Now that summer’s almost officially here and the temperature outside is rising, it can get crazy hot in our apartment. When eating popsicle after popsicle doesn’t really help, we head out in search of cooler pastures. Earlier this month we went to the beach, the same beach, incidentally, that we were at almost two years ago, when we were both training for the Wharf to Wharf 10K. The one where Alan claimed he had stepped on a jellyfish and I sort of didn’t believe him. Well, this time, there was no denying their presence. There were tons of them everywhere, washed up on the wet sand looking for all the world like pieces of a shiny cellophane bag.

To steer clear of them, we perched our new beach chairs far away where the sand is the hottest and the sun is the most unforgiving. After about an hour of baking, I decided we really needed to get an umbrella. These ones from Suboo offer plenty of shade and have such a cool retro look.