Meanwhile, back at the spa...

I've had a pretty darn good week. A few slow days, to be sure, but also a couple good days, too. And people have actually been tipping fairly decently, for a change.

I even impressed a Greek gentleman so much, he came back today for a second helping of Christina's massage! And he told me he'll be back once more before he goes home. AND he's a good tipper, too.

It just works out that way, sometimes.

Tomorrow, when I'm not so beat, I'll regale you with Phyllis' adventure, which occurred my last weekend. Why do I always miss the excitement?!

As an aside...

Yeah, it sure does. Sometimes, anyway.

Irony?

I don't want to sound all ignorant, but does it qualify as "ironic" for a five-foot-tall man to be wearing a Michael Jordan basketball jersey?

Hilarious it most definitely was...but was it IRONIC?!

Fuck this.

You know I can't stop blogging, no matter what else is going on! My issues have NOT been resolved, but I'm working on 'em. And that's what's important, right?

Anywho, I'll be back soon with some spa stuff.

:)

Mini-Hiatus

Gonna take a little break. I have some serious issues to resolve, then I'll be back. Maybe I'll be able to tell you guys what's up, and maybe not. I also have a story from the spa, something that occurred on my day off! I'll tell you about that one, for sure.

Take care of yourselves and have a wonderful Independence Day!

Strange...

I wonder if anyone can tell me why my speaking voice is so much higher-pitched when I speak German compared to when I speak English?

It's definitely a noticeable difference. So what's up with that?

Anyone? Bueller?

Trolls

I had a little insight at the dog park today.

There's a small dog park and a big dog park, referring to the size of the canine visitors, not the area of the respective parks themselves.

My dogs, being small to middlin', use the small dog park.

Now Tucker LOVES to race along the dividing fence, barking furiously and taunting the big guys on the other side. He snarls, snaps and howls, enticing them into long chases back and forth.

But if one of those Great Danes, Labs, or Rottweilers should happen to visit the small dog park? Tucker would make a bee-line for me at full speed and either try to climb into my arms (if I was standing), or jump onto my lap (if I was sitting down).

Internet trolls behave exactly the same way! Hidden behind their supposed anonymity, they taunt, trash-talk, and insult. But if you smack 'em down, or track 'em down, they collapse like a fallen souffle or run crying for mommy.

Pathetic, really.

(No, I don't have a problem with trolls. I'm not popular enough! :))

Beautiful.

My daughter Chaos (one of my twins living in England at the moment) wrote a by turns beautiful, moving, and disturbing poem/song/blog-post.

She's only fifteen.

Go, read it.

Yes, I know I'm probably biased, but it's still amazing.

Why?

Ugh.

It was 98 degrees at 7:30 this morning on my drive to work, and 109 at around 5:00 PM. I can't stand it anymore! My car sits on the parking lot all day, baking, and I bake with it once I get in. Ugh.

Almost fully fledged.

Silver is on her way to North Dakota as I type this. I dropped her off at the airport last night so she could catch the red-eye to Minneapolis, where she's now waiting to get on a teeny-tiny prop plane for the last leg of her journey to Grand Forks.

Tomorrow and Tuesday is her "Freshmen Getting Started", i.e. Freshmen orientation, and it's something we both felt she should do on her own. Wednesday night I'll pick her up at McCarran, but this trip signals the beginning of the true nest-leaving stage. In a few weeks, all packed-up, we'll both fly to North Dakota, where I'll spend a few days with her before band camp begins, making sure she has all the stuff she needs for her dorm room, plus proper clothing to help her survive the brutal winter there.

And that's it, then. Fully fledged, she'll start her adult life. And I'll be left with an empty nest.

Until her sisters graduate high school and decide to come live with me, that is...sometimes it happens in reverse, you know. And it's not always a bad thing.

WSOP...

is over for me. I spent a few hours there last night and didn't make a dime. The energy is so negative at that place, it drains me just to walk around. I don't need to do that to myself, my time is more precious than that. Just think, I could have been home, blogging! ;)

I chatted with several other therapists and they concur: World Series of Poker SUCKS!

So it's not just me, yay! The company we work for hyped it so much in orientation that everyone is feeling let down. Plus they also hired 100 MORE therapists for this year's event than for last year's. What kind of moron thought THAT was a good idea in the current economic climate?!

The same few therapists are apparently getting most of the massages, which leads to resentment aplenty, let me tell you! And while almost all of us exchange smiles if not actual greetings while we pass each other in our futile rounds of the tournament rooms, a very few therapists are working on perfecting their Death Stares™.

This amuses me to no end. What, you think you can glare me into submission, which will automatically make the next poker player ask YOU for a massage?!

Doofus.

It's been a valuable experience for me, or at least that's what I'm telling myself, but I'm glad it's over. Now I only have two jobs to worry about!

Don't worry.

I'm not going all emo on you! It's okay to feel depressed once in a while. It's normal, even; and I need to cut myself some slack when I do get this way (and it's a rare occasion, I'll have you know!) The fact that Silver failed her driving test yesterday really contributed to my bad mood earlier in the day.

Instead, I'm focusing on the GOOD things right now.

(Woo...bullet points!)

