Surprising September Stories
Tangerine Dreamby Charlotte Rogers Brown, president and co-founder
Shoe Woman’s Network
This past July, I spent a week in Portland, OR, with Mike and Annie, good friends from our days together in northern Idaho. Annie and I met when she went to work as the business reporter for the newspaper where I served as feature reporter. We’ve been best friends ever since — and part of what keeps us that way is our compulsion to venture into unknown territory together.
She and I took our first drawing class together. Together, she and I occasionally ditched class midway through and headed for the tavern where we could suck at wine instead of art.
Together, she and I witnessed our first kitten birth; waded through a frickin’ frigid wilderness stream to find the perfect Christmas trees; collected journalism awards (she placed second to my third in feature writing — my category!); took the required membership classes and joined a church. When I got married, she was there. When she miscarried, I was there.
Through 18 years, the number of “firsts” we’ve walked through together is only exceeded by the number of experiences we’ve introduced to each other; she took me to my first Moroccan restaurant and to the 24-hour Church of Elvis, and I took her to Bisbee, AZ, home of the picturesque Lavender Pit strip mine. But the shared firsts are best…
Which is why Annie took it upon herself to research local spas before my arrival in Portland. Wisely, she decided it was high time she and I experienced some high-class pampering. In her words, “If we have to wait until we can afford all the things we want to do, we’ll have to live to be 200.” So, with the idea that extravagance is like fear — you must face it and forge ahead anyway — we each signed up for three separate spa treatments at three different spas. After perusing the full menu of options, we settled on a milk and honey foot treatment at a spa resembling the throne room of a Moroccan palace, a shea butter massage at a hotel/resort spa, and best of all, the “Tangerine Dream” offered by a spa aptly named “Rejuvination.” Both of us had experienced massages before, but nothing to compare to the luxury we were about to indulge in.
Those of you accustomed to spa treatments won’t need much explanation, but for the rest of you, I’ll do my best here to translate the Tangerine Dream experience into words. After lounging in our cushy bathrobes, listening to the soothing fountain in the spa’s “sanctuary,” Annie and I each were met by a massage therapist who led us to our respective rooms. I can’t remember my therapist’s name; I could barely remember my own name by the time she was through.
Once my body was appropriately covered with a towel, and my eyes soothed with a small scented pillow, the therapist began by gently massaging oil into my skin, then loosening the old cells with what felt like soft brushes. She then gently massaged my skin with a combination of sea salts and tangerine oil. All thoughts, cares and petty anxieties drifted away on the citrus aroma and the gritty sensation of the salts.
Then came the Vichy shower — a cascade of warm water raining over my entire body from a bar suspended overhead. After several minutes, along with the warm tropical rainfall, I felt a drizzle of cool water up and down my legs and arms. Then the water stopped and the therapist handed me a towel to dry off. A moisturizing full-body massage followed, while I lay wishing this Tangerine Dream would never end.
I think Annie and I met up again in the hallway outside the massage rooms, but it might have been in the locker room. I’m not sure. I do recall that, after we both dressed, neither of us felt capable of driving anywhere. So we did the sensible thing and toddled over the restaurant next door for a glass of wine, where we vowed we would not wait until we are 200 to do this again.
We could lavish in the Tangerine Dream again next time. But I think not. Annie and I don’t like to repeat ourselves. So we have our sights set on the “Honey Almond Glaze” body scrub, or maybe the “Sweet Jasmine” wrap, or maybe the “Earth Elements” wrap that features hot towels steeped in mineral salts, juniper berries, ginger, rosemary and cinnamon, or maybe…
In This Month's Issue of Shoe Woman Magazine Stories About:
Surprising September Stories
Family
Feature Story: First Day, by Annie O’Gorman
Paw Prints: Diva Dog, by Holland Schrank
Acorns: Somewhere on the Coast, by Michael Lillis
Friendship
Feature Story: Brenda, by Sue Swenson
Sole Mates: Ode to a Traveling Love, by Jami McFerren
Dear Friend: The Dancer, by Jane Norde
Career
Feature Story: My Life Has Purpose and Miracles Abound, by Jami McFerren
Childhood Dreams: The Woman My Son Marries, by Charlotte Rogers Brown
The World
Feature Story: When in Rome...or Venezuela..., by Tanya Misfeldt
Memorable Journeys: Joshua’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day in the White Mountains,
by Renee Ripley
Traditions & Ties: Lineage of Light, by Glora Whitaker
Journals
Maggie Dee ’s Journal
Lauren’s Journal
Life Happens
Ego Trips: "Them", by Karolyne Smith Rogers, PhD
Amazing Feets: The Initiation, by Karolyne Smith Rogers, PhD
Freudian Slippers: What's in a Name?, by Ramona Sallee
Wabi-Sabi: Knowing in the Unknown, by Glora Whitaker
Sole Men
Feature Story: The Poker Guys, by Charlie Brown
Editor’s Page
Charlotte ’s Story: Tangerine Dream, by Charlotte Rogers Brown
Charlotte ’s Choice: I Know a Place, by Holland Schrank
Helpful Hints
Your Sole Work
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