On a lighter note

Since I was grumpy in the last post, I'll try to be more upbeat. (That was Thursday night, the end of my week; today is the first day of a three-day weekend!)

Several nice things have happened lately. Last week I took my car in to have the interior "detailed." Now it is all clean and shiny inside. No more dog nose prints on the windows. The seats and carpets are clean. There is no dust, no schmutz, no ground cereal in every crevice. Even the scratches on the dash from Tucker's toenails seem much less noticeable. It's like having a new car! Which is nice for a little Corolla that just rolled over 100,000 miles (in less than five years!).

The other thing was that my daughters and son-in-law gave me a gift certificate for my birthday for massages at a local spa. I went in for the first one on Sunday afternoon. The gift was well-timed because my back had really been hurting lately. I've only ever had a few massages, and they were all the Swedish style. I've never had any Shiatsu, except perhaps for a 10-minute chair massage. This place does "fusion" massage, which means they combine the two styles. I'm no massage expert, but I believe Shiatsu is the sort of massage where they find the little balls of muscle tension and work them slowly toward a bone, where they press on them while you ponder just how long you can tolerate whatever level of pain this is called. My masseuse's name was Sunshine. She was quiet, a little shy, but she has arms and fingers of steel. The room was toasty warm and dark, and they had a CD of ocean waves playing. The massage was great, especially after it was over. Sunshine says I should not be feeling "discomfort" during the massage, so I guess next time I'll have to have her back off a bit, but I thought this was one of those no-pain-no-gain instances. Want to get my money's worth and all that. I could go for another one right about now.

Update: I wrote the first part of this post yesterday at the beauty salon while getting a perm. Then I published it hastily last night before bed, tired and with an aching head. Thus I forgot to mention the outcome of the massage. My neck, shoulders, and back, which had been a mat of knots and taut muscles, was all relaxed and supple again. For the next couple days I was afraid to make any quick movements, or sit funny, or sleep for fear I would screw it all back up again. It still feels pretty good, but I'm going to be looking forward to my next one in a few weeks.