It’s been quite a glorious day and Apollo has been generous by steering his steeds through a fairly cloudless sky, allowing those, like myself, who like a bit of sun now and then, to do a bit of basking in its glorious heat.
There is one eentsy little problem, however.
(Have I yet mentioned that there are always ‘heaps’ of problems to be overcome in undertaking any task?)
I’m not exactly brown ‘by design’.
No - I am quite white.
Well, no - that is not quite accurate either - for upon reading that, it brings to mind those pale, salamander-like skin tones where the little, squiggly blue veins appear all over the surface.
I am not white like that.
Perhaps I should have gone with pink.
Pink, I think, is more in keeping with my natural skin tone.
Not the pink of a dawning sky - but more the pink of a dew-dropped, blushing rose at first light; delicate and fragile in full sun.
Now, I’m not saying that I am as delicate and fragile as a flower - far from it - but the skin, you see, the skin!
I suppose using the ‘flower reference’ would lead one to believe that I’m all soft - but I’m not. Indeed - I am a man - in all respects.
But when it comes to talking about skin, I haven’t a ‘hide like leather’, befitting the stereotypical masculine side of the gender spectrum.
Unfortunately, I fall into the category of ‘delicate rose’.
And for years and years - I ignored it with catastrophic results.
Picture a lobster, all cooked up - almost glowing with that unearthly, pulsating shade of red.
Now, picture a man coming home from the beach - looking pretty much the same.
Ah-ha!
You've got it!
Pink skin does not turn brown in the sun - it turns nuclear red - like the coals in a fire pit prepared for…
Yes, that’s right.
A Barbacoa.
Today, I made my first brief appearance outside in a bathing suit - a speedo no less (Lots more area to burn!) and though the time exposed was as brief as the suit - cooking occurred!
But not dreadful, swollen, blistery cooking - just your random, everyday, overly pinkness happened - barbacoa done rare.
And thank God for that!
Honestly, I was only out for a short while, but skin which has been hidden from the light for, yea, these long (eternal it seems) Winter months, can be quite fragile. And even the slightest exposure requires a certain finesse when clocking time.
Regardless of the result, a splendid time was had - though nothing was truly BBQed.
Or barbacoa-ed.
And yes, I guess there is a difference, though the origin of our own BBQ stems from the Arawak Indian term, barbacoa. At least, in some camps it does (it’s funny, what disputes can arise from something as simple as the origin of a word. If you want to see this in action - look up barbacoa in Wikipedia.).
Did you know that the original BBQ would have been a ‘pit’ in which the meat was cooked and not necessarily a spit above ground on which the meat was cooked?
Fascinating…
Well, I joke - but it is.
Fascinating, that is - sort of - if you’re at all geeky…
And that is where I think I should bring this sad tale to a close - a pink geek in a speedo slowly roasting under the noonday sun.
And the result?
Not quite a ‘Mad Dog or an Englishman’.
But somewhere in between - turning, turning, turning…
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