A Sunday off? It’s nearly unheard of in our lives these days but we had been planning and looking forward to this one for awhile now.
We decided to buy massages for our birthday presents to each other and we were going to do it on the 25th. A friend of the QueenPins, Alyssa, told us about a place in Pasadena called Heart & Sole and it’s $25/hr massage. We made 3:00 appointments and planned on going to one of my favorite restaurants in L.A. – Pure Luck.
1:30 rolls around and I get the devastating news that Pure Luck is closed on Sunday! TRAGIC! Literally, world shattering news. At least we still had the massages to look forward to. We set out at 2:30pm, giving ourselves a half hour to get to Pasadena, which is really only a 15 minute drive.
Who knows what happened. When you get down to it – it was Britt and I in a car trying to get somewhere…that’s what happened. It quickly turned into Jess getting frustrated that the GPS was giving wrong directions and Brittany dropping swears left and right. We parked in some random garage and found out it wasn’t where we were supposed to be. We went around in circles for 10 minutes because, little known fact, Pasadena has TONS of one-way streets. Brittany called just to tell them we were going to be late and all she got was, “You try coming…”! Of course we’re trying! We swoop into a rockstar parking space, but it’s metered! And it doesn’t exclude Sundays! Seriously?! And all we have in our wallets are pennies. I dig around in my car for a second and somehow we scrounge up enough money to feed that baby enough for an hour an a half. We were only 15 minutes late…but it is L.A., right?
Heart and Sole is a cute little place. The lights are low and soothing music and those rock fountain things are all around. The way this place works is there’s a row of about 6 massage chairs and they do massages in groups. So, you’re not alone while getting a massage. But no worries, you keep your clothes on! And are covered with a towel. Starting off laying on your back, they massage your face, head, neck, shoulders and then move onto the feet. Brittany and I both have an intense reaction to our feet being touched and this was no different. We both had our hands under the towels and pinched ourselves the whole time they were working our feet to refrain from an outburst! I think the people massaging us thought this was funny or something because every time I opened my eyes they were smiling pretty big smiles.
The best part for me was when we turned over and they did our back. I had never had a professional massage and with the amount of stress I’ve been under lately, this was the best thing for me. I was completely relaxed after he got all the knots out of my shoulders and released tons of tension.
It’s worth $25 for the hour and it feels like you’re in there for 20 minutes, it goes by super fast! Plus, you’ll have someone going to town on your butt for a few minutes and who can resist that?!
An inside view of Heart and Sole (borrowed from Yelp!)
Since Pure Luck was closed we settled on what we figured was the next best thing – The Brite Spot! Brite spot is a kitchy little diner in the Echo Park area. If you’ve seen Food Inc, it’s featured at the beginning with the cutest old lady I’ve ever met. The service is always great and it’s a friendly place to chat and enjoy a nice meal. We were far too hungry to snap pictures of our meals. However, I had the Vegetarian Cibatta sandwich and Brittany had the Turkey Pesto. They were both magnificent as always. We splurged on a cupcake for dessert. It was a toss-up between a peanut butter cupcake and red velvet. After consulting our waitress she suggested the Red Velvet and we dug right in and were not at all disappointed!
Pretty giant Red Velvet Cupcake w/ AMAZING frosting!
The Brite Spot is a great place to go for any meal and has tons of vegetarian options, which is always a plus for me.
Check em out on the web @ http://www.clearwaterst.com/britespot/
Or just drop in for a meal:
Los Angeles, CA 90026 213.484.9800
Britt w/ some decor at Brite Spot!Keep it real,
– J
