Time And Tide

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose. Lyndon B.Johnson

Saturday, June 21, 2003

It's been a pretty productive morning - especially for a Saturday. I'm taking the kids swimming at my mom's house. I have to remember that a promise to swim will get darn near anything out of them. Their rooms are clean and they've done everything from gather dirty dishes to sweep floors. Yep, definitely have to remember that one. I might just end up with a cleaner house and a tan to boot. That would be cool. It's been years since my lily white skin has seen any decent amount of sun. I can remember the days when I would wake up early to be out on the porch by 10 am. My supplies would be gathered quickly - cooking oil, a good book, spray bottle of water, sun glasses and various other entertain-myself-while-baking necessities. I held deepest tan contests with people I worked with at Ingles.

Yes, like Miss Cashier (I'd add a link if I had a clue how), I have stories of my own to tell, and some of them are doozies. Remind me at some point to tell the story of the sick guy in too short silky shorts and no undies shopping late one Saturday night for cold medicine. It takes no big stretch of the imagination to know how that one came out (literally). But that's another blog...

Back to tanning. This was a time when sun kissed skin was a glory (yes, ages and ages ago) and I miss it. After having my first baby and gaining 68 pounds in the middle of one of the hottest summers ever to be seen in our area, I lost a lot of my tolerance for sun worshiping. I can't take the heat. Anything over 75 degrees and I'm done for...give me a/c and a tall glass of lemonade. Over the last nearly 12 years I have gone from deep dark bring out the cherokee in me brown to a shade of pale that would make Casper giggle. I practically glow in the dark. Occasionally I think of fakin bacon at the tanning place but I can't afford it and forget the self tanners - my body screams painted on color with every one I've tried. I am about ready to give in and just go with the sun out by the pool, with tall lemonade in hand, just like the old days.

I'm willing to ignore the health hazzard warnings. I've not known the sun intimately in many many years and still I'm aging faster than I should be. My face is wrinkled and my boobs are sagging (which I know has nothing to do with the sun but still) I'm not looking too hot thesedays and changing my hair color can only offer so many thrills. I want color on my body. I don't care if my stretch marks do glow, at least my veins won't be so visible under my opalescent skin as to look like a road map. I want to look warm, inviting and sexy again. I want rich coffee with just a tad of cream coloring that brings out the green of my eyes, leaves me with beautiful highlights in my hair that didn't get there by my husband or the setting in of old age. I want color!

I've given up enough of my favorite unhealthy things already. ENOUGH! I'm trying to quit smoking, drink Diet Rite instead of Coke, I don't buy Little Debbie cakes anymore and practically all signs of my once-great body are gone. Do I have to look ghostly as well? I think not. I am ready to embrace the risk of sun for the immediate rewards to my mental state. So I'm headed to the pool. Throw an umbrella in my drink and call me a lobster. I'm gonna have a tan.

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