January Burns

Since moving to Minnesota, I knew that January would be a difficult month when it came to weather.
Actually, it's January through May with February or March being the really difficult months.
It's spring, and snow is still falling. That's hard to swallow when all your friends in ALL THE OTHER STATES are out having a good time in spring-like weather.

Can you tell Justin's bitterness has rubbed off?

It's been a really rough winter. So Justin took me to Kauai with another couple for my birthday. Hawaii in January. I didn't care if it was going to rain or be in the 70's. It wasn't snow and I didn't have to take a jacket.

Hawaii in January!

We were going to sail, kayak, surf, eat, drink and relax by the ocean. And we did and it was awesome!

But, there was a drawback. Our pasty white skin. It burned. We were diligent about using spf 50 and above. Our Indian friends didn't want to get "darker" (their words, not mine) either and were slathering spf 70. But us white folks burned areas of our body that we didn't expect. Legs, feet, hands, lips. And nothing would soothe the pain. Then I thought of this:

Back in Junior High School, 90210 was new and all the cool kids were watching it. I could NEVER get into it. The adult-like (fake) situations, the sex, a dj in a high school (pu-leeese!). I get they were trying to relate to people my age with issues of our generation but it was done in such a way that it made you feel shittier about yourself.

So I turned it off.

BUT! I did see an episode that officially gave me the green light to never watch the show again. The main, dark-haired chick (Brenda?) is out sunbathing before the big dance, naturally. But, oh noes! She got burned bigtime! WTH was she gonna do?

Don't worry, cool mom from the 90's used granny's sunburn aftercare, secret remedy and came to the rescue. Brenda came walking down the stairs in her poofy sleeved, black dress all ghost-like. Pasty skin restored back to normal.

YA RIGHT, 90210. Why do I get so angry about this story line?

So anyway, the sun is damaging and burns are painful. I could barely put socks on for my 9 hour flight home. Surprinsly, just my feet were affected and are now a beautiful tan color (3 weeks later).

I'm now the only Minnesotan with tan feet - that no one will ever see. Not til May, at least.


Hiding behind bikes. Even flip-flops hurt my feet. :(