SPA-DI-DA

Before I get into the big spa sweeps news, Spa Magazine's rolling monthly sweeps, I’d like to give a nod to this lollapalooza package: three nights at The Miraval, in Tuscon, with air. This is a promotion for the “green” lifestyle website LIME. You can enter the sweeps once a day, through June 29. For more details, scroll down to the template at the way, way bottom of this post.

The big news: Spa Magazine launched a monthly sweeps last month, with one drawing a month for the next 10 months. Why 10? Ten-year anniversary, that’s why. I love that that they allow only one entry per person, and all entries roll into the next month’s drawing. However, at the risk of sounding like a sweeps brat, the July prize is disproportionately miserly: one night at The Hershey Hotel. Just one lousy night! You’ll still have the scent of chocolate-kiss treatment on you when you roll out of there. The other prizes come with at least a two-night stay; most are longer. (See below for more on the digs.)

Apart from this trifling quibble, this sweeps really gets my spa-fantasy juices flowing. (By the way, my bad on not finding and posting it in time for my March madness collection.) I entered on March 31, at about 10 P.M.; I’m not sure if that was in time for the March drawing, for five-night at the Hyatt Regency Maui. If not, no big whoop: my entry is rolling over into April’s. My first choice out of all the prizes would be the December prize, six nights at the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Retreat & Spa in Los Cabos.

Though that would change if I knew what each of the spas’ terrycloth bathrobes were like. I have a thing for bathrobes. They’re my spa benchmark, more, if you can believe it in these mattress-obsessed times, than the bed. So far, in my limited resort experience – so limited that I’ve gone and packed my own bathrobe, silly me, not realizing until my third resort that bathrobes really do indeed come with the room, the way Bibles used to – my favorite bathrobe is the one at The Phoenician in Scottsdale. It’s the velour waffle robe in the online gift shop. But this photo does not do this bathrobe justice. There was something about the details, the textures of the velour and the honeycomb weave combined with the weight, that were, in a word, heavenly. The weight was key. There’s nothing like a solid bathrobe to make you feel grounded.

I put mine on. I plucked my eyebrows. I gave myself a pedicure. In the midst of all this pampering, I realized that I had not had two whole hours to myself, disconnected from domestic chatter, removed from family obligations and work and school deadlines and go-go-go-ness, in a full year.

Let me repeat: I had not stopped running the marathon that is my life for one solid year.

After my nails dried, I went to the pool. I had a few hours before the conference began. I sipped ice water with a thin lemon wedge tucked between the cubes. I flipped through two magazines. I looked at the view, at Camelback Mountain. The crowd was sedate, a few couples, a few friends. To my annoyance, a woman who looked like she might be from Long Island was smoking a cigarette two lounge chairs over and one row back. I shrugged it off. I was not going to let anyone or anything ruin my moment in the desert sun. I closed my eyes, and let out long, deep breaths, taking care to inhale away from the cigarette smoke. Then, out of nowhere, I heard high-pitched, boundless-energy voices that I instantly knew belonged to children. They were getting closer. They were headed in my direction. They could not, I said to myself, be coming to this pool. This pool was a designated quiet area. But they were, three children, with their parents.

The family installed itself several rows over, smack in my line of sight. The children, being children, went right for the pool, and instantly cracked the tranquility with their splashing and Marco Polo’s. I cursed their presence. The last thing a single mother wants to hear when she is trying to decompress at a resort in the middle of the desert in the middle of a cloud-free glorious afternoon is the voices of children, even well-behaved, reasonably self-contained children.

I could barely contain myself. I considered asking the management what exactly they meant by a quiet area. But the thought of traipsing over to the front desk, even in my ne plus ultra bathrobe, seemed like a poor use of my resort time.

Then, as suddenly as they’d appeared, I let go of it. I studied the family, discreetly, squinty-eyed, and guessed the children’s ages. The oldest, a girl, was 12 or so. Her siblings, two brothers, were maybe 8 and 5. They were not a mirror image age- or number-wise, but they reminded me of myself and my siblings, splashing in a pool at a hotel in Manchester, Vermont, one summer. From that same trip I remember being parked in our car, our Pontiac Safari station wagon, next to a car, another station wagon, that had travel decals plastered all over the back windows. The Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls. This family was making a point of Seeing the Country, and letting everyone know about it.

The decal that caught my brother’s and my eye was from the Smithsonian Institution. Now, we had not yet been to Washington, but we were vaguely aware of the Smithsonian, the nation’s attic and all that. But for some reason, my brother and I latched on to the word "institution," and started wondering whether this was the Smithsonian, or another institution, as in a mental institution. We decided it must be a mental institution.

I know part of it was thinking it was totally goofy for a family to have all those travel decals on their car, so much so that we decided that since they were stupid enough to put all those travel decals on their car, they must be stupid enough to put a decal from a mental institution on their car. We thought this was the funniest thing since The Smothers Brothers, since the Adams Family started when Uncle Fester farted. Who would want to tell the whole world they they had been to a mental institution? We laughed uncontrollably, with chlorine-tired lungs.

I looked back at the three children in the pool. Something about their play made me wonder if they laughed that much, that freely. Something suggested not. I’d been trying to size up the mother. She was gorgeous, blonde hair, blonde teeth, a Pilates-perfect core, but she looked as though she was wound really tight, like the inside of a golf ball. She looked as though she might be suffocating in her circumstances, as though, on really bad days, she wondered if she might end up in an institution, a mental institution.

I hoped I was wrong.

I looked at the children. Maybe things weren't that dire. Maybe they were just having an off day. I took more deep breaths. The smoker had left long ago, unnoticed. I went back to my magazines. I got bored. All that free time. I decided to go for a swim. The children got out while I was doing laps. I swam hard, chasing chlorine-tired lungs.

As for the Spa Magazine sweeps, there’s a crescendo quality to these prizes. They get better with each month.

Go for it.

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3 NIGHTS AT THE MIRAVAL
DEADLINE: June 29, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK HERE.
SPONSORS: lime.com, The Miraval
THE DIGS: The Miravel
THE INELIGIBLES: Residents of Puerto Rico and Guam
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $4,000
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 1, 2006
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SPA MAGAZINE SPA GIVEAWAYS
DEADLINE: December 31, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK HERE.
SPONSOR: Spa Magazine
THE DIGS: See below for full list.
THE INELIGIBLES: Residents of Puerto Rico and Guam.
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): Various.
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: April 2, 2006
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MARCH: Five nights at Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa
APRIL: Five nights at Hilton Curacao
MAY: Two nights at Jupiter Beach Resort & Spa (Palm Beach)
JUNE: Three nights at British Colonial Hilton (Nassau)
JULY: One night at Hotel Hershey
AUGUST: Five nights at Dreams Puerto Vallarta - Resort & Spa
SEPTEMBER: Three nights at Ojai Valley Inn & Spa
OCTOBER: Five nights at Canoa Coral by Hilton (Bayahibe, Dominican Republic)
NOVEMBER: Four nights at Red Mountain Spa
DECEMBER: Six nights at Pueblo Bonito Pacifica - Holistic Retreat & Spa (Los Cabos)