Going on A Beach Vacation with Senior-Citizen Legs

When you go on a beach vacation you start to worry what you look like in a swimsuit or shorts.

Even when you're in the senior citizen crowd. Or maybe you get to the point you don't care at all. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad sign that I haven’t quite gotten to that point. I am at the stage where I realize there's only so much you can do with exercise and diet to improve those contours.

But you also start to notice the imperfections that have been covered with umpteen layers of corduroy and wool during a Midwest winter, such as small spider veins. Some of those spider veins are so clustered together my legs look as if spiders have been nibbling at them for most of the winter.

I hear there are doctors who in a short, in- office visit can make them disappear. I considered, but never got around to doing anything about the spider veins. And here it is after Memorial Day, the start of swimsuit and shorts season.

But I needn’t have worried. Within a day or two of our arrival at the beach, we went on a whale watch. In order to try to get a better view of the whales I knelt on one of the padded seat cushions. Later that day I noticed large lumps under both of my knees. A bit of online research and I concluded I now have what's colloquially known as “housemaid’s knees” or “preacher’s knees”. I guess it depends on your occupation or denomination.

Then, to add insult to injury, or maybe it was to add injury to insult, I slipped in the shower and smacked my shin against a hard surface. Whether the shin hits the hard surface or the hard surface hits the shin, it's the shin that takes the beating.

My shin is now multiple blue, green, and purple colors. The better to go with the spider veins.

Two conclusions can be drawn from my leg-related experiences:

1) If your legs are banged up enough, People will be looking at them, and not the rest of your swimsuit-clad body; and,

2) There should be a separate Wikipedia entry for “whale-watching knees”.