Feeling Eric's Pain

I've been thinking about posting for two days, but getting the new post screen to appear on dialup really sucks.

So here I am in North Carolina! I'm having fun so far, pretty much. Mom and I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. the night I got here, munching on fruit, cheese and salad from room service and just chatting. I had a pedicure the next morning at 8:30, so we had breakfast delivered at 6:30 - oi was I tired. But I arrived on time for my pedicure and was presented with a mimosa and a very relaxing hour of foot pampering. My second treatment was at 12:30, and since I'd forgotten my suit, I convinced myself to purchase a new Speedo suit from the spa shop in order to take advantage of the many many pools in the spa. I swam a bunch of laps (go me!) and then crashed in the fizzy mineral spa for a while. The Fire, Rock, Water treatment was 80 minutes of bliss - first, a dry body brush to exfoliate, followed by a sugar rub for further exfoliation, then a lovely bath of buttermilk and honey - actual honey. I had to work really hard to not laugh during this portion, because all I could think about was how much my male friends would have paid at that moment to see a woman submerged in a bubble bath while another woman actually poured honey into the tub over her. (Pausing a moment to let Larry go grab a notebook and add that bit to Working Hard.) I nearly passed out in the tub, though, because it was extremely hot, which was relaxing, but I kept vascillating between near-blackout and near-asthma attack (frequently brought on by overheating). Then I was rubbed with something else (more honey?) and wrapped up in a sheet while the therapist massaged my face, scalp, hands, and feet. Finish the whole thing up with a vichy shower massage (sprayed with a whole lot of water for a while, basically, which was fabulous) and attempt to get off the table - that was fun. I was so warm and relaxed and woozy that I basically had to be led in a bovine state of complacency to an armchair in the fireside lounge.

Other than that, I've had lunch and dinner at my favourite restaurant up here, and one of my favourite in the world, The Laughing Seed, which is a pure vegetarian restaurant serving very wonderful food. Normally I'm not all into that pure vegetarian food, but there's always something terribly thrilling about a place with a menu that does not contain one single thing I can't eat, and all of it is delicious. Sorry, I'm an evil vegetarian, but hey, it makes me happy.

We went to the Biltmore Estate, the ridiculously huge home (63 bedrooms, people) owned by the Vanderbilt family. It's gorgeous, and you could park my entire house in the dining hall.

J had fits getting here - they overbooked his flight and he was stuck overnight in Atlanta. But they gave him a voucher for free travel, so we can take that New York trip after all maybe.

Phillip decided to stay at the house through the holidays after all, so I had to once again contact Travis (who had basically stopped taking my calls because everything kept changing) and tell him not to worry about it. Still willing to take me out to the track Sunday though and teach me how to drive that bike, though, so no harm done.

Tomorrow's skiing - please pray for me that I won't break anything. If statistics don't lie, I should be able to ski 196 more times without major injury. (Average is 1 in 200, apparently.)

I'm strangely apathetic this week - I'm just sleeping a lot and not getting all that excited about anything. Very unusual for me. Maybe I'll snap out of it tomorrow once we get into snow.