Sun Day

A week or so ago, my daughter saw a commercial on TV for a local, well-known waterpark, which boasts the world's largest re-circulating swimming pool. Since then, she has begged and pleaded to go. My husband was not too keen on the idea, largely because he's not a big fan of the sun.

He's of German-Irish descent, and his skin is typical of such. He's very fair, so he burns extremely easily. One afternoon shortly after we had met, he participated in a local basketball tournament. It was a very cloudy day in March, so he elected to not wear any sunscreen despite the fact that he was wearing a muscle-shirt. He visited my apartment immediately after the tourney, and when I opened my door to let him in, I barely recognized him. He looked like one giant red welt. For the rest of that evening and the next day, he laid atop a stack of pillows so that only his stomach (which had not been exposed to the sun) would touch any surface. He was in that much pain. Within an hour, large blisters appeared all over his arms, shoulders and neck.

My roommate and I, clearly not schooled in basic dermatology (or perhaps even common sense in this instance), decided he needed to exfoliate his skin. So we rubbed his burnt skin down with a rough sponge, popping all of the blisters. I know now that was the worst thing we could've done. Why he didn't run from our apartment screaming and never turn back I will never know.

Since then, he and the sun have not been buddies, which makes he and I very incompatible when it comes to leisure activities and vacationing. I have had a love affair with the sun for as long as I can remember. I'm Italian, andI tan easily. I'm smart enough now to know that even those with dark-complexions should wear sun-screen, but as a teen, I was reckless enough to not only go without it, but even tan with Crisco Oil. Yes, the stuff in the baking aisle in the grocery store. Stupid.

Besides the sun issue, my husband's vacationing and idea of "leisure fun" differs greatly from mine. My idea of a great weekend or vacation is to relax (often by the pool or beach), go swimming or do anything water-related, take in beautiful scenery, and go out at night while the sun is tucked away. My husband, like my two-year-old, cannot sit still. The idea of lounging by the pool (in the baking sun) is torturous and boring to him. He'd rather be out bungee-jumping or golfing, or snow skiing -- that is, if he could convince me that going someplace cold could ever be considered a vacation. To me, being cold is painful. I'd much prefer sweltering heat over frigid temperatures. My husband feels the opposite. On more than one occasion, we have snuck behind each others' back to mess with the thermostat at home. I'm always turning the heat up, he's turning it down; I'm turning the a/c off (I HATE A/C), he's turning it back on.

But being the adoring husband and father that he is, he reluctantly agreed to go to the waterpark this past Sunday. If it were up to me, we would've opened and closed the place, and it would've been an hour too short in my opinion. My husband was done with the idea an hour before we even got there.

What I realized Sunday, however, was that our children have enabled us to find some common ground in this area of incompatibility. When we were out in the blazing sun on Sunday, splashing each other and playing Simon Says in the pool, my husband barely noticed that his forehead (the one place we forgot to apply SPF 500000) had fried to a scarlet hue. And it made me think that maybe with this gang, even a trip on the snowy slopes might not be too bad.