Never Say Never

I am still a little bit in shock that I actually did it, but I went to a tanning bed for the very first time, ever! Not one to approve of them, I still don't by the way, but I was worried about toasting up a wee bit too much on this cruise. Looking like a lobster and peeling like an onion didn't appeal to me. So, I took the plunge.

My mother would be horrified if she knew. She was anti sun the last 50 years of her life and her smooth skin was a testimonial to sun avoidance. She would come to the pool when I was a kid with bottles of suntan lotion (this was eons before sunscreen was even a whisper in the Coppertone lab) come back shortly thereafter and make me come home NOW. More often then not, she scored with her gloom and doom projections, I burned and peeled.

Later on in my big girl years she would send me hats for gardening and sitting on tractors. "Stay out of the sun" couldn't be harped on enough. I am sure she was crest fallen when Myles bought me an 80 John Deere tractor for my 25th birthday so I could work summer fallow without a cab.

I believe that too much sun is not good for anyone and shows up remarkably in later years. Even now there are people younger than I who tan year round and actually it isn't appealing. The darker they get the more odd color they take on. It ceases to look healthy, forget Sunkist. Even more odd is the spray painted look.

So I go to get a haircut and I am telling my stylist, who happens to have a tanning bed in her salon, about my concern over tanning and burning. Before I can ponder or say BURNT, I am in a tanning bed, minus my clothes. A full seven minutes. It takes longer to hard boil an egg. Seven more sessions to go and I just may have the luminescent white cooked out of me.

On a lighter note it wasn't too bad in the roaster. It might have been a blessing in disguise (forgive me mom!) but those ultra violet rays, a new hair cut and a highlight seems to have pulled out of my funk.