Iguana Wrangling and the Spa

Sunning on our top floor deck yesterday, we could see the workmen on the roof of the 3 storey place across the street that is getting repaired/painted. One guy spent quite a lot of time swinging a thin yellow rope towards the palm trees; we assumed there must be a loose frond he was trying to grab and pull off one of the trees.

He seemed to finally get it lodged where he wanted it, and gave it a strong yank. Rather than a palm branch hurtling to the ground, a huge iguana made a wide arc through the air at the end of the rope and hit the tile roof with a mighty "thwap"! The guy had lassoed a lizard (poor thing)!

We could not figure out why he did it, other than for entertainment value. He played around with it for a bit before removing the thin rope and holding it firmly with both hands. Then he hurled it into space - right back into the tree from which he had yanked it. That ended the show, and he went back to scraping and painting.

But that wasn't the end of our excitement for the day. We had scheduled a couples' massage and pedicure - the first ever of each for John! He was pretty trepidatious, but it turned out to be an underwhelming experience for him.

If his back massage was anything like mine, it wasn't great (too much broad, sweeping "effleurage" motions and not enough of the finer work) and I don't think she could have gotten more oil in my (freshly washed) hair if she had tried. I emerged a total greaseball; if I go again I must tell them to skip the head massage. It wasn't good enough to warrant all the oil.

I think I enjoyed John's pedicure more than he did. He was fine with it and agrees it's nice to have such clean, soft, groomed feet after a month on the beach and wearing Crocs. Personally, I really like seeing my husband's feet looking so "metro-sexual." To me, a groomed guy (groomed just enough - he should NOT be prettier than me!) is an attractive guy.

I let John pick the colour of my toenail polish, and knew he would choose black. That's his latest female style thing - he sees lots of women on TV with black fingernail polish, and has been asking me to try it. I won't put it on my fingernails as that is not a colour that would last a day without chipping on my fingernails; but, toenails get less wear and tear, so I went along. And I really like how it looks! I was worried my feet would look like Morticia Adams', but it's not at all corpse-like. I think having tanned feet probably helps.

I continue to research and plan things to see and do over our next few weeks. I discovered an exclusive beach club that offers a few days passes to people not staying at the associated resort. The place looks fabulous, so I e-mailed to find out how to get a couple of passes and how much they cost. We have a day of sailing scheduled for next week, and the following week we're going on an overnight junket south to the Costa Allegre region (3 beach towns to explore).

This is the best part of our southern winter escapes - nowhere we need to be, nothing we need to be doing, and all the time in the world to get there/do that.

Todo bien. (It's all good.)