Spider at the Spa Party

I went to a Spa Party last night.

Mel invited us (Nell and her sisters, Brandi, Lisa, Kim and baby Zoe and me) out to the beautiful countryside home where she's house-sitting for a promised evening of smearing luxurious goos and lotions upon ourselves.

We were not to be disappointed.

But first we got a tour of the place--we petted the horses, said hello to the chickens, and cuddled the three-week-old puppies. Kim and Nell got to reunite after not seeing one another since high school. Baby Zoe was introduced to all.

Lisa and I also couldn't help trying out the enormous old wooden swing-set in the garden. The chains creaked ominously as we went higher and higher, but it was scary good fun.

Later, as dusk fell, we went inside where a dewy-skinned Scottish lass named Agnes laid out her potion bottles and price lists. It was basically a Tupperware party but instead of oohing and aahing over plastic containers (and I just never can muster the enthusiasm for that) we were layered in lotions containing sea salt and sugar-scrubs and lavender essence. There were so many things to try that I ran out of limbs to try them on.

By the end of the evening we'd used up a mountain of warm, damp towels and were all sitting around glowing in the aftermath of heated cream masks. We were smooth-skinned and radiant. The appearance of fine lines around our eyes was visibly reduced. I smelled like the blackberry-vanilla smoothie I bought at an ice-cream stand the other day.

We made kissy faces at one another wearing our age-combating warpaint. The white lip mask gave me a flashback to the eighties when, ever so briefly, it was trendy to wear white lipstick.

Okay, now personally I won't drop forty dollars on a hand-cream or moisturizer (even when it feels that good), but my skin does feel rather nice the day after.