On The Other Hand Recommends...

In the tradition on Peacebang, and even the Sartorialist's Sartolia List, I thought I might tell you about some things that I would recommend, and NOT recommend, based on my week at the beach.

First of all, OTOH Totally Recommends Hawaiian Tropic Baby Faces and Tender Places 50 SPF sunblock spray, which works brilliantly and stays on for a long long time. It doesn't really spray - it's lotion, and it squirts like a squirt gun, which is kind of amusing, and then you rub it in, so it doesn't keep your fingers pristine, but it's still a superior product.

Unfortunately, it only works if you APPLY IT. Carrying it down to the beach and back without squirting - not that effective. So OTOH Recommends the only thing that has ever kept her pale blue Celtic skin from peeling:
pure shea butter.

A few years ago, attending my first-ever pastor's conference, I had the rare (for me) opportunity to be driven from Long Beach to San Diego in a convertible. Yes, it was lovely, and yes I got sunburned, and yes, as soon as I had registered, I took off for a nearby open-air mall to find some cheap unguents of some sort.

Well, the mall was too nice to have a Rite Aid or a CVS, and so I ended up spending $30 (!! I practically fainted) on shea butter products. I walked back to the conference hotel, muttering all the way 'this better work...'

It did. It does. It does everything, from soothe sunburn to soften scraped knuckles to control cuticles to, in a pinch, style hair. It lasts a long time. It's indispensable.

On the other hand, if by some chance you're going to be spending the week chasing a child around, plus missing your dead parents and reflecting on 16 years of marriage and all the physical and emotional exertion that entails;
and if for the last year you've been taking not one but two multivitamins per day;
OTOH Cannot Recommend leaving your damn vitamins on the windowsill at home. Go back and get them. Go to Happy Harry's and buy another bottle for God's sake, of course it seems like a waste of money but once you have experienced the alternative, you'll know.

Also, OTOH Does NOT Recommend getting your period twice in one month. Under any circumstances. I'm just sayin'.

However, I can without reservations (ha ha) Recommend getting a room close to the beach, so you can run down for a swim carrying nothing more than your room key. As I have mentioned, we used to stay on the outskirts of town, in a lovely house. There were many things about that which were lovely; however, leaving for a day at the beach was like packing the conestoga wagon for the journey west. We took food, clothes, books, a tent, multiple towels, knowing that we wouldn't be back until after dinner.

Try the boardwalk hotel. So those aren't Egyptian cotton sheets. So there's a bus stop outside your window. Doesn't matter. At all. Completely immaterial, compared to the joys of walking around barefoot with a key and a five tucked into the waistband of your bathing suit.

And speaking of bathing suits, OTOH Recommends getting a new one after being pregnant. (Happily, the Lane Bryant outlet had a good one.)

However, I DO NOT Recommend taking a toddler to an outlet mall. And here's why.