Okay, Folks, I know this is a relative question and it can shift many times during the day, but are you happy? Really happy? Bubbling, excited jumping up-and-down exuberant, thrilled and happy? No? Maybe you’re content, cheerful, fulfilled and sitting there with a wistful smile on your face?

I ricochet around like a pool table ball all day long with my mother’s calls to complain about getting old (“Mom, I can’t do anything about that), whether her neighbor’s hemorrhoid cream will shrink the bags under her eyes (“I wouldn’t try that. If it gets in your eye you might be blind and I don’t have time to get you a patch and a cane, let alone a guide dog that wears a special jacket.” “A jacket? What color is it?”), Maury’s sincere assistance that makes everything I do harder (“I’m sorry I put the wrong address in your GPS and you were lost for two hours.”) or my adorable friends’ suggestions.

“Jean, I’m worried about you because you’re under so much stress. April and I are on this call because we care about you. A study by the National Institutes of Health says that the happier you are the less likely that you’ll develop heart problems. Twenty-two percent less!”

“Right. If you’re not going to take advantage of living in Scottsdale to shop or go to one of our exceptional spas–and keep in mind I’m happy to share my masseuse, Jerome, with you– then you you have to do the suggested exercises.”

“Glee, April, I appreciate your caring very much, but I’m getting stressed just listening to your suggestions. I don’t have time for exercises. I barely have time to close all the kitchen cabinets that Maury leaves open while he’s looking for snacks.”

“It’s so easy. Just take a piece of paper and write down what makes you happy across the top– like your dog, reading, watching “Glee”, Maury. Okay, well, maybe not Maury. Then list the ways you make each of them more enjoyable. Like under the dog category write down brushing for thirty minutes.”

“Ladies, you can’t be serious. First of all, I’m happy. Or relatively so. I wouldn’t say I’m delerious but I’m happy. Secondly, if I brush Amber for thirty minutes she’ll be bald and I’ll have a giant hairball in my living room that won’t allow us to breathe or see the TV. And, third, I don’t have time to think about whether I’m happy or not. I just live.”

“Well, that’s no way to function!” Click.

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Why do baby boomers flock to the spa? Stress relief, of course! In this time of taxes, 24-hour news cycles, wars, poverty and congressional gridlock, it makes sense to have your body pushed, pummeled and stroked. You can even leave a few shades darker because some have tanning beds that measure a person’s UV light sensitivity to adjust the output of rays. I have about as much interest in that as a Brazilian wax. My mother says, “Jean, spend more time on yourself. And don’t forget to pick up my prescriptions, take me to the podiatrist and come over to look for my silver stacked heels.”

Glee and April love the spa. They hoodwinked me for a style intervention after an explicit exercise class at one of Scottsdale‘s finest spas. It involved the suggestive “Bad Kitty” that involved rolling around on the floor. If I can get down there again, Maury would be impressed. I’d also have a lot of stress. They insisted on treating me to a reflexology/facial with a lavender loofah scrub. I don’t know what they were doing to me but I blended into mush. I didn’t learn until later that they were softening me up for  a make-over. I don’t know what’s wrong with wearing two fuzzy bunches on either side of my head. Why can’t Princess Leia shop for lettuce wraps?

Some of the spas have specials where you sign up for a membership fee which obligates you to go every month. Not that it’s  a bad thing. But what I want to know how corporations justify  a day of pampering as Team Building.  Even church groups are using this as an activity. And this connects to a religious experience  how?

At any rate, when I came home after the prickly pear sugar scrub with jojoba body butter rub, Amber, our discerning golden retriever, licked my legs raw. Maury wanted to know if he could nibble my elbow.

Puppets with Cleavage

In Colorado Springs, a city more conservative than Scottsdale which allows for funny business in all manners and forms, an advertising agency banned posters at bus shelters because “Avenue Q”, a touring production of the Broadway show, had a fuzzy pink puppet with cleavage. Personally, I thought of April in her angora V-neck sweater. With all that’s happening in the world, who would take the time to pick on a puppet? The more I think about it the more stress I’m getting? Puppets? On a poster? These people need to turn off Glenn Beck and find a sand box. I cannot make this up.

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Scottsdale and its tony neighbor, Paradise Valley, are ritzy areas that have lots of upscale residents.  By that I mean, not everyone goes food shopping in designer outfits. Some residents wear jogging suits with JUICY written across their tushes. When I see them I think I’m living in a fancy Olympic Village without snow. At any rate, today’s paper  says  a 6.3 million dollar home was sold that encompasses 11,620-square-feet.  So what do you put in that space? The usual: a library, a private theater, a sauna. But my favorite is the outside. On over two acres with lush landscaping (which will require oodles of water from our dry, parched desert environment) is a heated play pool. I thought all pools were for play. Apparently, there’s a special kind for hanky-panky. Maury would love that.

We Have Great Spas in Scottsdale

I love the spa! Who doesn’t want to be pampered? My friends, Glee and April, go often. They even took me recently for a Style Intervention. That’s where your closest, dearest friends let you know you need an emergency make-over. Now that might be true because I have a tendency to let myself go, but the labyrinth meditation walk at the Golden Door really got me. It’s supposed to help you crystalize your inner vision. Instead, walking in the paved earth, environmentally- friendly circle stressed me out. I go in circles every day! I think I have a day planned so I can accomplish something and then my mother calls with a medical emergency (hemorrhoids) or the kids call ( little ones might have the H1N1 virus) or Maury (who forgot an important folder he needs for a meeting) and everything falls apart. So walking in a circle trying to meditate didn’t relieve stress for me. When I shared that with my female friends, Glee said, “Well, at least you got your vitamin D from the sunshine. You probably have a deficiency.”

Would You pay This Much for a La-Z-Boy?

Remember the guy who went to a bar in his motorized La-Z-Boy chair in Minnesota and was arrested because he was driving drunk? Well, they tried to auction it off after changing the name to the DWI Chair. It went for $43,000! Now if you have an extra $43,000 would you buy a powder blue velour tufted monstrosity that moves?! Hey, we’re in Scottsdale. That kind of money buys a Mercedes.

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