Last January in Bermuda, an island resident told me that she loves to visit a day spa in NYC near Macy’s called Juvenex — it’s wonderful, she told me, a place for women only during the day.  I recalled this conversation when I was at a Horace Mann event this spring, talking with a member of the school’s administration.

To my surprise, he mentioned that he takes his wife to Juvenex when they have a date night away from their two children.  It’s wonderful, he said, echoing the Bermudian’s remark.

Two such emphatic recommendations from two very different people made me remember Juvenex.

I suggested it as a destination to my childhood friend when she said she that she could come down to NYC for a short visit after the Fourth of July. Sure, sounds great, she said.

We headed to the spa on Monday afternoon.  The front desk person was a willowy young woman, perhaps from Eastern Europe.  She gave us a quick tour of the spa, before she returned to her greeting duties.   Once she left us, every other spa staff member we encountered at the spa was Korean with only a limited ability to speak English.

We were shown to lockers and given robes, towels and black paper bikinis.  Clothing is optional during the women-only daytime spa hours.  I tried on my bikini (testing out a new form of the swimsuit style invented 40 years ago this summer).  I can report that the paper bikini was quite comfortable — it was made of something like Tyvek and elasticized in appropriate places.

We were directed, mostly by gestures, to the showers.  We rinsed off, then entered the sauna, which was circular in shape.  Curved benches hugged the wall.   The spa’s greeter had told us during our tour that we should spend about 15 minutes in the sauna, followed by the same amount of time in the steam room.

We had the sauna entirely to ourselves.  In general, I like heat, but this sauna was the hotter than hot.  I felt as if I had entered a 450 degree oven or, better yet, a furnace.  The inside of my nose dried out rapidly, and I started to cough. It was impossible to even imagine sitting in the sauna for 15 minutes.

I’ve got to get out of here, I told my friend, after maybe seven minutes. Yeah! she agreed.

We walked the short distance to the steam room that, oddly, resembled an igloo. In retrospect, I don’t know why I thought the steam room would be more comfortable than the sauna.  Astonishingly hot, humid air blasted out from underneath the benches we sank down on as soon as we entered. Again, we were alone in the heat.  I felt like we were being put through the sterilization cycle in a dishwasher.  I lasted in the steam room for about three minutes.

We climbed into the big soaking tub next to the steam igloo.  To my immeasurable relief, I discovered that the bath was blissfully tepid.  Whole lemons floated in the  water.  We dunked down to our chins and chatted leisurely.  One of the Korean ladies brought us tall glasses of cool water.  Aaaahhhh.

When we clambered out, we were directed, by hand motions again, into a treatment room.  My friend had suggested that we try a salt scrub, because she had heard they were terrific.  I had no idea what we were getting into.

The room had two tables that looked like massage tables, but they were completely encased in a covering of thick, clear plastic, stapled to tables’ undersides.

Face down, the spa ladies told us.  We lay down on the tables, and they began to scrub us with rock salt.  The exfoliation process was not gentle.  The orders our Korean ladies gave us were short and abrupt — Face up!  Side!  Turn!

I felt like a hunk of salmon at a fishmonger’s or a side of beef at a butcher shop, and was, I think it’s fair to say, treated like one.   When I shared this thought with my friend, she started to laugh her deep chuckle.  Of course, I started laughing really hard, too, and then so did our Korean ladies, unexpectedly.  Somehow, they managed to communicate that we were making them laugh.  I’m glad they enjoyed themselves, but it didn’t make them any more considerate.  The one who was scrubbing me removed the top six layers of my skin, I am confident.

Just when I thought the scrub had ended, my lady grabbed me suddenly by my upper arms and slid me on the table toward her.  If she had let go, I would have sailed right out through the wall of the building like a cartoon character because by now I was so thoroughly slick and wet, as was the table.  Anyway, she held onto me and stopped me at the point when my head was hanging off the table but the rest of me was still on it.  She started washing my hair, rather roughly, to my astonishment.  My friend underwent the same procedure, and she was laughing almost nonstop by now.

Geez, they must think we were really dirty when we came in here today, I said to her.  Our ladies talked back and forth a little to each other, but mostly they were very busy, quick and matter-of-fact, except when they were laughing at us.

Shower, they ordered us next.

