This time of year, there are two words that strike fear in my very soul — pool party.

First of all, on the melanin scale, I’m about one and a half shades from albino status. Second, I’m — as my daughter loves to call me — squishy. She actually loves that about me. She grabs my mushy biceps with both of her hands and kneads it like warm dough. But while my daughter loves the squishy, I’m a bit squeamish about the squishy. And unfortunately, it’s not just limited to my upper arms. So the dilemma becomes preventing as much jiggle as possible while walking from the poolside lounge chair to the pool, where I can climb in and hide my jiggly nether regions below the water’s surface.

Then I’m back to dilemma number one — I basically fry in the sun. So when I’m not in the pool hiding my lower half, I spend the rest of my time trying to avoid as much sun exposure as possible. And there never seems to be an available umbrella for the melanin challenged such as myself. So I’m left to my own devices — SPF 85, a muumuu and a big floppy hat. So here I come walking up to this pool party on Sunday, trying to OWN this ridiculous getup, and somebody recognizes me and says, “Are you trying to be incognito?”

Yes. Yes, I am.

XO
Kellie