In which a topless woman gives my husband a passion fruit

I've been to France and Switzerland before and seen people wearing practically nothing on the beach. And I realize that this is something they do. I also realize that I've been away from America for a long time.

But not that long.

When you go to a public beach in America-- unless there are signs and fences-- I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be naked in public. Or if you're a woman and your swimsuit is a two-piece, you should wear both pieces. I'm just saying.

And with that as an introduction, let me tell you about our day at the beach yesterday. There's this nice sheltered area with small waves perfect for kids. There's a reef to break the big waves, and there's shade onshore. It wasn't too windy, and so we took the girls there. Once we'd settled in and started on the sunscreen ritual, I looked around to realize that the woman a few towels over was not wearing anything from the waist up. Her kids were wearing even less. I looked around and realized that many of the kids were buck naked.

We may have been at the beach right behind the Paia hippy Zen Center. That's a reason. But it's a lame excuse. This is AMERICA, people! We wear clothes!

But yes, I looked. Do you think people like that expect people not to look? I'm sorry. I looked. I judged. I'll get over it. But first I'll blog about it! And no, I don't have pictures. It's not that kind of blog.

I'm a really bossy person sometimes, and I really love telling people what to do. So my first idea was to go tell this lady that she was in a public place and should be wearing clothes. I mean, I'm sure this lady talked to all her friends and said, "Well, no one has ever said anything, so I'm sure nobody minds." Well, I mind. I went over what I'd say in my head a few times. I imagined what she'd say back. None of these situations went very well in my imagination. I wound up not saying anything.

This lady had a son who was playing on the beach. He was probably 3 or so, and happily running, swimming, and surfing on a boogie board. Then he'd go climb onto his mom's lap and nurse for a while. Then he'd go surf some more.

It was kind of like watching a nature documentary.

The naked family had a hammock, and Penny got it in her mind that she was going to go swing in it. I kept her away from it as well as I could, but when you're nursing your baby (with a cover, btw), it's a little hard to run after your other children at the moment. So Kevin had to run after her.

Let me just preface this by explaining that Kevin is probably the world's nicest guy. He's happy, fun, and very easy to talk to. That's why I married him. So he went over to the hammock and asked around to see whose it was. Yes, it was topless lady's. Well, could Penny swing in it for a few minutes? Absolutely! They were very... sharing and open. Penny played in the hammock for a while, and Kevin talked to the ladies, most of whom were wearing a bit more than the hammock owner. They were eating passion fruit, so they gave some to Kevin. I snickered when he told me that.

While Penny was playing, we gave Naomi a banana to eat. Having forgotten to bring her bib, we just took off her clothes and let her go to town on the banana.

After playing in the hammock, Penny came back to our towel, and while she was digging in the sand with her shovel, she pooped in her swimming suit. That marked the end of our beach trip for the day. We cleaned her off as well as we could, and went back to the car.

As we carried our two naked little girls back to the car, I'm kind of glad I had kept my mouth shut.