teresa

I had just begun to recover from being called greedy and then I was called an alpha dog. I had to look that one up. I have heard it referenced before but was not sure of the true meaning. I don’t think this title truly captures what the person was trying to say.

You see Elliott bought me a gift certificate for a 1 hour massage at Massage Envy for my birthday. I went for my massage last week, my first ever full hour, I have only been for 30 min massages before. I haven’t had a massage since moving except for my about monthly pedicure which sometimes includes the shiatsu chair massage which I am not sure if it actually helps or not, last time it shook me so violently during parts of the rotation that I was giggling because I was bouncing around in the chair. Anyway, first massage in months. With work and wedding planning I am a little tense.

I undressed laid down on the table underneath the blanket – which no one wants to talk about, but it reminds me of my yearly check up. You go in the room, the massage therapist (or doctor) meets you while you are dressed tries to make it not so weird that you are about to strip down and slip under a blanket. Fortunately the blanket at the massage place is much better than the paper thing at the doctor’s office that opens in the front – ok sorry I have gone too far with this analogy, but I thought about this before my massage, probably leading to additional tension.

So I lay down, the lady knocks on the door and says, all ready in there – sound familiar ladies… She comes in, warms her hands by rubbing them together and then uses the lotion fanny pack she wears before starting in on my back. Well first time she touches me I arch my back and almost jump off the table, unlike me to be so jumpy.

We had discussed doing a deep tissue massage which I have also never had, and was a little nervous about because Krista didn’t drink enough water after a deep tissue massage and I think she got really sick. But the lady promised me I would be fine. She stretched my legs a bit to help loosen my lower back. When she was moving around my lower leg I could not relax, I kept trying to anticipate where she was going and moving my leg instead of letting her move it. She kept shaking my foot, saying relax. Finally I laughed and said, I am sorry I lead when I am dancing too. That is when she labeled me with the title of my blog. I understood what she meant in that I prefer to be in control – true. I subsequently worked the rest of the massage to relax.

One tip I learned years ago while at a chiropractor is to direct my attention to my toes. After a car accident in high school I went to a chiropractor a few times. One time he wanted to crack my neck but I sat with every muscle flexed staring him in the eyes when he said wiggle your toes. For a split second I forgot my task at hand, keeping this crazy man from twisting my head violently and I sent all of my thought to my toes, at which point he twisted my head to the right, left and then back before my big toe even made a full frequency of movement.

During my massage I wiggled my toes a lot. I thought of my happy place, which is a sunset I painted as a child, with a mountain landscape, setting sun beaming from all sides, and a river running from the mountains to the bottom of the page and into infinity. That is where I go when I need solstice, when I can’t sleep, or after a nightmare. I used my happy place the other night when I saw huge 6″+ spiders dropping from the ceiling in my sleep. This leads to me gasping for an exterminator and running out of the bedroom – literally. This used to happen every few weeks or so when Elliott and I lived in Deb and Carie’s old apartment on Tierra Verde. I don’t think it happened much in our house on Satellite, and the other night was the first time this nightmare made an appearance in California. Apparently Elliott wasn’t fazed because he waited in bed for me to come back after I came to my senses that it was a dream. The first time I had this nightmare it took a while for him to convince me that the bedroom was safe. Anyway I find it funny admitting that as a adult I have a happy place – a vision which is the same place I envisioned as a child, but I do and I refuse to be embarrassed of it!

I did eventually calm down and even relax a little during my massage. At one point the lady told me something that I had always wanted to hear. You always hear about people having knots in their back, well my back hurts often so I always thought I must have knots but in my few massages I never heard this diagnosis. Funny thing is when I finally heard it I decided the lady was full of crap. Because she said you have a few knots. Then she did her work and at the end she said, I got them the knots are gone. I think that is just a little too scripted, but I thanked her none the less. So who knows if “knots” are true; to me it’s like grey hairs, they seem cool until you get one and then it loses its luster.

Since my massage I have made a resolution to work on relaxing. Elliott has agreed to listen to a meditation cd that I bought a year ago when I realized back then that I needed to relax. We listened to it the other night before bed, the exercise was simple, but worked wonders on clearing my head before bed – I didn’t go to bed with the typical stream of thoughts that I have to write down or email to myself and that I ponder for an hour before finally falling asleep. I think I fell asleep almost instantaneously upon laying down. I am excited to continue practicing meditation. It is something that I have been very interested in for awhile but have never committed to doing. 2008 is my year to make it happen.

