Delightful Indulgence

It occurs to me that I am a woman of extravagant needs. I like my lattes at 140 degrees, I like my apples cut, I like my steak between rare and medium-rare, and I do not consider any cut of beef from top sirlion down to be "steak."

What can I say? I am picky. Picky Vicky :-)

I am equally so with people. While I love everybody (except three people), I only treasure a few. These are the ones that make me cry with a gift, a word, a look. These are the ones that make me laugh until I pee my pants. These are the ones that I have peed my pants in front of and they still like me.

These are also the ones I miss when they are away, the ones I miss when they are hiding, and the ones where distance doesn't prevent me from reaching them with my heart.

I spent the weekend with one such treasure and she made me cry with a gift and nearly pee my pants with laughter all in the space of a few precious hours. We went to a spa; even the thought of the irish lassie and me at an exclusive resort of any kind makes me laugh. Danger, Will Robinson!

We started with a truly extravagant breakfast - specifically the Country Breakfast for Two. Apparently, country folk are poooor-kers, cuz they brought us enough food to feed a small army of country bumpkins. It was served course style, starting with a selection of fresh-baked breads, followed by pancakes, oatmeal and eggs. In between and added to all of that were lattes, juices, our choice of four kinds of water, fresh fruit, yoghurt, devonshire cream, spiced apples, raisins and almonds, and steamed vanilla milk. "Eggs" turned out to be a lumberjack's portion of eggs cooked however we desired, thick-sliced bacon strips, apple sausage links and hashbrowns. Neither of us are lumberjacks. She took the remainders home in a few boxes.

Then we explored the extravagant lodge. Guestrooms are off limits - you must have a card key to even get on the floors...unless you are irish. With a skill that makes me wonder what she did before she became a business administrator, Irish Eyes quickly gained entry to the guest rooms and set a sure-footed pace for the maids cart sitting in the hall. She approached this cart no less than three times and each time was foiled by the maid or other hotel personnel popping their annoying little heads into the hall at the most inopportune times. At one point, she did a truly amazing imitation of Charlie's Angels and, if I hadn't just gone to the bathroom, I seriously would have peed my pants laughing. We left with no trial sized shampoos or creme rinses, the one sad moment of the day.

Empty-handed but with full bellies and an hour or so to kill until our spa treatments, we set out to hike down to the falls. We were told it was a short 20 min hike down, 35 mins back (ever wonder about the time difference when the distance is exactly the same? Downhill vs. a serious uphill which we failed to notice on the downhill trip, oops!).

Ignoring all CAUTION signs (she is, after all, irish, and apparently in Ireland CAUTION means something like "come hither"), we climbed down the steep incline at the end of the designated and FENCED path, using roots from trees to lower ourselves to the rocky shoreline below, and then bounced and bounded over massive and not-so-massive boulders to get as close as we possibly could to the beautiful falls.

There were interesting niches to explore and I played grunting cavewoman when I was certain Irish Eyes couldn't get her camera up fast enough. And then we set out on the return trip to take advantage of our complementary spa treatments which we truly needed by the time we made it back up to the lodge almost exactly 35 mins later :-)

And what a treatment! It was as extravagant as the breakfast and served in courses as well. First there were showers and slippers and robes and colored scarves so we could be easily identified. There were hot tubs with fountains and a view of the falls. There was a steam room and a dry sauna. And tea at every turn.

And then Heaven came down to earth in the form of heated sheets, hands, oils and stones. (Side note - I would have gone to sleep, but miss irish put forth this theory that the masseurs wait until you fall asleep then just stand around with their hands in their pockets, so I determined to pretend to fall asleep but really stay awake to see if this was true and it wasn't so I wasted a rare opportunity to fall asleep while my body was being caressed, darn it.)

It was...amazing. Afterwards, we rejoined to soak a bit longer in the hot tubs where we noticed signs indicating NO TALKING ALLOWED. Oops! Our bad, we didn't see that the first time. But really, what pish-tosh! Does anyone really think the two of us in particular are gonna sit in the same room and not talk? It's just not possible.

We managed to keep it low and slow, though, mainly because we had just been reduced to gelatinous blobs of non-energy by an excess of food, exercise and other people's hands. Eventually, we decided that we were evaporating and should probably head home; we made our way to the lockers passing a small but delightfully furnished meditation room. Both being of a craftsy nature, we stopped to investigate this lovely room where we found teas and energy elixirs available for our convenience.

Just as with the CAUTION sign, "for our convenience" translates for some into "for your later consumption," and I felt something thrust into my hand and, without moving her lips, I heard her speak. It was the damned scariest thing ever to see her looking for all the world like a mute, but hearing "Put these in your pocket." I always, always obey the irish, and so I did. Then we mixed ourselves a drink.

Our choices of health elixirs included Depth Recharger, Mind Over Muddle, Virtual Buddha, and Power Plant amongst a few others. With no instructions to guide us, I did what I normally do and waited to see what she did. She confidently picked up a ceramic tea cup, shot two full squirts of Depth Recharger (for quick energy, it said) into her cup, topped it with a little hot water and gulped it down. I had just picked up my ceramic cup and was heading for the Mind Over Muddle Elixir when she popped up to her full height, and her eyes popped open wider than I woudl have thought humanly possible. "Wow!" she said, "That certainly worked quick!"

When I finally STOPPED laughing and was fairly certain I had the urge to pee my pants back under control, I looked at the Mind Over Muddle Elixir and determined that perhaps I would start with just one squirt, not two. In the meantime, she went on to have a second cup and, because I'd nearly fallen off my feet laughing at her initial reaction, I had a cup of Virtual Buddha, said to restore creativity and balance.

Then it was off to the locker room to change back into street clothes, off to the car and home again, home again, jiggidy jig, where she promptly removed a sledgehammer, mallet and cordless drill from the boot of her car to affix the lovely mailbox she made me to its crooked post at the end of my drive. Then goodbyes and thanks for the lovely time, and thanks for the beautiful mailbox, and I went in the house to take a nap that lasted a little under 10 hours, and she went home to likely scrub her kitchen floors, till her garden and install new shingles on her roof until the rest of the Depth Recharger wore off and she crashed for the night.

By the way, has anyone seen her since Sunday?