Smack Your Mama

I grew up riding my bike to the beach.  In fact, my high school had both, a snow ski team, and a surfing team. We were that perfectly located. My brother was big on surfing, so I spent a lot of time at the beach with him. Burning. Really bad. Sometimes at Bolsa Chica, sometimes at Newport, sometimes at the Wedge, but the burns were always the same.

Remember Coppertone? Coconut oil? Baby oil? Laying on the hot sand for hours during those years before the invention of SPF? I can't tell you how many times I came home and begged to be slathered up with Noxema to cool the burn, only to go back to it a couple of days later. That was when SoCal girls were natural, and freckle faced, and the only highlights were the ones that the sun put there. There are precious few of those girls left.

Every summer I got several second degree burns, complete with oozing blisters and record setting peels.  My nose was in a continual state of flake. I guess sticking out there like it does, it tended to be perpetually burned. And I wore glasses, so they kind of reflected the sun.

Have I ever told you just how unattractive I was? Like SERIOUSLY unattractive. I was a true SoCal girl.......... natural and freckle faced, but my look was complicated by other things, like, really bad glasses, and really bad teeth. A really bad cowlick, and a catholic school uniform that included a beanie. Got the picture? No worries, I'll post one later.

I was "Smack your Mama" ugly. Some things are so good, or so bad, they actually  make you want to smack your mama. Like really great chocolate cake makes you want to smack your mama. A perfect day at the beach makes you want to smack your mama. And I guess looking at me when I was a child made you want to smack MY mama! I know, we all had those awkward days. Sure..................

But my favorite thing about those days at the beach was the gourmet food. Strapped to the back of my ten speed was a big towel, the obligatory oil, a tube of chocolate chip cookie dough and a big soft drink bottle. Bliss. On a good day, I might even get some nacho's at the snack shack. Those were the makings of a smack your mama good day.

I don't look anything like I did as a child. In fact, I wasn't even out of high school 15  years when people I knew well had no idea who I was. I'm ok with that. Thanks to my dad, I got my teeth fixed, and I still wear glasses, but at least they don't meow, if you know what I mean. I don't have freckles anymore. I think the years of treating the acne got rid of them. Yeah, that was a whole other chapter in my smack your mama  years.

As for man, his days are like grass;

As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

When the wind has passed over it, it is no more,

And its place acknowledges it no longer.

But the loving kindness of the Lord is from 

everlasting to everlasting 

on those who fear Him,

And His righteousness to the children's children,

To those who keep His covenant

And remember His precepts to do them.

Ps. 103:15-18