So.
Many of you suggested, after reading my last post, something along the lines of: for crissakes you freaking ass clown, why don’t you go to a normal SPA instead of this craziness with ‘massage therapists’ who leave giant bruises all over you??
Well, you all said it much nicer than that, but that’s probably what I would have said after reading someone’s post about the burly body worker from HELL.
So that’s what we did on Saturday. BeBop and I went to a real live, reputable, not-Mother-recommended Japanese-style spa in San Francisco. (And at this point I will NOT be telling you that part of the traditional Japanese-style spa experience includes an all-nude bath house portion, where patrons loll about in their skin suits and partake in the steam room, sauna and jacuzzi tubs. This will NOT be discussed because unfortunately for me, and my husband Saturday was men’s day which meant that BeBop had the opportunity to participate in the above-mentioned extras, which he did, following his massage. And I’m sure you can imagine the atmosphere in an all-male bath house in the heart of San Francisco. Do I have to draw you a picture? No? Good. Because I’m not sure I would know how to draw that. Let’s just say it wasn’t exactly BeBop’s scene, in that he prefers women to men in a sexual sense and we’ll just leave it at that. But like I said I cannot discuss this portion of the morning because he would never forgive me.) (He did not go into details, only to say it was ‘cruisey.’ Which sounds perf if you are a gay man, but for a straight married dude? NOT SO MUCH.)
Now that I’m done NOT telling you how BeBop practically had his towel welded to his body in that bath house, I can share with you the treatment I had…it’s called a Lular body treatment, and I actually had the same one done at the same spa five years go, the day before we got married.
It’s a traditional Indonesian ritual used in the islands of Bali and Java to prepare a woman for her wedding. Which is why when a friend offered to treat me to a Lular massage before my wedding, I happily accepted her most generous offer.
The sad funny part about the last time I had this treatment done, it was the day before my wedding. So if you do the math, it was approximately ten weeks after my scheduled wedding which, as most of you already know, we had to cancel after September 11th. So, in those intervening ten weeks, I managed to successfully drink almost all of the wine we’d planned on serving our 125 guests in Yosemite.
Cases and CASES of wine, people! It seemed like each night after work and a grueling commute, I was opening yet another bottle. Bottle after bottle after BOTTLE. And BeBop would just roll his eyes, knowing better than to say anything to me.
And the night before the night before our wedding, (which a NORMAL person would write as ‘two nights before…’) which was the night before my Lular, my stomach was so upset all I could do was shovel fistful after fistful of sour dough bread down my gullet. Even though BeBop’s parents were in town for the ceremony and took us to a delicious seafood restaurant, the only food I could see was that bread in that YOU BETTER KEEP IT COMING MOTHER EFFER bread basket.
So, the following day when I disrobed in preparation for my relaxing and rejuvenating spa treatment, I gasped at the horrific vision that stared back at me in the mirror.
Seriously.
In case you’re wondering, ten weeks of a Chardonnay and Merlot diet plus one night of a sour dough eating frenzy can make a girl bloat up like one of those air mattresses you keep in the closet for overnight guests. Just FYI.
So annnyyyywayyyy….long story even LONGER, this time around–a little over five years later–I didn’t have exactly the same reaction when I disrobed. I’ve managed to shed some of that poor-me-I-had-to-cancel-my-wedding-and-proceeded-to-drink-the-next-two-and-a-half-months-away figure.
In addition to the slightly improved body image issues (although? As a quick aside, I did recently share my photo with a reader and felt compelled to add a disclaimer saying I’d lost some of the extra poundage and mention that IF I could look like Nicole Richie and STILL be able to bear children and walk upright unassisted I would totally do it, so I guess all is NOT well on this issue…).
But this weekend, I felt like I was in a very different (read: better) place than I was five years ago. And I was anxious to experience this treatment again and this time, instead of focusing on how depressed I was and frick! I am getting married in a day and I will most certainly look like Free Willie in a veil, I focused my energy on starting our IVF cycle. It was, in a weird way, sort of a full circle moment.
The Lular treatment begins with a luxurious massage with Jasmine Frangipani scented flower oil and continues with Lulur, a tumeric and rice skin scrub applied lightly to exfoliate and sweeten the skin. After the skin has been cleansed, your body is pampered with a traditional yogurt application and an exotic flower bath.
(And yes, I copied that from some spa’s website.)
But it’s a lovely and very relaxing process and the point is to prepare you for a major life transition, so I thought it was just the perfect way to spend a Saturday. No healers who belch on you, claiming to be releasing your toxins (YEAH RIGHT), no healers talking to angels and zapping you with mysterious machines, no 6′ 4" body workers pressing on you with all their strength, asking about your bowel movements and berating you for not expressing your emotions in a more positive way.
After the treatments (and BeBop had recovered from his I’m straight and very accepting of the gay lifestyle but would prefer not to spend time in a clothes free all male bath house environment, thankyouverymuch experience) we went to lunch. He ordered his much-loved Pho, and when he discovered that his MUCH much-loved fish sauce was at the bottom of the bowl under the noodles and the lettuce and the veggies and the meat, he remarked that he had to toss his own salad.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA," he chortled. "I have to TOSS MY OWN SALAD!" he said, cracking himself up.
I did not think this was appropriate given his experience earlier that morning.
