May 2020

What We’re Reading at the Spa

Are you keeping in touch with the co-workers you were used to seeing every day before Covid-19 hit? So are we! The therapists who give the best massages in Chicago, our spa attendants, manicurists, aestheticians and managers from Spa Space get together virtually to discuss our status under the public health guidelines and the safety protocols we are developing to keep our staff and clientele safe when we are able to reopen (hopefully soon!).

Sometimes some of us will get together on Zoom just to chat, the way we would on a break in the good old days. We probably talk about the same kind of things you and your friends from work talk about – what we’ve been watching on TV, how the new banana bread recipe turned out and the cute new face mask someone bought online.

Like lots of other people looking for ways to pass the time while they are at home, some of us have found solace and entertainment curling up with a good book. In a recent Zoom, we talked about some of our favorite reads and we thought we’d share a few titles for those of you who are (or are becoming!) readers.

Summer Reading

Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim

Vanessa Yu never wanted to see people’s fortunes—or misfortunes—in tea leaves.
Ever since she can remember, Vanessa has been able to see people’s fortunes at the bottom of their teacups. To avoid blurting out their fortunes, she converts to coffee, but somehow fortunes escape and find a way to complicate her life and the ones of those around her. To add to this plight, her romance life is so nonexistent that her parents enlist the services of a matchmaking expert from Shanghai.

The Printed Letter Bookshop by Katherine Reay

One of Madeline Cullen’s happiest childhood memories is of working with her Aunt Maddie in the quaint and cozy Printed Letter Bookshop. But by the time Madeline inherits the shop nearly twenty years later, family troubles and her own bitter losses have hardened Madeline’s heart toward her once-treasured aunt—and the now struggling bookshop left in her care.
While Madeline intends to sell the shop as quickly as possible, the Printed Letter’s two employees have other ideas. Reeling from a recent divorce, Janet finds sanctuary within the books and within the decadent window displays she creates. Claire, though quieter than the acerbic Janet, feels equally drawn to the daily rhythms of the shop and its loyal clientele, finding a renewed purpose within its walls.

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

This remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in the moment, even if those moments are out of order was an AMAZON EDITORS’ 20 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR PICK.

It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. And so begins Oona Out of Order…

Happy reading from your friends at Spa Space, voted Chicago’s best day spa!

Explore Chicago Parks

If you can’t spend time at Chicago’s Spa Space, why not get out and enjoy Chicago’s green space?!

Self-care is so important – especially at times like this. So, if you can’t relieve stress with a massage at Spa Space, among the most innovative day spas in Chicago, try getting out and exploring the city’s amazing parks, where you can enjoy the sunshine and fresh air while safely staying socially distant.

If you went to a different park every weekend, it would take you more than 11 years to visit all the parks in the Chicago Park District (CPD). which has more than 600 parks spread over almost 9,000 acres of green space – including 28 miles of lakefront. (That is more land area than any other city park system in the U.S.)

We thought that knowing the story behind some of the many beautiful green spaces in the park system may add to your enjoyment.

The History of Chicago’s Parks

Chicago’s park system is not only large, it is also historic. “Even Chicagoans who routinely enjoy its diverse open spaces – from the magnificent lakeshore parks to intimate neighborhood settings – may be surprised about their parkland legacy,” the Park District’s website says.

Here are a few highlights from the early years:

1836: “The story of Chicago’s parks began even before the city was officially incorporated,” the CPD says. “Early leaders foresaw the importance of saving lakefront property as open space. When preparing land sale maps to generate revenue to build the Illinois and Michigan Canal, they labeled an area of the lakefront with the inscription: ‘Public Ground— A Common to Remain Forever Open, Clear, and Free of Any Building, or Other Obstruction Whatever.’ This inscription established a legal precedent for lakefront protection and marked the beginnings of what later became known as Grant Park.”

1837: Chicago didn’t have any officially designated green spaces when it was incorporated on May 4, but that didn’t stop city leaders from adopting the motto “Urbs in Horto,” a Latin phrase that means “City in a Garden.”

1858: Did you know that Lincoln Park was originally a graveyard? The graves were all removed, but there is a reminder. “Two brothers, Ira and James Couch, built their family tomb in the City Cemetery, a burial ground established through a federal land grant two decades earlier. Later, bodies were exhumed and moved to other cemeteries, and the burial ground became part of Lincoln Park. Today, the Couch Tomb is the only above-ground reminder of Lincoln Park’s prior history as a graveyard.”

Have fun and stay safe out there. All of us here at Chicago’s Spa Space look forward to seeing you again when it is safe to do so.