Tags
american romance author, harlequin author, heartwarming author, love inspired author, mills and boon author, parasol, sun umbrella, western romance author
I am a person who melts in the heat. I don’t tan; I freckle and burn. Mr. Johns thought I was being a wimp when we first got married, until he saw me burn for the first time. (Mr. Johns was born in Africa, and he’s so beautifully dark that he’d never seen a sun burn up close in his life!) It was one of those really deep burns that required medical treatment. We pale people get them a few times in our lives, right?
Anyway, I’m a person who melts in the heat, and I live in a prairie small town. That means the land spreads out around you in flat fields as far as the eye can see. Without shade. And every day I walk to my son’s school to drop him off and pick him up, and by the time I get home in the afternoon, my head is pounding and I feel a little heat-strokey.
So I have found my solution.
I look like an idiot, but it does the trick! I use a rain umbrella for portable shade. Those Victorians were onto something with their parasols, because it’s awfully effective. I can walk as far as I need to, and stay in the shade. No burns. No wilting. No headaches.
And while I haven’t entirely made my peace with looking like an idiot, I can just angle the umbrella down a little and hide behind it. Head in the sand. Good enough. 😉
“I look like an idiot, but it does the trick!” — You would not look like an “idiot” in Philadelphia. Lots of tourists can’t take Philly’s heat and humidity, and choose to shade themselves with an umbrella while taking in the city’s sights.
Oh, that’s great to know! My dad mentioned that in Toronto, people do the same. I lived there for about ten years, and I don’t remember seeing it, but maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. So I’ll stop feeling self-conscious, and just call it being “metropolitan.” Or “touristy”… 😉 I think I prefer “metropolitan.”