Beachy Thoughts

Beachy thoughts from Galveston, Texas:

There is always more sand. Even when you think you have washed, swept, brushed, picked or wiped every grain of it off, there's still more sand.

I have a parlor trick, just like my friend Kristi does! Well, not the SAME trick; she balances toys on her head for her granddaughter. Mine is actually more practical. I was sitting in the edge of the surf, picking up little shells, but with no pockets in the ol' swimsuit, I had nowhere to put them. Then I came up with a brilliant idea: I put them inside my swimsuit top, inside the bra part of it, under my boobies. Here's what makes this brilliant: I don't have any feeling in my boobies, so I can't tell that there are little shells in my suit. When I returned to our beach umbrella and chairs, I reached in and pulled them out, dropping them into a plastic bag to save. Only hitch was when I got back to the motel and took off my swimsuit. As I was making sure all the sand was brushed off of me, I found a little tiny shell stuck to the underside of my boobie. Didn't feel a thing.

Fish are jumping all over the place in the water. Silvery, trout-ish in shape, maybe 10-15 inches long. Don't know if that's what all the fishermen are trying to catch from the rock jetties, but if it is, then they're doing it wrong, because my daughter was in the water when one of them jumped out of the water and landed on her boogie board. They were both terribly surprised, then the fish flipped back off into the water. 

No matter how bad I think I look in a swimming suit, I still look better than at least 75% of the other beach goers.

I have big damn hair in Texas. It's wildly curly and the consistency of a brillo pad, and I really don't know why I bother to bring my straightening iron with me when I come here, as it just isn't going to happen.

This reminds me of a trip we took to Florida when my daughter was 6 months old and my son had just turned 4. The first time I washed my hair there, I couldn't find the bottle of conditioner that I was just SURE I had packed. All week, my hair kept getting wilder and curlier and there was nothing I could do about it without conditioner. Finally, the night before we left, I had had enough. I remembered reading a hint once that you could use mayonnaise as a conditioner, so I thought I'd give it a try. Of course, we didn't have any mayonnaise, but we DID have Miracle Whip. Practically the same thing, right? I slathered it onto my hair, let it sit there a bit, then went to the shower to wash it out. And I washed and I washed and I rinsed and I rinsed, and I still couldn't get all that greasy Miracle Whip out of my hair. And the longer I stood under the hot shower, the more my hair smelled like hot salad dressing. Eventually, I gave up. The next morning, as I was packing our bags, guess what I found in the toiletries bag? You guessed it. A bottle of hair conditioner.

I can't cross the causeway onto Galveston Island without playing this song, which is one of my all time favorites. Listen....