My Favorite Picture

Over at Sticky Fingers, Tara has started a meme called "What's Your Favorite Photograph and Why?" and since this is actually a pretty easy post to write, why not?

The first one that sprang to my mind is this one:




This is F, one of the twins, when she was about 3. She had just spent the past couple of minutes chasing her sister around this gallery space and was pretty well hopped up on lemonade and cookies. I had been taking a bunch of photos and got her to stop in front of me (I liked the way the reflective floor looked) and hold still for a few seconds. She was so happy she just had to give herself a big hug and a smile, because that's just how F is.

This leads me to a subject parents of twins (and I guess all parents of more than one child) struggle with (or maybe it's just me and Baby Momma) - twins just invite either/or comparisons. People always ask you if Twin A or B is the athletic one, or the musical one, or whatever.
When we found out we were having twins and were doing research, we had seen interviews of twins (especially identicals, like ours) where they would be 60 years old or something and they would say "I always hated being called "the tall one"" (or the short one, or fat one, or smart one, etc.). So we have always vowed to avoid those kind of comparisons.

But F is the happiest one.

Adventures in Retail

I don't normally do "slice of life" type posts (yes, I know, I hardly do ANY posts, shutthehellup), and I damn sure am trying to resist the ever-increasing urge to do "getoffmydamnlawnyoudamnkidsandwhatthehellisthatyoucallthatmusic" posts, but for some reason this Adventure in Retailing got to me.

So the other night I am in the local Big Box, buying a couple of things, including some wine for the wife. When I get to the checkout the 20-ish checker-outer girl gets the little pop-up message "check ID" when she runs the wine through the scanner. This happens anytime they scan alcohol or tobacco. So she asks me for ID.

At this point, let me explain something: I am 46 years old. I was born in 1962. I was drinking at many bars ten years before the cashier was even born. In other words, I am way, way over 21 (the drinking age in our enlightened country, where an 18-20 year old can join the military, travel to faraway lands, meet interesting people, and shoot them, but can't have a beer. Don't get me started.)
And I don't have access to the Fountain of Youth. I have a lot of gray hair. People don't usually think I am 46, but they sure as hell don't think I am 19, either.

Back to the story: the checkout girl asks me for my ID, and with a roll of my eyes, I pull out my driver's license and show it to her. She proceeds to enter the code into the register that means "not a tweener with a fake moustache", but something goes awry. She seems to have entered the code wrong, or alerted M.A.D.D. or something, so she calls over the head cashier, or assistant manager, or whatever he is (a paragon of experience about 25 years old) to use his special key, so I can BUY A DAMN BOTTLE OF WINE. (actually it was a box, but don't blame me for that, that's just how my wife rolls.)



So Bill S. Preston Esq. strolls over and whips out his special key on the retractable lanyard and sets about entering the secret code (which if he got to pick it is probably also the Easter Egg code for GTA: Vice City) on the keyboard.

Then he turns to me and says "Can I see your ID?"

I think I actually gaped. A true gape is rare, you know. They use the word a lot in books and whatnot, but a real, honest-to-goodness gape is seldom seen. The definition of gape is : "To stare wonderingly or stupidly, often with the mouth open." You UK types will use the word "gobsmacked" probably, but I was standing there looking at this mope thinking "I am actually gaping at this chowderhead."

Normally I wouldn't haven't given this idiotic time-waster a second thought. Why make myself crazy, and waste more time, trying to make this guy see what a dumb question this is. I am just standing there, gaping and marveling, thinking that he is supposed to be the SMARTER one of this pair. I don't know why this particular thing on this particular night bothered me so much, but there you go.

I pause, then say, "I'm 46" a little louder than I intended, feeling that little *bop* in my skull that indicates a spike in blood pressure. I look at Beavis, whose expression is that of a Hereford contemplating whether or not to move their cud to the other side of their mouth. Then I sigh and hold out my license.

"Better safe than sorry", he says.

"Better safe than sorry!!! Holy Saint Patrick on a Segway!!!!" I think to myself as I pick up my bags and get out of there before I make some kind of rude remark, or indulge in a Level II Gape (which involves drooling and perhaps passing out from sheer astonishment.)

All I could think as I drove home was: That boy has a great career in the TSA ahead of him.

The Internet Is....

The Internet isn't a series of tubes, it's like a really, really big attic, with a giant garage and storage unit thrown in.
Just when you think you've found all of your life on the internet, there's some more.

A long, long, LONG, time ago (about 1971 or so) my brother and sister and I were going to summer day camp in Manhattan, where we lived. We were about 8, 7 and 6 years old. Since the YMCA was across the street from Central Park we had frequent outings there for football, picnics, whatever.

On one of these visits to the park, my brother's group of kids encountered a couple of people, who asked them "Who here is Irish?" (or words to that effect). My brother, of course, spoke right up, and these people took a look at him and gave him a business card and told him to get his parents to call them the next day about being a model for an advertisement.

This is the result:






















It was an advertisement for Newsweek magazine, I guess they were publishing a special issue on thr Northern Irish troubles and wanted a kid who could look like a IRA gunman in training. It appeared in magazines sometime during 1971-72. I don't have an original copy anywhere, which is why I have been periodically looking for one on the internet. And sure enough, today I found one. Sorry about the bad quality.

Anyway, I think my mom took all three of us along to the photo shoot and the photographer for that job was a very nice guy named Alen MacWeeney. Seeing all three of us kids there, he took some polaroids of us in case he could use us for something in the future.
And eventually in 1972 we got a call from Alen and the New York Times asking if we wanted to be in their Fashion for Kids issue for 1973. So all three of us did that. Eventually I will post the story and some pictures, once I find my copy of the magazine I have laying around.