Zen and the Art of Massage

I recently gave a Hot Stone massage to a woman who was redeeming a gift certificate. She has received it from a family member for Christmas.

As we were doing her intake, she admitted she was nervous about the treatment, and wasn’t sure she wanted an hour and a half, as it seemed like a long time. After some further discussion, she also admitted she was not fond of massage on the whole and that she wasn’t much of a hot bath, sauna, or other heat treatment person.

I let her know that she didn’t have to have the treatment if she didn’t want to. She said she still wanted to try it, because it was a gift and she couldn’t know if she would enjoy Hot Stone massage unless she tried it. I then let her know that if part way through she decided the stones were just not her thing, we could switch to another sort of massage therapy, and I would not be offended in the least. She was thankful I had said that, and said that had been on her mind. I then explained how the entire treatment would proceed, and that she could let me know if anything is uncomfortable at any time.

One-and-a-half hours later, she came out of the treatment room and sleepily said it was a wonderful treatment and she was so glad she tried it. She was sure to take some clinic pamphlets with her and was curious about the other sorts of treatments available at the clinic.

Why am I posting this? I want to remember that massage, and how the client reacted, and how at the end of the day communication with your client is nearly as important as the treatment itself.

Just wanted to post a little something to say I’m in the process of moving to Toronto. My husband recently was hired by FreshBooks and is really loving the job and the environment so far.

Of course this means my days as an Ottawa-based RMT are over! My current plan is to take a few weeks off after the move, which should be scheduled for somewhere around the 26th of January. After that, who knows? I’m going to be on the look out for a good business opportunity, and see from there.

Also, just in case: If any of my current clients have found my blog and are reading this, you should be receiving a letter in the mail with some details about my last day at the clinic and who will be replacing me. I sent a small batch of letters just before Christmas and a much larger batch yesterday.

Friday night I had the pleasure of seeing Kim Barlow at the Black Sheep Inn, over in Wakefield (Quebec), about a 45 minute drive from where we live in Ottawa.

Let me first day that Wakefield is a cute little town. I’d heard of it before, of course, and has met people who live in Wakefield, but I’d never gotten the chance to spend some time there myself. It’s very peaceful on the water and has a steam train, which we got to watch roll through. Much to our amusement, not only were the conductors and staff waving at us while it went past, but there was a string quartet playing in one of the cars. I remarked to Rich that I’d have to tell others about this, but that people probably wouldn’t believe me, as the idea seems rather surreal.

Anyhow. The opening band was called Pork Belly Futures . From reading the information on that website, you’d figure they might actually be good. For all the award-winning writing their front man has done in his career, this band was a disappointment. The music needed to be up-tempo a few notches. The lyrics were bordering somewhere between bland and just plain strange. And I’m not terribly surprised to find out that the band’s keyboardist and female singer were added later on — they seemed like additions while they were on stage, pushed off to one side as if they were extras. Cap that off with the fact that the front man never once stood up from his chair during their entire set, and you get the picture. They weren’t horrible, but I was more interested in my pint of beer than in the music, and I’m usually pretty open minded about that kind of thing.

I was glad when Kim Barlow finally took the stage somewhere around 10:30. It took some time for her to get set up, but it was well worth the wait. Her stage companion (whose name I’ve since forgotten, unfortunately) patched his guitar through an interesting setup involving several microphones, smaller speakers, and an old radio. This gave it a rather unique sound quality that I’m sure will show up on her next album, due out sometime this fall. Kim herself gave a wonderful performance. Her voice was amazing. She projects so well; even standing several feet from the microphone I could still hear every word. And, she clearly is very comfortable on stage, which just added to the performance on multiple levels. There were several times that she missed a verse, or played in the wrong key, or even forgot to plug in to the amp(!) but she still maintained her composure and was able to laugh at herself in a manner that made you feel like you were attending a jam session between her and the other musician, not a live show. She interacted with the audience a lot, commenting on various things she’d been thinking about, including details of the new album, life in the Yukon, and the fact that she always looks forward to hearing the crickets in eastern Canada. This is the kind of performance I love to see. It not being flawless made it so much better.

I’d not gotten the chance to hear Kim Barlow live before, and I’m very glad I did. Well worth it.

Too bad about that opening band.

I moved to Ottawa back in 1997. I’ve attempted to at least go out to see the tulips during the Tulip Festival (which runs from the weekend of Mother’s Day to the weekend of Victoria Day) every year since then, but haven’t always succeeded. This year I swore things would be different.

Mother’s Day weekend, Rich and I went downtown into the Byward Market and admired all of the displays of tulips. Naturally, the city had planted tulips in almost every nook and cranny they could, so downtown was a wonderful sea of reds, yellows, whites, and pinks. There were not many other events we were interested in that weekend, but we made plans to return the closing weekend of the festival, when several concerts that caught our eyes would take place.

This past Friday evening, we managed to catch the Constantines onstage. Unfortunately, they were not the headliners of the evening (that spot went to Hawksley Workman, who we didn’t stick around to see due to the cold) so they only had a short set, but it was great none-the-less. I was hoping they’d do Insectivora, if only to see how they’d translate a song heavy on the horns into a live stage performance without them, but alas, they chose other songs.

Saturday’s lineup included Trooper and Honeymoon Suite, and while there was certainly an attraction to going just for the ‘what year is this?’ factor, we opted out.

Sunday seemed to be World Music day, as Afrian and Indian music hit the stage late in the afternoon, followed by Jewish tunes. They also had a DJ available to spin between sets. Rich has been a fan of Klezmer music for a while, and wanted to go see The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, who went on stage at 9:15 pm. Of course, this is spring in Ottawa, so it was raining fairly hard all evening, and we were starting to worry they’d cancel events based on that. Fortunately for us, they didn’t, because this was a great show. Being that I’m not Jewish and didn’t grow up in a community that had a large Jewish population, I hadn’t been exposed much to the wonder that is Klezmer, but I’m very glad I went. As much as I enjoyed the Constantines, Flying Bulgar Klezmer put on a better show. There was humour, there was dancing, there was much singing in Yiddish that I couldn’t understand. But that didn’t matter — I still bobbed around under my umbrella like everyone else.

Saturday night also brought fireworks, which were sort of a strange experience when it was still raining. Usually, they cancel fireworks due to rain, so I wonder if the great fireworks cancellation of Canada Day 2001 had some influence. I suppose the NCC didn’t want to have angry tourists on its hands again.

Sunday we were supposed to see Kim Barlow, who I’ve been wanting to see ever since hearing her Gingerbread CD at Rich’s after we first met. Unfortunately, this show WAS cancelled due to rain, so I didn’t get to see her. Lucky for me, The Black Sheep just over the border from us in Quebec has her playing there on the 4th of June, so we’re hoping to make it up there to see her then.

I enjoyed this year’s Tulip Festival a lot more than in previous years, I think because I don’t live all that near downtown anymore and therefore it’s more of a ‘trip’ to go and do these things. I’m also looking forward to the other festivals in Ottawa this summer — Blues Fest and Jazz Fest, the later of which I’m told pales in comparison to Montréal’s festival of the same name, but I still appreciate being able to have what little bit of music I can get.