coquetterie

Memorial Day falls on a Sunday this year.

For work-related purposes, we celebrate it on the preceeding Monday. Thus, it is Memorial Day weekend. For most professionals, it is a three-day weekend; as the British would say, it’s a bank holiday weekend.

It heralds the unofficial start of summer.

The weekend will be spent arguing with family, wrinkling my nose at hors d’oevres that I do not like at the family BBQ and avoiding the sun. I broil in the sun.

A few summer’s ago, I decided I wanted a bit of a tan. Whilst everyone worked, I snuck over to the ‘rents, and I borrowed their pool and loungers. I stretched out on a towel wearing a skimpy swimsuit. I unfasted the top, removed it and succeeded in soaking up the sun.

What did I not count on?

Oh, yes…I fell asleep. In the middle of the day, in the subtropics in late May.

I wanted some natural highlights in my hair, so I spread my hair out around me, put on my shades and closed my eyes to the glaringly bright sunlight. The trees whispered with the breeze. I heard bees buzzing and other natural sounds I did not recognize. I thought a short amount of time elapsed.

I. WAS. WRONG.

I looked at my skin, which through the darkened lenses of my sunglasses had a pink-ish cast. I pushed myself up…and nearly died. My skin was sore and tight. A foreshadowing of things to come. I wrapped a towel around myself, picked up my accoutrements and walked into the house.

My mother greeted me from the kitchen. After expressing shock because she was home early, she casually mentioned that she thought I was looking dreadfully red and thought perhaps she should get me out of the sun.

Pushing my sunglasses up onto my head, acting as an expensive hairband, I gaped at myself in the mirror. RED. The pinkish cast was a dream. I was as red as a lobster. Because I apparently drifted on a light layer of sleep, thinking little time had passed, I didn’t turn.

I only managed to cook half of myself. In the ensuing hours, the pain and tightness set in. If I could have, I would have stretched out, face down in a cooling bath of aloe. Needless to say, there was no blue, save for my pain-tinged sadness that Memorial Day weekend.

Please have a safe and lovely holiday weekend. And, remember your sunblock!

The Donnas: Take It Off: [2:40]

Technorati Tags: life, sunburn, summer, Memorial Day, Weekend

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