-my kids and I are all healthy (and my dogs are, too)
-I've been exercising regularly again, and my weight will start dropping soon
-I've got not only one job, but two (or three, if you count WSOP, which I'm going to attempt again tomorrow night)
-I did all the laundry this morning, folded it, and put it away
-I vacuumed the entire apartment
-I dremeled both dogs' nails and brushed their teeth
-I had an excellent afternoon at the chiropractor's today
-I have a plethora of wonderful friends and acquaintances both online and in meatspace
-I will be moving into a HOUSE with a yard (hopefully) and a pool (hopefully) before the end of the summer. I'll share it with two good friends and split the expenses.
-I have no cavities, and both the dentist and the dental hygienist were impressed with the cleanliness of my teeth (TMI?)
-I always have something to read (very important!)
-I was able to do 35 push-ups on Tuesday, five more than I've ever been able to do (girrrrrrrrrrrrl push-ups, but still!)

Well, that's all I can think of right now. It's an impressive list, no? So I'm gonna quit my bitchin'. Have a wonderful Friday and a fantastic weekend, Friends.

No time to cry.

Everything hit me this morning as I was getting ready to go to the dentist. Lack of money, stress about having to move, my weight loss stalling for some inexplicable reason, Silver leaving and ohmygod how are we going to pay for everything? Then I hurt my right wrist while I was trying to wring the last drops of face wash out of the tube ('cause I'm holding off on buying more as long as I humanly can). My wrist, the one I really need to be healthy for my job. So I can do massages and make money.

My eyes started to burn and my throat got tight. Then I realized I didn't have TIME to cry. Even though I really needed to. And that's just sad.

Well fuck it all. I just have to pull up my big girl panties and move on. I can cry when I'm dead! Yeah, that's it.

If I'm so frickin' AWESOME*...

why don't my tips reflect it?

I grossed $465 today, quite respectable (I get 35%), but I only got $12 in tips. That's less than 3%, for you math-impaired folks out there. And that's simply pathetic.

Why are people so cheap?

---

*according to one of my clients today. One of the two clients who stiffed me, by the way. The other one was an older man who had toenails an inch long. I should receive hazardous duty pay for that one!

So, this one time, on a podcast...

This is going to be rather tricky. I took part in a podcast, but I don't wish my younger children to listen to it. Hmmmm. (No offense, Tally and Chaos, but I KNOW you. If I tell you "Don't go there, don't read this, don't watch that, and don't listen to this!", it's like waving a red flag in front of a bull.)

So, for anyone who doesn't already know which podcast I'm talking about, and is interested in listening to a bunch of crazy people riffing on a variety of subjects for an hour, not to mention yours truly screaming in horror and being traumatized for life, send me an email at lucrativepain@yahoo.com, and I'll email you the link.

Hopefully this will stymie my inquisitive youngsters!

Oh, and please don't be assholes and leave the link (or even the NAME of the podcast) in the comments, because my kids are diabolically clever and will latch onto that in an instant. Thank you.

If you hate dogs...

a)Why the hell do you own a dog?

and

b)Why the hell are you at the dog park?

In a dog park, there are generally lots of, you know, DOGS; these animals tend to be very friendly and will approach you with their tails wagging and tongues lolling, trying to get close to you so you can dispense pats and behind-the-ear scritches. They won't understand why you so very brusquely push them away, and it might make them even more persistent. If you feel that uncomfortable being around these creatures, go home. Before I'm forced to kick your ass because you hurt my beloved puppehs' feelings.

Also:
And this may be very mean...if you have SEVERE acne covering your entire torso, please, for all that's holy, KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON.

Thank you.

Superstition

I massaged a lady yesterday who had a rather large growth on her lower leg. It's part of my job to do a skin assessment, so I asked her about it.

She told me that having the growth removed kills people!

Apparently, she was twice scheduled to go into her doctor's office to have it removed, and on both occasions the doctor had a death in the family and had to cancel.

The third time she was going to go in, her own grandfather died.

She took it as a sign to leave the growth alone. In her words, "It's supposed to be there."

I generally consider myself to be a very rational, reasonable person, but this chain of events would make me hesitate, I believe. I think I'd schedule with a different doctor, maybe!

How superstitious are YOU, my readers? Would you have reacted the same way as my client, under these circumstances?

Week Two...

at the chiropractor's office. I really, really like working there. And getting an adjustment on the house doesn't hurt, either!

I had two no-shows today, unfortunately. The doctor told me that from now on, if a patient is even five minutes late for his or her massage, to let him know. He'll find me another one from one of the patients he has in the back at the time. It's nice to know he wants to make sure I'm completely booked.

I even got a tip from one of my patients! She handed me a five and told me to get a coffee...*lol*

That's going into the kitty for Silver's trip to Freshman Orientation.

All in all, not a bad way to spend half my day.

---

Update:

I almost forgot a very embarrassing incident! I bring all my linens and have the use of gowns, towels, and face rest covers, which are provided by the office. I do have to take everything home with me and wash it myself. The gowns have velcro closures...you can see where I'm going with this, can't you?
Yup. I walked into the treatment room to find the patient holding one of my socks. She handed it to me saying, "This was stuck to my gown."

Yikes!

Talk about mortified! As a friend pointed out to me, it could have been worse, it could have been a lacy thong! This is true, but still. I'm resolved to check the gowns much more carefully when I fold them!

Cute!

I was massaging a gentleman of, shall we say, mature years today, and after I turned him over, I asked as always, "How are you doing?"

He replied with a big grin, "I feel SIXTY!!

Too cute!