Massage encounters, Croatia apartments and poetry workshops

It’s Friday!

That’s all I need to say about that.

This week has brought rainy days and gray skies to Los Angeles. I treated myself to a massage earlier in the week, as my back and shoulders have been aching. I told the receptionist at my usual massage place in Brentwood that no, I do not want a Thai massage. I’ve made the mistake of getting these gutsy little Thai massage women and just when I start to relax and zone out on the heated massage table, I get completely creeped out when I feel and hear them climb up onto the table behind me, place their knees on my ass and either press down extremely hard with their elbows into all of my knots and stress….or even get up and walk on me. My eyes usually shoot open wide (no one can see my eyes but the floor at this point) and I think in my head, “WTF is happening here?!” and I wonder how to tactfully tell them to get off my ass.

It’s the strangest thing. It must be another one of those Los Angeles things, because let me tell ya, they do NOT give massages like that in Arizona! You’re not in Scottsdale anymore, Dorothy!

I try to be good about it and just relax and go with the flow. I can’t converse because I have no idea what they are saying; their accents are too thick. To everything they say to me, I usually reply with, “Good!” and “Okay!” or “All right!”

Anyway, the woman earlier this week, she did not place her knees on my ass. She did get up on the table, but she did not get on ME, so I suppose this is an improvement.

In other news, I took my writer friend from work to lunch yesterday to get the details on her month in Croatia last summer. She brought her notebook to lunch and I saw every single photo. She was handing me business cards and brochures and phone numbers; she’s my personal travel guide! Apparently, we shouldn’t even bother with hotels because we can stay in gorgeous apartments overlooking the ocean for anywhere from $50 - $150 a night! She told me how to find the “kayaking dude that hangs out in the main square of Dubrovnik; he’s there all day,” and that “if you call this guy, he’ll pick you up from the bus stop – he’ll PICK YOU UP – and give you free breakfast and he’ll even take you on his own boat to the islands,” and “here’s this Canadian woman’s info, she gives good massages. She’s a former lawyer from Canada who fell in love with a Croatian on her trip there and now lives in Croatia,” and “here’s what kind of shoes you need to buy.” Whew! It was an overload of information. She’s even going to type it up for me.

Something tells me I might owe her another lunch, or at least cookies!

On another note, I received an invite to a poetry workshop tomorrow. It’s for a group that mentors troubled teenage girls through writing and I may become a regular volunteer. They hold one workshop a month on different genres. Workshops include panels of professional writers, writing drills, mentor-mentee sessions, book exchanges and more. I’ll be brushing off the inner poet! I haven’t written poetry in over a year!