Hope-y Says Relax

I played hooky last Friday. It was so great, my friend Liza and I both took the day off and used some gift certificates that my sister had given me to have a spa day. The only thing better than a spa day is having a spa day when you know that you’re supposed to be at work. And the only thing better than having a spa day when you’re supposed to be at work is having on the Friday before a long weekend. We got out of there all relaxed and moisturized and had three whole days of freedom to look forward to. Totally sweet.

I started off with a massage. I was starting to feel pretty guilty about indulging myself so much (Especially since all of the employees kept asking me if it was my birthday. Can’t a girl spend the day getting pampered for no other reason than she wants to relax?). And then the massage started. I’ve had a few massages in my life, but this one was amazing. The table was heated! Instead of putting a pillow under your knees, the table curved just in the right place! I spent the entire hour alternating between total relaxation and a vain attempt to keep myself from drooling. At the end of it, the massage therapist said, “Wow, you really needed that, huh?”

I started to feel a lot less guilty.

After the massage, I put on the fluffiest robe ever and walked down the hallway to get my facial. The whole facial experience can pretty much be summed up as “mmmm…. relaxing….. ouch! pinchy! mmmm…. relaxing” I was informed that I need to start exfoliating (exfoli-what-iating?), but that I otherwise have great skin. I neglected to tell the nice lady that I usually wash my face with an astringent designed for teenagers (bad Hope!). No need to get myself in trouble!

The best part of the facial was when she covered my face in a masque, put my hands (covered in moisturizer) in these little warming mittens, plopped a couple of cucumbers on my eyes and let me have nap time. I was too busy relaxing to actually sleep, but to just lie there with my hands all warm and my face all (pleasantly) goopy was just awesome. It totally made up for her squeezing the shit out of my pores.

Then it was time for the spa manicure and pedicure. This is where my friend rejoined me and we swapped stories of how great our massages had been and thumbed through US Weekly. There was a girl in the nail salon getting herself done up for her wedding the next day and we wished her well and watched her attempt to relax. We had a nice conversation with the girls who were doing our nails and I gave one of them the luna bar that I had in my bag, because we found out that she had skipped lunch that day (thanks to a client being twenty minutes late and still insisting on her full appointment time). I’d been told that spa mani/pedis were a colossal waste of money, but Kristian couldn’t stop raving about how soft my hands were when I got home. In fact, they still feel great (even though the polish is chipping already… that’s just my inability to keep a manicure looking nice).

So, in short, every woman (if she’s able to) should really spend a day indulging herself. I found out that the reason that everyone kept asking if it was my birthday was that most women only go in when they have a gift certificate. I think that a lot of women have a hard time doing something that is just for them. But, you know what? Life is stressful, we end up taking care of other people all day and sometimes you just have to take some time to relax.

Of course, if you’re going to take a day to work the kinks out like that, you probably shouldn’t sleep on the world’s most uncomfortable futon two nights later. Oops.