The storm of the century just ripped through our area.  It rained straight through for days.  The same storm made a mess in the Reno area as well.  Personally I wasn’t very excited about it raining going into my birthday weekend.  This year our birthday fell on a Sunday.  After much research I decided I wanted to go to Pescadero for fish tacos, based on an article a friend sent me.  Do you like my new blog style, I don’t even need Elliott to make the links for me anymore, I learned how to myself, since we did so much work on the wedding site.  Anyway… 

So Friday it poured rain.  We had an interview with a wedding photographer in Lafayette, so we didn’t have a choice but to weather the storm.  We headed off into the fog, fortunately traffic was pretty slow, which was good because visibility was pretty low.  We had the windshield wipers going faster than I had ever seen them go before, I never knew there was a purpose for that turbo speed.  At one point a car drove past, splashed in a puddle, and the windshield was solid water for two swipes of the wipers, that was pretty intense.  We made it safely to our destination and ran to the office since we don’t own umbrellas.  Had a great meeting with our now booked wedding photographer.  That was a relief, for awhile we were boycotting a prof photographer based on their outrageous rates, figuring we take pretty good pictures, but we found a guy who is reasonable who takes great pics.

Saturday we braved the storm again and went to Walnut Creek where we were to meet Elliott’s cousin for my 1st birthday dinner.  We went early to get out of the house.  Decided to go to Barnes & Noble and read.  I had some assignments, 2 chapters from Firms of Endearment, our current BJG book club pick, and also an assignment to read The Secret for my Vistage group.  We sipped coffee, read, and people watched.  At one point 2 girls sat next to us, high school or junior high age.  They had just purchased a sampler of perfume from Victoria Secret, they examined their purchase while asking each other “which one is your favorite?”

“I really like the design of this bottle.” 

“This one is something I would wear to a tea party.”

A what…  I think I accidently laughed out loud behind my book.

After awhile we ran out of things to read and money in the meter so we drove around looking for a restaurant for dinner.  Eventually stopped at Jamba Juice for a snack and then decided to shop.  We went to Macy’s and purchased our first umbrellas.  Elliott had to buy the 2′ long sleek black one that crosses for a cane, all of the cool older men carry this kind of umbrella.  I chose a small one that I could carry easily, it even has a belt clip so I could attach it to my pants, how convenient.

Finally we decided to check out Concord, since we couldn’t get a reservation or decide on a dinner location in Walnut Creek.  In Concord we found an Old Spaghetti Factory in the center of downtown.  We waited in the bar for Elliott’s cousin, but he eventually cancelled because he wasn’t feeling well.  Me on the other hand one beer in, I was feeling pretty good.  So we had dinner earlier than planned.  After dinner we walked around the other shops and found a yogurt store.  It was the greatest thing ever, self serve.  You take as much as you want of whatever you want and pay by the ounce, I think it is a brilliant concept!  Then we decided to see a movie afterwards.  We saw Alien vs Predator, I think there were 3 other people in the theatre, not a big hit apparently.  Elliott exclaimed at the end that it was the worse movie ever, I couldn’t disagree.  Problem is, since we moved, and have no friends (not true we have 2 here, Matt and Ashley) we see a lot of movies.  So its hard to compete with Will Smith and similar box office stars.  After the movie we came out to find it was raining again and of course we both conveniently left our umbrellas in the car, so we ran back to the car. 

Sunday we went to Pescadero, enjoyed fish taco from the famous gas station!  Walked around, bought a really cool picture from recycled boat hulls.  Drove to a historic landmark light house all without a drop of rain on my birthday!  We drove back to Pleasanton, had dinner with Ashley and Matt at our house.  Ashley brought me a cake with candles and everything, and I enjoyed truly great birthday.

I will say that no one told me that it rained here when we were considering moving here.  I suppose I should have understood from the green hills that there was a little more moisture available then in Reno, but I was sure I saw sprinkler heads when we were touring this area.  I hear however that it rains until February and then it will be back to sunny and pleasant again.  Now that we are prepared with our umbrellas as long as we remember to bring them with us there will be no rain checks for us.