Massage

The subject sits like an oven-stuffer roaster on a pastel blanket - a soft, round inviting mass with tiny arms and legs drawn up tight. Eleven-week-old Jillian Gibson is about to get a massage. Ann Linguiti Pron arrives for her house call toting the tools of her trade in a blue-and-white canvas L.L. Bean bag: a large lifelike doll, a tape player and a stock of tapes with such titles as Fragrances of a Dream and Timeless Motion. Her daughter Chrissie, 9, is in tow. The doll, about the size of a 4-month-old and clothed in underpants, is for demonstration purposes.

A NORTHEAST Philadelphia chiropractor arrested in September for allegedly digitally penetrating a patient during a massage, yesterday was ordered to stand trial. Christopher Walcott, 43, who operates the Advanced Wellness Center of PA, on Bustleton Avenue in Somerton, will be tried for aggravated indecent assault and indecent assault, ruled Municipal Judge Patrick Dugan, who also dismissed a simple-assault charge. His alleged victim, a 69-year-old woman, testified at a preliminary hearing that she went to Walcott's center on July 28 to get relief from hip and groin pain.

Aree Sanyaluck pressed her palms and her full body weight firmly down on two pressure points near my groin. Has your pulse always been this slow? she asked over the whir of the fan cooling the nearly 90-degree weather and blowing away the constant barrage of mosquitoes. I felt like answering: When a 100-pound, 35-year-old Thai woman does handstands right below my pubic bone, I'm a tad nervous, not chatty. But I just shrugged and said, "Guess so. . . . " I had come to the jungle regions of Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, to study the ancient art of Thai massage.

A little-known city law says that every time a masseuse gives a member of the opposite sex a professional rubdown, it could have an unhappy legal ending. City Councilman Darrell Clarke yesterday moved to lift an almost four-decades-old legal ban on men massaging women and women massaging men. Clarke asked Council's Committee on Licenses and Inspections to amend the law, which has been in effect but apparently not enforced since the early 1970s. "I couldn't believe it when they told me that," Clarke said before the committee meeting.

Incense was burning, mixing its heavy perfume with the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Pakistani qawwal singer, coming from the CD player. At the foot of the futon in the sparsely furnished front room, a kneeling woman was intoning a prayer. In Bangkok, this scene might not have seemed unusual. But in Coleen Murphy's second-floor apartment off Rittenhouse Square? As out of place as a tree sloth hanging off William Penn's hat. Murphy was about to give Melissa Duran a Thai massage, a style of Asian therapeutic bodywork just making its way into this area from the Left Coast and other mysterious lands.

The investigation began when men started complaining that they were being propositioned for "extras" by masseuses at two local massage parlors. Last week, an undercover police investigation yielded four prostitution arrests and the temporary shutdown of Amore Spa and Stress Lab Inc. "Our investigation into these two places is continuing. There may be future arrests made of workers and other prostitutes, and possibly the (parlors') owners," Lt. Lee Hunter of the Newtown Township Police Department said yesterday.

A new massage studio is raising, rather than relieving, stress about the direction of downtown Haddonfield. The Chinese Tai Ji Center is preparing to open at 144 Kings Highway E., a storefront left vacant after the Haddonfield Running Co. stepped across the street to larger quarters. While the whole notion of massage therapy can still raise a few eyebrows, even in holistic Haddonfield, the main concern among many downtown boosters is how best to preserve the primacy of retail.

Most days, this group of men and women is concentrating hard on some pretty hefty problems. Is the baby's liver damaged? Will the newborn survive? Can they help? At the Du Pont Co.'s chemistry-support center south of Wilmington, the questions are unrelenting: 2,000 or so questions a month from doctors, hospitals and medical labs about how to handle instruments and products that the company makes. With each call, stress builds. But on a recent Saturday, the 15 specialists took 90 minutes at their company's management retreat at the Mendenhall Inn in Chester County to concentrate only on themselves.

We love it when parallel professions converge for the highest good of all concerned. Case in point: the personal chef and the professional masseuse. As Barbara and Eric Victor of Jenkintown recently discovered, pairing a meal and a massage at home can be heavenly - especially if the grandparents agree to babysit. So it was on a recent Friday evening when the staff of Mitch's Magnificent Meals and Handled With Care arrived simultaneously at the Victors' back door. Chef Mitch Small headed straight for the kitchen to prepare (among other items)

At Marcine Davis' new shop, you can buy a posy, sip a cup of fresh-brewed tea, or get a foot rub. The multi-faceted establishment, called It's Easy Being Green, will host a grand opening in two weeks. It calls a converted house on North Hills Avenue home. The ground floor has three small rooms running from the front to the back of the building. Enter from the front porch and you are greeted by baskets overflowing with blooms and greenery. Next is the tea room, furnished with small tables and chairs picked up at garage sales.