And then, in typical BeBop fashion, he pointed his chopsticks at an egg roll and said [to the EGG ROLL], "You’re going downtown. You’re going downtown to Chinatown," and shoved the entire thing in his mouth.
And that? That’s a pretty typical day in the Watson/BeBop universe. (Except for the bath house part.) (Except that I never mentioned THAT in the first place so just forget I said anything.)
Ahem. Moving on…
Coming soon:
Our First Lupron Shot: Not Very Much Fun, But Not So Bad Either
Subtitled:
I Don’t Think I’m Experiencing Any Side Effects Yet But I Did Threaten That When I Discovered Who Took Today’s Chronicle From The Kitchen I Would Kick Them In The Balls
by Watson
you are too much. so funny! well i’m glad you learned your lesson…what’s that saying? send me to a body brusier/shaman/healer mystic/crackhead/pastor/neuropath/rock therapist… once shame on you…send me body brusier/shaman/healer mystic/crackhead/pastor/neuropath/rock therapist once shame on *me*
right?
Indeed, skip the mother-recommended therapies in favor of spa therapy. With or without the sourdough, spa therapy effing rocks.
Good luck with the Lupron… are you doing Gonal-F pens? Those needles are much skinnier, for what it’s worth.
OH GOD-I had that Balinese massage once, too (funnily enough, I had my massage while in Bali and done by the tiniest Balinese woman known to mankind). I would wipe out whole villages to have one of those massages again, they were so amazing.
awesome! i love when little things go wrong, like all male bath-house day and fish sauce on the bottom, because then i feel like i’m getting them out of the way so the big things can go right, like fantastic massages.
and don’t worry about my belly picture, apparently no one else is having that reaction! i think i just suck at injecting myself, i’m not very methodical or careful about the whole thing, i kindda just shove them in.
OK first off, your post makes me PINE!!!! D and I met in grad school in SF and we miss it terribly. With any luck we’ll get back there one day. I even miss the cruisiness.
Second, we’ve been doing a lot of Indian cooking here lately, and what you did at the spa this weekend was make Tandoori Human. All you needed was a tanning booth! It sounds marvelous.
Your massage sounds like an EXCELLENT way to relax. Much better than getting the shit kicked out of you.
I started my cycle off with a wrap at the spa on Friday night. I think that is just how it is done. Go to the spa, then start jabbing yourself with needles.
OOh that sounds divine…. (totally of course NOT BeBop in the spahouse thingo because of course you didn’t mention it)- I mean the Lular thingy….
Great – I’m sitting here drinking my second glass of wine of the night and I just almost peed myself.
Oh well, by the third glass I’ll have forgotten all about it…oh sh*t, and I just realized that I had an egg salad sandwich on sourdough bread for lunch – um, I don’t want to be Free Willy – but I really want another glass of wine…
It was me! I was the reader she shared her picture with!! I totally know what she looks like. Contact me and I’ll tell you her real name, place of business, and phone number.
Watson – great Fokker quote.
Glad you had a better time at the spa. Sorry bepop had to experience the gay sausage hang. NOT that there’s anything wrong with that.
Oh THANKS for nothing, Smarshy!
You couldn’t have at least said, ‘and by the way she doesn’t look like Free Willie’?
Or maybe I do, and I’m totally in denial, in which case — thank you for not saying anything at all.
And sorry I referred to you as a ‘reader.’ That sounds sooo lame (like I have so many!) and plus, you are much more than just a reader to me!!!
I’m so glad you got to enjoy an actual massage. But admit it. You missed discussing your bowel movements.
Are you *sure* Bath House Day didn’t up his self-esteem just a smidge? I mean, if he’s talking about Tossing His Own Salad, it sounds like a certain someone has taken quite a shine to himself!
And that massage sounds positively divine. I usually hate the thought of any stranger pressing different and sundry bits of my naked puffy parts – but anything that “sweetens” the skin must be good.
Dear Watson, now that’s more like it! Poor Bebop.
Dear “other readers”: Watson is as beautiful on the outside as she is funny on the inside. When I looked at her picture, “free willie” was as far from my mind as it was from bepops mind on “gay day” at the rub-n-tug.
How come Smarshy gets a pic and I don’t? (I’ll show you one of me if you show me one of you!)
Sounds like a fantastic way to begin a cycle. Seriously, I don’t know that I could get J within a hundred yards of a Lular body treatment. Go you and BeBop!
Oh, that sounds so much better than the bruising body worker, et al.! I wish we had a place like that around here.
Shit. Now I have to dig money out of our vacation account to go get a massage.
Come on, fess up…did you at least get to peek into the maleness bath?
Golly, thanks Smarshy!
[she says bashfully, kicking foot across the ground in front of her]
Of course now I can’t share my pic with anyone, for fear they will be sorely disappointed 🙂
Yep, you make me laugh.
Am sure you are as pretty as you are funny. How cool would it be to have a mass unveiling of ourselves in blog land? FlyGuy says he doesn’t mind if I share his photo- that’s because he’s a hottie. Men. Have they no shame? Does it take nakedness in a bath house for them to blush?
Would love to feel so confident.
xoxo
I hate spitting water all over my keyboard, I’m making you pay for the next one..I swear 🙂
this post was just too funny. Glad you got a good massage and glad BeBop got out in one piece..
Fantastic post – thanks for the laugh and glad the massage wasn’t brutal.
Improved body image and a spa day… I am so jealous!