disease...Random Eye Rot. He gave me other, not-expired drops, and they've helped a bit, but it's still pretty red and puffy.
The biggest problem with all of this? Is it the itching? No. Is it the discomfort? No. The swelling? The redness? The watery goop? No, no, no.
It's the no makeup. I am too fucking old to go out in public looking like this.
Today at 2:00, I used last year's Valentine's present -- a gift certificate for a hot stone massage. An entirely pleasant experience, I can assure you.
As I was leaving, I thought to myself, "Well, Self, how would you really rate that experience?"
And I answered myself, "You know what, Self? Had better, had worse."
Better, you've heard all about...the weekend at the Saybrook Point Inn. Now, allow me a moment to tell you about worse.
Once, about ten years ago, I went with my mother-in-law to an NCJW luncheon. These things were annual fundraising events, and she would buy a table, or part of one, and Pam and I would get dragged along to some hotel ballroom where we would make nice, eat chicken, and hear some motivational-type speaker. This particular year -- hooray! -- my name was drawn for a door prize. I won an in-home massage for two. Sounds right up my alley, no?
As Andrew is not much of a massage fan, I invited Shelly to share with me. I called the woman on the card. I was a little apprehensive, as her voice (or what I could understand of it through her thick Slavic accent) sounded kind of old, but I figured, well, she's a professional, so.
Eventually, the big day came. Shelly and I were at my apartment, waiting. The doorbell rang. I opened the door and standing there was the doppelganger of my 7th grade music teacher, Mrs. Stojanovich, right down to the big scary bun in which she wore her hair. She was wearing support hose and a white nurse's uniform and shoes and carrying a bag, but, unlike other in-home massage therapists I've known, no table. And she must have been going on 70 years old.
I asked Mrs. Stojanovich about her conspicuous lack of a massage table, whereupon I was ushered into the bedroom and instructed to lie face down. Mrs. Stojanovich turned off the lights and spent the next 30 minutes rubbing my skin with something that may or may not been Crisco. No pressure whatsoever was involved in this rubbing. Periodically, she slowed down because she was nodding off.
Eventually, thankfully, it was over, and I could sit in the living room at watch television, snickering, while I waited for Shelly to endure her turn. We gave Mrs. Stojanovich a generous tip and filed the entire thing under S for "Someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny."
That day was today.
I just want you all to know that, in honor of the impending visit of friends and family, I've developed a, shall we say, spot, right on my forehead, just between my eyes, where Gwen Stefani or a not-Native-American-Indian woman would put a jewel.
I don't look like them, however. I look like this.
Yes, I'm back. and it was terrific. Totally mellow and relaxed...no one calling my name for 48 hours.
We got there on Friday at about 2 or 3 and, fortunately, the room was ready. It was a very excellent room for the three of us because, in addition to the two double beds, dresser-style furniture, tv, and all that, it had a really nice sitting area with a couch, coffee table, and two club chairs. This worked well for us, as we'd brought an abundant supply of wine and cheese and crackers and other goodies, and didn't feel like eating them sitting on beds. Oh, and the sitting area was next to the fireplace. We'll get back to that.
Ok, so we get there, check in, and have some snacks. Then Lisa and my mom headed down to the spa for their facials, but I had an hour to kill until mine, so I went to the indoor pool, read some of my dreadfully boring book club book and fell asleep. I woke up a bit later when some blowsy old broad pulled out her cell phone and started yacking on about her mother's feet. So I had a dip in the hot tub.
Then off to the spa. It was a very nice facial...no extractions necessary. Lots of steam and creams.
That night, we had dinner in the hotel dining room. I had a fish that I'd never had before called escolar. It was served backened, with avocado and tomato salad and lobster mashed potatoes, and I loved it. After dinner, we went back to the room, drank a little more, had the nice front desk boy come up and light a Duraflame log (at the Saybrook Point Inn, one is not allowed to do that for one's self!), and fell asleep early.
A bunch of insomniac freaks the lot of us, we were up in the morning before 7. We called room service for some coffee and hung out and watched tv. My mom headed down for a hot stone massage at 9, while Lisa and I went back to the dining room for breakfast. Lisa is on some cockamamie diet du jour that prohibits most of anything good, so she just had eggs and multigrain toast. I had eggs, too, but with the potatoes off of both plates. Bonus for me. To pay for my carboholic sins, I went with Lisa to the morning's Pilates and body sculpting classes. Enough exercise to feel virtuous, not enough to actually make me sweat and/or suffer. Perfect.
