As mentioned in several of my ramblings, I place all of my stress in my neck and shoulders (see Shoulder Boulders). My absolute favorite thing is for someone to rub them, but I rarely schedule a real massage. Most of the time, I ignore child labor laws and enlist my children (see I’m A Baller). If that doesn’t work, I beg a rub from the nearest member of my inner core of friends. And if that doesn’t work, I throw a hand over the hurting shoulder and squeeze whatever I can reach as hard as I can.
But yesterday, after weeks of trying to fit our schedules together, I got a real massage from a friend who used muscle and elbows to get these real knots out. Hands down, the best massage I’ve ever gotten.
As I was laying quite cozy on the heated table with my face in what always reminds me of a padded toilet seat, I could feel my sinuses filling up. But it felt too good to complai
n so I just sucked it up (literally).
That’s when “cupping” came up. I’ve never done it before. All I knew of it was what I saw during the Olympics. It looked like Michael Phelps had slabs of bolgna all over his back. No thanks! But according to my friend, the cupping genius, the trick is to keep the cups moving and stretching the muscles.
We started with a small cup. I could barely feel it until about the fourth squeeze and even then it felt more like a child’s pinch. So we stepped it up to the larger cup and oh my… that’s good stuff. It felt like it was stretching the muscles from the inside out, and pulled a moan out with it.
After the massage, I laid there for a minute to enjoy the quiet. It was the first complete quiet I had experienced in days. There were no dogs barking, no phones ringing, no kids arguing, just quiet. I was completely relaxed, completely grateful and completely stuffed up.
I stood up to get dressed and all the stuff in my stuffed up nose just started to pour out. I was oh so lady like and oh so without a tissue. I dove in the Mary Poppins bag I call a purse and found the first thing I could to stop the faucet.
So now I’m counting the days until I can be cupped again, but this time I’ll pop a Sudafed beforehand. And I’ll be sure to put another tampon in my bag, just in case the Sudafed doesn’t work.
#IPreferLargeCupSizes
#IWonderIfICanSwimLikePhelpsNow
#CuppingIsSoMuchBetterThanSpooning
Outrageously Ordinary 