I feel that enough time has passed (eight days now), that I can tell you about my wedding day and why I am molting. Somewhere in this story is a knitting project. I promise.

So the entire time we were in Nevis, I attempted to stay out of the sun for more than a few minutes. I had this fear that I would get rediculous burn lines (I don’t tan. There are really only two options, red or pasty pale white.) So the first three days we were there it was gorgeous. We spent most of our time on the back porch watching the monkeys play and fight and generally be monkeys. Days four, five, and six, it rained. Really really rained. Really hard. It was actually really awesome. So on Thursday, when we were supposed to get married, I decided that I couldn’t possibly walk down a moss covered aisle in heels if it had been raining for three days. At about 2 pm, we decided to move the wedding that was supposed to be at 5:30. It was moved to 5:30 the next day. Now…we had this little snorkeling adventure scheduled and Phil was really excited about it. I really have issues with water. I can’t jump off of a boat because if I can’t see what is in the water, I am petrified. I think this is because as a child, I suspect that a relative threw me into a lake while we were camping and I wasn’t ready for it. Then something like a fish probably touched my foot. And I probably freaked out and vowed to never get into water again. Never mind that I have no actual memories of this happening…

I digress. I have water issues. So Phil really wanted to go snorkeling and I decided that since the water was very clear in Nevis, I would be fine. So Saturday morning, the morning of our wedding, we went off to meet with the marine biologist. About thirty minutes before we left, I put on sunblock. (spf 40). We waited until it had “sunk in” before we went out into the ocean nearby to learn how to snorkel. The most horrible part of snorkeling is the first time you put your head into the water and have to breath through a tube in your mouth. No matter how many times I did it, the first time back into the water was bizarre. Once in, I was fine…but man that was an odd feeling. The coolest thing about snorkeling is that you can see everything that is in the water! For someone with water issues, this can be very exciting (to find out that monsters don’t live in the sea and that fish are more afraid of you than you are of them) or it can be terrifying (holy crap those things have claws and my feet are sharing water with them!) So we got into a little boat and went over to St. Kitts to the rocky coastline (made mostly of volcanic rock) and then I had to get off of the boat. Yikes. Jumping off of a boat scares the crap out of me. The undersides of boats are scary. Water is scary…its all scary. So I jumped really far from the boat and stuck me head in the water right away so that I could see what was around my body. And it was amazing! We were basically floating around in an aquarium of fish and sea creatures. We saw squid, lobsters, bright blue fish, bright yellow fish, silver fish, trumpet fish, all sorts of things. About 45 minutes into the experience, I started to get really cold and really dizzy. I stuck it out another 15 and then our guide noticed that I was shaking. She insisted that we go back to the boat. Once on the boat, I got even more sick. (i do get motion sickness, so an anchored boat is a very bad thing). As i write this, I still can’t believe that I went snorkeling..its not exactly “made” for me. So anyways, we got back over to Nevis and I stayed inside in the cool breeze and waited out the nausea, ate some crackers. Phil played with the biologist’s baby turtles.

We got back to the Hermitage and I crashed. We ordered food to eat in our room and I ate in bed. I napped for probably 2 hours and then I woke up feeling really hot. On fire actually. I got up to go to the bathroom and happened to catch a glimpse of my body in the mirror. The upper half of my back (which wasn’t covered by my suit) was completely bright horrifying red. I mean probably the worst sunburn I have ever had. I started to panic and mostly cry. All of the sunblock had clearly come off in the ocean water. I grabbed the wedding dress and held it up to my back and wasn’t really thrilled with the way that a champagne colored dress accentuates bright burnt red skin.

Ok here is where it gets crazy. I put tons of lotion on my back and started to try to cover it with my foundation…which wasn’t working. Then I went back to the bedroom, found the stupid Alchemy Silken straw shawl project and started knitting.

So…here I am, sitting in the bed knitting. Phil comes in. I say to him, “Sweety, I know that what I am doing is completely irrational but I am really upset with what I did to my back today. I already took a xanax and I will calm down soon.” He was confused. He says, “what is crazy about what you are doing? you are just knitting.” I say to him, “well I am trying to finish this wrap before the ceremony so that I can cover the sunburn on my back and still look pretty for the ceremony.”  Phil then advised that i perhaps might want to take a second xanax and quickly left the room to go back to his hammock.

Now even if the only thing that needed to be done on this wrap was a simple binding off, finishing it in the three hours I had before the ceremony, getting my hair and makeup ready and putting on a dress would never have been possible. The lace repeat has over 400 stitches. And I hadn’t touched it since I realized that I screwed up the lace repeat two rows ago and was going to have to frog it back..all 400 or so stitches. TWICE. Then I still had at least ten more rows of lace for that ruffle. And there is still another ruffle to do!

So after a bit, the panic wore off. I instructed the photographer to not take any pictures of my back. All went well. The dress and its beading were incredibly painful for a bit until I forgot completely about it. And now, a week later, I am finally molting my burn off. Back to my pale pale skin underneath. And just in time to wear the dress again for the wedding reception this weekend! (no, the wrap still is not done. I will take it with me to the Stitch n Pitch tonight)