A departure from my usual topic…
I checked an old e-mail address today that I don’t check anymore, and received the very sad and sobering news that a friend of a friend (who I didn’t know personally) died at the age of 40, from metastatic melanoma. (Uh, that’s skin cancer and it’s not good.)
It made me think about how when I got here in February (summer), for a good two or three months the people I met would tease me about my pale skin and ask me why I didn’t lay in the sun. The same thing happened to me in Italy all the time, and blogger Nicki in Positano has had to listen to it as well. (As soon as I’d tell them about my father’s bout with malignant melinoma and how I have the gene that makes me more susceptible to it, they would stop and apologize).
My Italian and Argentine friends seem to think they are immune to skin cancer for whatever reason, but guess what - my dad’s side of the family has entirely Italian blood just like (a lot of) them, and a lot of my relatives on that Italian side - even those with darker features -have had to deal with skin cancer of one sort or another.
Anyway, it’s time to get my skin checked - I’m super overdue and this news has served as a reminder. The search for a dermatologist in Buenos Aires begins, and I hope you all read this, realize that you are NOT immune, GET YOUR SKIN CHECKED and those of you in the northern hemisphere who are about to pass through summer, PLEASE stay out of the sun - if you must go out there, make sure your sunscreen protects you from both UVA and UVB rays. If you live in Seattle where it’s overcast you’re just as much at risk - put some sunscreen on that face!
And ask yourself: is it really worth it to be tan today, only to find that a decade later you have either a) nasty wrinkly leathery saggy skin or b) possibly deadly skin cancer?
Didn’t think so.
Make Tina happy and get your skin checked. 
