One for two at the spa

Two days ago, a friend forwarded me an email she'd received from a local spa announcing Spa Week and all the specials therein. Last week was very busy, and as I'd just finished the baby shower gig, I wasted approximately zero seconds in calling to schedule two appointments: a "stress melter" treatment (irresistible sounding, yes?); and a facial. I have felt like an acne-prone handbag lately so felt certain some exfoliation and extraction would be tremendously beneficial; at the least perhaps I'd look all shined up. Anyway, today was the day. It's pouring brickbats here and I was up for nearly two hours last night for no good reason so felt pretty jazzed about "having" to spend two hours at the spa.

The facial was great, I could tell that gal was extracting to beat sixty, and for the first time in accessible memory, my skin literally did shine -healthily- when I left.

Now the stress melter treatment...well, let's just say I didn't sign up for a next session.

If you feel that being slathered with shea butter, wrapped in plastic, and cocooned claustrophobically in more plastic + what felt like a rug sounds like it would immediately melt away all anxiety and tension like butter in a hot skillet, then you are not me. I felt rather like I was in a body bag. The get-up even crinkled when I moved in the way body bags in movies always crackle when paramedics hoist them up and around. Can you imagine if I'd had gas?

This is not to say that I didn't enjoy being forced to lie on a table in a dark room with music that wished it were Enya playing softly in the background. I did. But I did have to actively try to zen out so I didn't instead feel my throat constricting in a somewhat anaphylactic way.

You win some, you lose some. I'm definitely in much better shape than I was this morning, and I still had time for leftover spinach pie and olive oil cake from last night. Nice!

Robins, Med Fest

Mediterranean, folks, not meds. But first, robins. Specifically, the American robin, Robin Redbreast, Rockin' Robin, worm-plucker extraordinaire. This past week, Oliver has been working on his research project about the robin. His class is studying animals and honing their public speaking skills, so this report was to be a wonderful confluence of both goals. We all worked assiduously (because y'all, he can neither read nor spell much; I'm not doing his work for him), and I admit to having learned a few things about this common bird. For starters, the males divebomb other birds whom they consider intruders.

Anyway, at some point just yesterday, I asked Ol if he would like to wear a robin outfit during his presentation. Like maybe we could make a chubby redbreast for him. He was totally on board, so naturally I sent Tom out for a couple yards of red felt.

As an aside, why is felt so expensive? It's felt for crissakes.

Bygones. T brought home red felt, cut out a circle and while my manly trio went to J's baseball game (they won in a real upset, "see-why-you-should-never-give-up" game), I enjoyed my writing class and sewed. This is really saying something because while I am excellent at threading needles, I am not excellent at any other facet of sewing. Well, I can tie knots. But that's it.

But yesterday evening, I was damn certain that I could sew a puffy redbreast on a black tee-shirt for Ol. So I did. And he didn't seem to mind or even notice the random stitching and somewhat uncentered "breast."

And he was so proud to wear it today and he aced his presentation, and the kids pretended to divebomb each other at recess. Lessons learned, yes?

Yesterday during my writing class, Lili described a magnificent coconut cake one of her friends makes. Immediately, and unquenchingly, Laura and I started hungering for a cake of this magnitude. As it was nearly 6pm when we wrapped up, I didn't have time to make a cake so sated myself with an armload of Turkish Delight. It didn't really do the job, and all day today I noodled on cake. Cake. CAKE.

It was as if a tiny cake-maker had set up shop on my right shoulder and proceeded to spin a magical and endless tale of a life spent crafting and eating cakes. I took my own trip down memory lane: Nanny's lemon-lime refrigerator sheet cake; Gambino Bakery's Doberge cake (New Orleans; choc, not lemon); Jo's Party House cupcakes (Lake Charles, LA); the strawberry cake our lovely host served at our bridal shower; the strawberry cupcake I later discovered at Baked & Wired here in D.C.; the Texas sheetcake cupcake at Baked & Wired; the strawberry cake with whipped cream-mascarpone frosting I now make; and so one and so forth.

By early afternoon, I thought I'd run someone off the road if I didn't get a good piece of cake pronto. Concurrently, I started thinking about dinner. The boys and I bought a huge amount of spinach and some fresh and very creamy feta at the farmers market yesterday so I decided to make a phyllo-wrapped, olive oil-lovin' spinach pie in my Lodge for our main course tonight. Then I started thinking about how fantastically Mediterranean that was and how perfect for Meatless Monday. I commenced an entire, meditative consideration of olive oil and then, I just knew. I knew what my cake would be.

An olive oil cake. With chocolate, because it's that kind of a dayweek.

So Med Fest Monday it became, and all this was darn gooooood! Spinach + some radicchio and mustard greens + feta + raisins + pine nuts + shallots + garlic and so forth = good. And this cake. Mamma mia, Kim Boyce, thank you for this magnificent recipe. I sub orange zest for the rosemary, but otherwise it's brilliant. Spelt flour and dark chocolate are such a winning pair.

So nuts it's hilarious

I am nearly catatonic right now so busy has today been, but I simply must tell you Part B of the ludicrous health insurance termination story that continues to spin. I called Aetna, went through the lengthy rigmarole of the menu: "who are you?", "say your ID number clearly," "more clearly," "did you say XXXXX?", etc. Finally I yelled "operator" at the stupid recording and was gently told that she would love to transfer me to a customer service rep. The phone rings and rings and finally, do you know who picked up? Another recording telling me that all of the agents were busy in a training that would help them serve me better and to call back in an hour. The irony.

At that point, I simply threw in the towel and rolled with laughter about the ludicrousness of not staggering the customer service training sessions, much less leaving even one agent available to take calls. I did not call back in an hour because really, who can just sit around waiting for the time to be right for customer service peeps to serve the customers?

It is seriously time to call uncle on today. Getting my car window replaced tomorrow and then it's off to the catering races.