spa | Fall into the Story

In an unexpected turn of events, the Cranky Publicist is a Scrabble finalist in the 2021 Spa Girls World Games, hosted (aka forced upon her) by Nora.

“What can I say?” Shrugged the vivacious Cranky after scoring 168 in her semi-final match. “I was able to use a Y and J on triple word scores. The letter gods were with me.”

When she realized her opponent in the finals was past Grand Champion and Scrabble connessieur, she paled a little. Then composed herself and immediately claimed Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down) as her intro song when she enters the Scrabble arena (which doubles as a dining room).

“What can I say? Other than I’m not gonna waste my shot!” said this year’s surprise sticker winner and late round price picker.

Stay tuned for late breaking news!

BW and I are enjoying our last day of our fall week at the spa, which is, for me, a working vacation.

Before we left, I spent several afternoons through the week helping my grandson–Grade Six–with math (God help me) and a complicated English assignment. For the math, fortunately, he’s a lot better at it than I am. I SEE the words ratio and percentage, and my brain freezes.

English assignments, much better. But I swear I’m not sure I knew the definition and practical uses of things like personification, alliteration, hyperbole and so on when I was eleven. He does! I did have to tell him he was his own problem in one part of the assignment–to find unfamiliar words in the book he was reading for the assignment. He has a most excellent vocabulary, so that section took forever, and then some.

We celebrated completion on the Saturday before BW and I left by baking cookies–along with his sister, who decided she LOVED wrapping Christmas presents and due to same has now saved me hours and hours or marathon wrapping.

Love, love, love these kids. Also love, love, love this week’s get away.

It’s quiet, that’s a big plus. Though the weather didn’t cooperate so I could take my long morning hike outside, I brought plenty of exercise DVDs. Rainy mornings had me deciding to skip even the jaunt over to the gym and work out in the room instead.

After my daily workout, I settle in for a solid four hours of writing at my pretty little desk. The phone doesn’t ring, no dogs are barking to get in, go out, or because a delivery truck is heading up my lane. I don’t have to gauge my time to knock off to cook–but to gauge it for my lovely daily treatment.

Every afternoon I’m rewarded with a facial, or a massage or a mani-pedi. How about my holiday pedi! Gleaming midnight blue (which may not come across in the photo) with the accent of festive silver. Such fun!

Pre-treatment I get to snuggle into a book, post-treatment I get to indulge in an adult beverage and contemplate what I might want for dinner–that I’m not cooking!

It’s a wonderful routine for a week, but for me, it must be a routine. I’ve gotten a solid chunk of work done, have stuck to my work-out regime, and allowed myself to have my muscles and spirit addressed.