So this is vacation week and as we aren't going anywhere I am using it to do a lot of things that I haven't had time to do.  This morning, at almost noon mind you, Grace crawled out of bed.  I was washing curtains and rugs.  Four hours later I was outside cleaning the garden when she burst out the door, still in her pajamas, and wailed, "I have my tennis lesson in an hour and I don't want to gooooooooo!".  I love living with a teenaged girl.  It's like living with Sybil.  She's happy, she's sad, she's mostly crabby and sometimes hysterical.  Geesh.  I'm certainly not the only one going through this and yesterday a friend and I took our two recently very emotional and gloomy girls for a treat.  Okay so maybe it was a treat for us and we decided to treat them too so as to assuage the parental guilt of obviously having done something wrong.  The four of us spent the day at the spa.  But not just any spa.  A wonderful spa.  The place is called QC Terme and it is freakin' amazing!  Check it out: (http://www.qctermetorino.it)  It is four floors of complete luxury and decadence.  The underground is dedicated to "water" with steam rooms, mineral tubs of various temperatures and scents, waterfalls, foot and body scrub centers.  The 1st floor is the bar/dining room, massage rooms, and gardens with hot tubs.  The second floor is for the "relax rooms", five themed rooms for sleeping or meditating with soft music, scent and visuals.  For example there is the water rooms with waterbeds, a kayaker paddling up river projected onto the ceiling, and the sound of lapping waves.  The top floor is for saunas.  There are five, all with different temperatures and humidity levels.  On Tuesday afternoons they offer a light buffet with fruits, veggies, sweets and wines.  Apart from the massage which is extra, one only pays an entrance cost of 40 euro.  We arrived at 12:30 and left at 8 pm.  It was glorious.  No electronics.  No loud talking.  All in a fantastical old noble villa with 15 foot ceilings, beautiful art on the walls, tiles and slate in the water rooms, marble bathrooms.  I could live there.  So Grace, after a day like that, after sleeping til noon, after lounging in her darkened room for most of the day, still managed to be an emotional grump because she had to go to an hour tennis lesson on a warm and sunny afternoon.  As I said, geesh.  xxoo me