stripes

I don't think I mentioned this yet but if I did, forgive me and my early onset senility.  I blame it on the stress and the undue overuse of my brain that is the result of me being the parent to an 8 year old who reads all.the.time.

Last Friday, I took a very rare day off.  My son was in the limboland between the end of school and the start of camp, so he did a day with his dad at the local amusement park (quite possibly one of my least favorite things to do in the heat).  The next day, I promised him a trip to the beach (one of my favorite things to do in the heat - his too).

So off we went - we took my mom along as she is also a beach afficionado.  We got lucky and it was a perfect beach day in CT - around 80, sunny, warm, and low tide.  We donned our gear and our sunscreen...and no, I didn't sunscreen my stomach because I had no intention of taking off my tank top.

Of course, you know what they say about the best laid plans...

G had us running and digging for clams and building a trench.  Had I been sitting in my chair reading (yeah right), I could have left my tank on.  But I was HOT.  So off went the tank.

Er....problem is...I might have forgotten I never put on sunscreen.  I may be of Italian decent but our Italian family was northern - like pretty much in Switzerland.  I will never be described as dark or swarthy.  More like pasty or chalky.  So I know I need sunscreen.

Or not.

I only had the tank off for about an hour or so...so when we got back to my parents, I noticed my stomach was a little pink but only in patches.  That's when it dawned on me that I never put on any stinkin' sunscreen.  Crap.  I wasn't too worried about the patchiness because my sunburns sometimes start out that way.

Fast forward 6 hours...

...I have a friggin striped sunburn on my stomach.  Now, I do not have a super flat stomach but it is sufficiently flat so as to allow for comfortable and non-scary wearing of a bikini.  But apparently, whatever angle I was in the build "the trench", I managed to roll my extra skin in such a way so as to only get sun exposure to 3 stripes of skin on my stomach.

What an ass.

To add insult to injury, it was a pretty bad burn.  Not blistering but sore and itchy.

Now here we are 6 later - and now I have a striped tan stomach that's PEELING.

I can't wait until the next time I go to the beach - so I can look like a ginormous ass with my striped gut.
But you can bet your life I'll be sporting some SPF50.