A Thousand Miles From The Place I Was Born

As I was preparing to come visit CCB in Toronto, I found myself in desperate need of a facial but no time to schedule one. Being ever the quick-thinker, I remembered that there was a spa in CCB’s condo building, so I asked him if he’d make an appointment for me. I fully intended to pay for it, but being the awesome boyfriend that he is, he insisted on treating me. Furthermore, instead of booking a simple facial, he booked me an entire spa day, which included a manicure, pedicure, facial, eyebrow waxing and reflexology. I know he’s been worried about me since I was diagnosed with fibro and this is his way of taking care of me, so I went along with it. And hey, who in their right mind is going to turn down an entire spa day anyway??

So yesterday was the day. I took the elevator in his building down to the second floor just like he told me and followed the maze of hallways to the spa. When I got there, I was greeted by a gorgeous Romanian girl who set me up in the foot bath and told me that someone would be right along to get started with me. A few minutes later, another woman came in and began my pedicure.

She had short, spiky dark hair with blonde tips and looked to be somewhere in her 50’s. She work black-rimmed glasses worn low on the bridge of her nose, and she peered over them to look at me. She spoke with a thicker Romanian accent than the first girl did and although she was friendly, she had a brusque, no-nonsense demeanor about her.

The pedicure was lovely, punctuated with her gravelly voice barking out commands: “Foot!” when she wanted me to bring my foot out of the water and “In!” when I was to return it to the bath. When it came time for the polish, she picked up the bottle that I had chosen and said, “This is what you choose?” I nodded, and she clucked her tongue and shook her head in obvious disapproval. I thought that was funny, so I smiled and suppressed a laugh. Her eyes darted to my face, peering over those black frames and in a harsh voice, she asked, “It is funny to you?” My face dissolved into a mask of solemnity and I quickly replied, “No… nothing’s funny.” I resisted the urge to add “Sir” and made a mental note to not joke around with this one.

She knew that my spa day had been a gift from my boyfriend, so she began to grill me about our relationship. When I tried to summarize by saying that we had two girls, she interpreted that to mean that he had fathered two children with me and still hadn’t married me. Because of the language barrier, I didn’t bother correcting her, but I should have because that became a point of contention for her later. At one point, she refused to allow me to refer to him as my boyfriend. “He make two babies with you, he is HUSBAND! You tell him to marry you!” she insisted.

During my pedicure, she massaged my calves and feet and firmly pressed her thumb into the soft flesh of my calf until I winced. Again, the eyes peering over the glasses and a brusque, “This hurt you?” I replied that it was a little uncomfortable, yes, and she replied with a solemn nod. She repeated the maneuver on the arch of my foot, which also hurt. When I confirmed to her that it was also painful, she met my gaze and quite seriously said, “This is not good.” She told me that she would “work on it” when she did the reflexology later, but I really had no idea what she meant. Oh, little did I know what I was in store for.

The facial began with an inspection of my pores under a bright light and a magnifying glass. She turned my face this way and that and then pronounced, “It has been long time since facial, yes?” I agreed and she replied, “Yes, I know. Long time. Lots of problems here.” Now hey! My skin is damn good for a 40-something-year-old! I have hardly any wrinkles, and while I still get the occasional (like 2-3 times per year) blemish, I pretty much have flawless skin. What the hell, Romanian lady?!?!? Here I thought I had awesome skin and she’s clucking over it like I’m a pizza face or something. But whatever, go ahead and work your magic on my tragically mistreated skin. She wrapped my face in something that felt like wet gauze and smelled like oranges. In hindsight, it might have been an acid peel of some sort because it burned the living crap out of my face. I don’t have any red marks to prove it, but I swear, I could feel spots on my face sizzling… SIZZLING, people! It had to have been acid of some sort.

But you know, I’m a tough chick so I endured. We completed the facial and moved on to the reflexology. She asked me if I had ever had it done before and when I said no, she replied that she would explain it all later. She massaged my feet and pressed on certain pressure points with her thumb and her knuckles for the next 30 minutes or so. It felt good most of the time, uncomfortable on occasion, but really didn’t impress me one way or another. After she was done, she came to stand next to my head and began to lecture me about the state of my body.

“What I am going to tell you is serious! You listen to me! You no touch bread, you no touch potatoes, you no touch sweets! You eat MEAT! Lots of meat! You go find a doctor because your thyroid is sluggish. Your left kidney is sluggish. But worst of all…” and her voice dropped to a solemn whisper, “Worst of all, your lymphs, they are blocked.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just smiled and nodded. WRONG!

“You think this funny?” she accused. “This NO JOKE, Miss!” She went on to tell me that I had to get my body flushed out. I had to get it accustomed to consistent water intake, so she wanted me to start with one glass of water per day for the next week, then two glasses per day the following week, then so on and so forth until I was up to eight glasses per day. She explained that by increasing my water intake gradually, my body would get accustomed to it and it wouldn’t just be eliminated through my kidneys, it would flush out the toxins from my body.

Here’s the best part, though: she also told me to buy an exercise ball and bounce on it for five minutes, three times a day to clear my lymphs. Ok, crazy Romanian lady, I’ll do just that!

Interestingly enough, she was able to pinpoint where I have pain in my body and that I had a c-section and a hysterectomy before I said anything about it, so maybe there’s some truth to it. She told me that my weight gain and my fibro were all a result of this clogged lymphatic system. She said, “It’s not your fault, it’s all the lymph!” What the hell, I can probably bounce on a ball. Heh.

When she was done lecturing me about my health, she quickly waxed my eyebrows. It was the fastest eyebrow wax I’ve ever experienced and yes, my eyebrows are uneven as a result. I don’t much care though because CCB will never notice unless I point it out to him. Just when I thought she was done, she suddenly smeared the wax on my upper lip. I have a few blonde hairs there, but nothing that I’ve ever considered waxing, but ok… if crazy Romanian lady thinks it needs to be done, what the hell. And then… AND THEN… she took a little Q-tip like thing and stuck some hot wax IN MY NOSTRILS. I was all, what the…??? And before I could say a word, this woman was waxing my nostril hair!!! Have you ever had that done?? I didn’t even know it was possible, but there I was, hot wax up my nose and tears rolling down my cheeks. I didn’t even realize that my nostril hair was visible, but crazy Romanian lady found it and she took care of it, by God. Bless her crazy demented soul.

Later, when CCB got home from work, he stopped in to the spa to pay the bill and met crazy Romanian lady for himself. She gushed about me, about what a “gem” I was and then she scolded him. She said, “You make babies with her, you MARRY HER!” He laughed, but I think he was also afraid enough of her that he just might listen.

One can only hope.