Ladies, please be careful!

 

Wanted to share a highly uncomfortable situation I experienced on the weekend, in the hopes it might help others.

I was at the gas station on the weekend, sitting in my sexy mini-van while my boyfriend was inside, and some guy walked diagonally across the parking lot next to the gas station. He was kind of making eye contact with me, but trying to hide it a bit. I rolled my eyes and thought to myself “crap, he’s going to ask me out”.  I locked the doors, pulled my cell phone out, and pretended to text someone in the hopes he would just walk by.

The next thing I knew, he was putting his box down 3’ away from the front of my mini van, and he was videotaping me through the front windshield, and then my license plate. I couldn’t believe it! Took my keys out of the ignition (even though my van was off), put one key between my index and middle finger (just in case…), opened my door to move to be closer to other people, and demand to know what the hell he was doing.

Thankfully, just then, my boyfriend came out of the station, saw the guy was video taping me, and screamed “what the f*ck are you doing?!!”  I called 911 while BF kept the guy from running off and, after we were interviewed by the police, the creep was interviewed and forced to erase the video. Creep claimed I was stalking him…(never seen him before in my life) and that he was collecting video “for political reasons”…umm, a few crayons short of a full box I think!

Ladies: Please note that this happened in plain daylight, at 5:30pm, at a gas station at the intersection of two busy streets. I’m thankful that my BF was there and was so proactive in protecting me, and that my kids were at their father’s so they weren’t on the videotape too, even though the police told him to erase it right then and there. 

It was such a strange feeling.  We are under video surveillance all the time (inside and outside stores, etc) but it’s a totally different feeling when you’re watching someone do it without your permission, and by a complete stranger.

So, please be careful.

Pay attention to who’s around you and what they are doing. 

I’m very glad that nothing else happened, but it’s still a highly uncomfortable thing.

 

Redheads + Sun = Freckles

 

 

 

 

The kids and I spent a couple hours yesterday with friends of ours at a playground near the water. It was crazy hot and sunny out. With 3 redheads and 2 fair-skinned brunettes in our “party”, everyone was sprayed with sunscreen first. DD and her best friend laughed their heads off while they were being sprayed (okay, I did too). DS was NOT impressed. He’s very sensitive to liquid drying, but the feeling was short lived.

 

We also saw and petted some police horses while we were there. DS was even very interested in the horses, which was amazing as he doesn’t go near the horses at my parents’ farm. My kids are now proud owners of “trading cards” of one of the horses…and I deny taking extra time to look at/drool over the police officer in uniform on the front of the card…completely deny it…

 

After spending time with the horses, we all walked over to Pier 4 playground, where there is a very cool replica of a tugboat for kids to play on. Very quickly, the other grown-up with us was dumping water on the kids and they all looked like drowned rats.

 

Today however, the kids and I have been “counting new freckles”. Welcome to the life of redheads! If exposed to sunlight, we freckle. I was fortunate to grow up in a family where my grandmother used to always say that freckles were “marks of beauty” so I seem to have come out of childhood not being embarrassed by freckles like others who freckle easily. Even before my kids had freckles (their father is a redhead too so it was “destined”), I was working on them embracing freckles.

 

Although not a redhead, my dad is very fair-skinned so he and I were always putting sunscreen on when I was a kid, while my mom and brother didn’t “need” to with their darker skin tones. We aimed to use SPF 45 if we could find it…which was very hard to find 30 years ago. I always wanted to get that beautiful tan that all my friends did, but I also knew it wasn’t going to happen. Thankfully, I’m not a redhead that just thinks of sun and gets burnt.

 

My mom gave me a t-shirt once that encompasses redhead vs sunlight perfectly: “Authentic Redhead: Keep Out of Direct Sunlight”. My t-shirt is even in that bright green that ONLY redheads can wear.