SANTIAGO, Chile - Cars honk, people yell, and radios blare outside, yet Carmen Castillo is getting a rejuvenating midday nap in downtown Santiago, snoozing away her stress in a dreamland of scented candles, plush pillows, and calming massages. She's taking a siesta at the Espacio Siestario, which rents its seven Zen-like rooms to bank employees, lawyers, and other professionals for 30 to 45 minutes. The rooms cost about $10, but customers say being able to return to the office fully rested is priceless.

A 41-year-old Center City woman was arrested Tuesday and charged with prostitution after soliciting undercover police for sex. Star Guiterrez, 41, worked at Cuties Spa on the 1100 block of Race Street near the Convention Center. Officers from the vice unit staged a sting at the establishment after receiving complaints that illicit sexual acts were being performed there, police said.

DEAR ABBY: My two adult granddaughters have rejected me. Their father gave me this explanation: "They are uncomfortable with the way you rub their shoulders and necks. " These girls and both parents have misinterpreted my innocent expressions of affection, which haven't changed since the girls were little. The only change is in their perception of my actions. I asked twice to meet with these family members to discuss their concerns. It has been three months; no meeting time has been offered.

VINCE TROMBETTA has no problem remembering the particulars of his first crack at reffing basketball games. He was a student at West Chester University. The contest was intramural. The pay was a dollar. He worked it alone. "We didn't finish," Trombetta said. "Remember Chuck Weber, the guy who replaced Chuck Bednarik as the Eagles' middle linebacker? He got mad and ran me out of the gym. " Is your mind racing? Should be. That scenario occurred in the early 1950s. Thursday, Trombetta again found himself performing a solo act. One month short of his 80th birthday, he did a marvelous job over 2 hours, 19 minutes, as Palmer Charter topped visiting Palumbo, 99-96, in three overtimes.

While I'm away, readers give the advice. On dealing with one parent who cheats on the other: I'm a divorced woman whose husband cheated. I have six children. While cheating is certainly not an admirable thing to do, and often the catalyst for divorce, it is not a reason for a child to choose to sever a relationship with the parent. A father's relationships with his wife and his lover are not really a statement of his love for his children. Wrecking the home, humiliating the mother are tough, and do affect the children, no doubt, but it's not about them.

Jennifer Lopez played craps at a private table in the Ultra Lounge at Atlantic City's new Revel after her Sunday concert, with Enrique Iglesias, at Boardwalk Hall.   J.Lo stayed in a Sky Suite at Revel and had an in-room massage preshow. No word on how she fared at the craps table, but A.C. has proved lucky in the past for the Lopez family. In 2004, her mother, Guadalupe, won $2.4 million on a Wheel of Fortune slot machine at the Borgata. As we told you recently, Lopez and choreographer boyfriend Casper Smart spent about a week at the Ritz-Carlton here while rehearsing at the Liacouras Center for her tour.

THE CLIENT LIST. 10 p.m. Sunday, Lifetime. WHAT DO women really want? According to Lifetime, it's more of Jennifer Love Hewitt, rubbing men the right way. On Sunday - because nothing says Easter like a hot chick who gives "happy ending" massages - the television-for-women network adds the series "The Client List," produced by and starring Hewitt as a strapped Texas homemaker who's willing to try just about anything to keep...

Kale is about as unlikely a food star as you can imagine. It's tough and fibrous. Bite a piece of raw kale and you'll practically end up with splinters between your teeth. Nevertheless, kale has become a green of the moment because, given a little special care, it's not only edible but delicious. You can cook it, of course, the lower and slower the better. But surprisingly, one of the most popular ways to use kale these days is in salads. Though kale leaves have always been found on almost every salad bar, it wasn't for reasons of edibility - it was for decoration, because this was one green so tough it would last forever without wilting.

Police raided two Stratford massage parlors Thursday that are suspected to be part of a prostitution ring with connections to New York City. Shortly after 1 p.m., officers swept into Heavenly Hands Massage on Yale Avenue and then the Natural Massage Center on West Laurel Road, arresting two employees at each place. Detectives had been investigating the establishments for a month after receiving reports from neighbors of men parking down the street and walking to the establishments, said Stratford Police Chief Ronald Morello.