We all rendezvoused and dressed, and headed out on an adventure. We tried to go shopping in Old Lyme, Connecticut, a lovely old-style beach town but, given that it was late fall, things there were pretty much boarded up and ghostly. We had much better luck in Essex. I got two hotsy-totsy stretch nylon shirts, Lisa got a chenille scarf, and my mom got something, but I forget what. Then back to the room for more snacks, and off to the spa again!
Lisa had a Swedish massage, which I'm sure was very nice. But, wowee, did I love what I did! It was my best thing all weekend. I had the SPI Signature Treatment. First, the nice lady schmeared my entire body with some kind of coarse sea salt wax suspension. Then (this is the best part of the best part), I got into the shower. The Swedish shower. Imagine this: you're kind of blissed out, in a semi-dark room with some New Agey music piped in, and you get into the shower, which is basically six fire hoses shooting hot water at you. I so did not want to get out. But get out I did, back onto my heated table, where the nice lady then schmeared me with mud stuff, wrapped me in a mylar blanket, put some kind of feel-good tingly oil and a shower cap on my head, and left me to cook in my own juices.
It was at some point during this cooking process that I had my joyful epiphany: I was going to have to get back into the shower!
The lady came back, unwrapped me, and back into the shower I went. Five minutes? Twenty five minutes? Somewhere in between, I guess. I got schmeared once more, with moisturizer, and was done. I dressed and headed languidly back to the room.
We got sold out of the movie that night, which was probably just as well, since it was the one that really no one wanted to see, because we couldn't agree on a good one, so we went for dinner. We ended up at a charming little Vietnamese/Thai place, where we shared a bunch of stuff, rolled our eyes at the goofball waitress, and headed in for the night. The nice desk boy lit us another fire.
As you might expect, we were all asleep very very early.
As you also might expect, we were awake the next day very very early. We read the Times and went grubby to breakfast. Bluberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, and lots of coffee for me. Lox and bagel for mom. More eggs and multigrain toast for Lisa.
A slow time getting packed and dressed, happily watching CBS Sunday Morning, my very favorite show of the week, which I rarely get to view uninterrupted, if at all. Then back down to the spa.
Manicure, pedicure, brow shaping, and bikini wax. "Brazilian"? she asked. "No," I said, "but it's ok to be a little, you know, enthusiastic." Note to you all: don't do that.
And that is the story of my weekend.
Happy Birthday, Mom! Thanks for the vacation.
Here's something you may or may not know about me: I am a picker.
"A what?" you ask.
A picker. This means that, when it comes to my body, I am compulsively unable to leave well enough alone. No mosquito bite unscratched, no scab unpulled, no pimple unpopped...when stressed, I bite my nails to bloody stumps and tweeze my eyebrows late into the night. You get the idea. I don't know exactly what it is that I am trying to rid myself of through this process (therapy didn't go on that long, I guess), but, whatever it is, I am trying diligently to exorcise it, I can tell you that. I am into the self-abuse, as it were. I would have made a wonderful medieval penitent, happily wearing my hair shirt.
And how this pertains to skin care, well, that I can tell you in one word: Exfoliation.
We have already talked of my new love for Lush's Ocean Salt. I also enjoy Clinique's Exfoliating Scrub, which has the added bonus of being so mentholated that it makes your eyes water, and Aveda's Smoothing Body Polish, which is extra-crunchy.
Anyway, Lisa and Adam went away for the weekend right before they got here. They can do that kind of thing, as they don't have two kids to unload. Rather comfy, romantic, adults-only, and all that. And they brought me a present.
It's a bar of lavender soap made, likely, by a bunch of dope-smoking hippies on a commune (not that there's anything wrong with that). And here's the rub, so to speak: rather than being formed into a bar during the manufacturing process, the soap is poured directly into a small round piece of loofah to cool and set.
So, in my shower this morning, I was able to self-flagellate with this wonderful smelling stuff. And the loofah stayed nice and stiff and harsh, as the soap helped it hold its shape. Very invigorating but not quite painful, and the loofah won't likely stick around long enough to start growing mildew, as my old ones have been known to do.
Highly recommended to the other closet pickers in the crowd!