Greggles & Berls Adventures in Unemployment and Super-fun-bus-times: What's Black and White and Red all Over?

Me. Naked. Reading the newspaper.

I won't include any pictures because this isn't that kind of site, but I got a pretty bad sunburn this weekend.

I took Greg's kayak out on the lake sometime around noon on Sunday. I still don't know that many people here, so what the heck, I had decided to wear a two-piece and get tan. The experts are right: midday is perfect timing for bad decisions involving the sun, water, fair skin, and minimal amounts of sunscreen.

In my 33 years of living, I have never been able to get an effortless tan from one day at the lake. I don't know why I thought Sunday would be any different. When I was a teenager I think I actually believed a nice, golden tan was something my dad was keeping from me to teach some sort of life lesson. I played softball pretty competitively, meaning I had a practice or a game nearly everyday and a tournament every weekend. So while I was out in the sun a lot, I was always dressed like a dork. So basically, I figured I wasn't allowed a lot of extracurricular sun in order to preserve my energy for softball. Oh how I mistakenly assumed the whole world was against me. "You still think that", observed Greg. "Write your own blog post", replied Kimberly.

Softball in the early 90s was responsible for some of the worst tan lines since the mankini. I'm sure the girls today still get tan lines, but I've seen their uniform styles, and they seem to make more sense protection-wise. I remember we all wore this sunscreen called Bull Frog. Bull somethin', alright. It did nothing to stop sunshine from burning into our skin like a wildfire, right up to the edges of our shirts, shorts and socks. And if you wore knee pads like I did, it was even worse. White feet, tan calves, white knees, tan lower thigh, white upper thigh, you get the picture. I looked like a short stack of Oreos. Also, I wore a batting glove under my fielding glove on my left hand, so my right hand was always tan and my left arm stopped at a stump to meet my little white hand. I loved softball and miss it dearly. Everything but those tan lines. Here's me in my '93 padded-bra bikini in a hotel pool after a ball game. And for those of you who haven't seen me in a bikini, I still look like this as far as you know. Note the tan face and neck, LINE, white chest, torso and upper thigh, LINE, tan leg disappearing into the chlorine.

All that to say that Dad wasn't teaching me any cruel life lessons back then. I was just fair-skinned and blond like him, and he knew I'd burn like a hydrogen sulfide cocktail if left to my own vain drive to be tanned or be damned. I'm not really vain, despite the fact that I worked a picture of a bikini-clad-high-school-me into this post.

Also, Dad was my coach for many years, and he wore the standard-issue coach socks and high-waisted tight poly shorts. He probably had tan lines too, which perhaps is why he stopped wearing his mankini. Poor Mom.

Back to the now world, where all pictures of me are carefully planned, then cropped and edited. Saturday we went out in the woods and got ready to tent-camp. We took some pictures, naturally, and then in the evening spent some time fireside with our new friends Mickey, Chrisi and their three adorable girls. Yes, we admittedly made a fire, but made sure it was out before we left the next day.