Back into the showers we went — exactly where we had started this process, but now I was taking up less physical space.

Onto our massages.  In sum, I can say I never had a less relaxing massage experience, although it was certainly funny.

Face down, we were told again, and we were covered with towels from head to toe.  Next thing, I know, my lady, who was small and wiry, was sitting on my back, kneading and pounding.  When she got down to my feet and started in on the pads and insteps, I was flinching away from her powerful hands.  My feet were cramping, and I had to pull them away from her.

Have you had Korean massage before? my friend’s Korean lady asked at one point.

No! we chorused.

Korean massage strong, she told us proudly.  American massage medium.  (I’m sure she meant weak, she was just trying to be polite.)

You bet, my friend, whom I could not see at all from under my towel, said.

And you’re strong, too, she said to her masseuse, with sort of a gasp.

That comment really got our ladies laughing, which set the four of us into a laughing fit like the scene in Mary Poppins, although I certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to escape up to the ceiling.

At certain points in the massage, the ladies cupped their hands and bopped us on a body part such as an elbow or knee.  The short, sharp tap, which didn’t hurt at all, made a dull, thumping sound.   I’m still not sure why percussion was part of the massage.

When I had flipped over at the face up command, my masseuse pulled my towel off my head and said, Cucumber, good for skin.  Then she completely covered my face, starting at my eyelids, with thin slices of cucumber.  I was blinded once again.

Now that we’ve been cooked, soaked in lemon juice, salted and oiled, is this when they eat us? I asked my friend, which set us off laughing again.

But no, at last, we were released.

We wrapped ourselves in our robes, and our ladies brought us delicious hot tea along with sliced melon and pineapple.  We thanked them for everything to the best of our ability, then we sat on the couches outside the massage room for a while, trying to figure out what had just happened to us.

I felt like I never wanted to move again, but my friend had to catch a train for home at Penn Station, and I had to return to my family, so we got back into our clothes and sort of staggered out of the building.

It was something of a small shock to find that we were still in Manhattan and that it was still the same day.  And, I have to confess, my brand-new skin felt terrific!

Sometimes, if I haven’t noticed the byline, I ask myself when I’m reading an article or an essay:  Was this written by a man or a woman?  It’s usually not difficult to figure out the gender of the author.

Check out the May 16, 2009 article Ties That Bind in The Wall Street Journal.

It’s about 10 women, who are now in their 40s.  They grew up together in Ames, Iowa.  They have maintained their hometown-based friendship for about 30 years, and they plan to make it last until the end of their lives.

The main point of the story is — many women make good friends, rely on them, share life’s wonders, woes and worries with them, and stay friends, even when separated by distance or preoccupied by the demands of family or career.

The article’s author seemed surprised by the intensity and duration of the Ames women’s friendship (and went on to write a book about it).

Was the Ames friendship story written by a man or a woman?

My guess, when I read it:  a man.

Of course, it was written by a man!  Jeffrey Zaslow, who seemed to think he’d revealed something remarkable.

Zaslow, not only had his story published, but he also garnered high praise from his editor (who also happens to be a man) for his reporting on this story.

My women friends, with whom I have discussed Ties That Bind, are not at all surprised to learn how important and sustaining female friendships are throughout life.  Duh! was their general reaction.

Zaslow bolsters his story by referring to the Australian Longitudinal Study of Aging.  The study, which tracked about 1,500 older people, showed that people who have extensive networks of friends live longer.  Causality isn’t proven, but it’s not important to my point anyway, because I am confident that women do not build friendships with the deliberate intention of prolonging their lives.

I decided to conduct a very small survey.  I asked my husband:  What has a recent study shown to be helpful in lengthening lifespan?

I thought he would answer:  exercise.

“S_x!” he said. (I can’t use the word because I already get enough nutty spam, and I don’t want to attract more.)  Now there’s a hilarious male answer for you.

I’ve been thinking of adding a separate blog category for friends from Barrington and, today,  my former high school classmate Laurie Manning, now a minister in California, gave me the perfect opportunity.

Over the week of May 31 to June 6, she’s bicycling in the AIDS/ LifeCycle 8, riding from San Francisco to Los Angeles (545 miles).

Hope you will support her!

WOO HOO!     LOVE, SUE