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My Profile
Fairytales for a Practical Princess - 2008-11-30
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11:09 a.m. - 2002-09-23
Wolf left this morning looking so cute I could barely stand it. Rugby shirt, faded jeans, his spiffy and still white flag sneakers, the kid looked like a Polo ad. His hair is the perfect length and school pictures are tomorrow! A first in this household. Alex always managed to have some kind of hair emergency on school picture day, or a facial injury, or I’d space it and send him off looking like a Dickensian street urchin and only remember later that it was picture day. Alex has pleaded that we not display most of his school pictures, and despite my fierce mother love, I have to agree with him. 9 out of the 12 pictures so far belong in the School Picture Hall of Shame. Though nothing can compare to the warty horror of my second grade picture. I’d finally been allowed to let my loathed Pixie grow out and my hair was in that awful in-between stage, sort of a cross between an Old English Sheep Dog and Florence Henderson’s Brady shag. I was attending Our Lady of Terrible Vengeance and was resplendent in the school’s eyeball searing electric blue and yellow plaid. I lost an earring on the bus and was wearing one gold hoop, pirate style. The worst though, was my smile. Subject to precocious growth in most ways, my secondary teeth made up for it by taking more than 18 months before they began to peek through the edges of my gums. My baby teeth fell out right on schedule unfortunately, and I was subject to not one, but TWO holiday seasons where clever adults pinched my cheeks and croaked the opening lines to “All I Want For Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth”. Excruciating. Like shy ballerinas, only the ruffly edges of my upper 4 teeth were visible. Plus the two on either side of the center bottom teeth were gone as well. Basically my mouth looked like Sgt. Snorkle’s from the Beetle Bailey cartoons. When my mother married for the third time I not only got a new dad, but 2 grim and rather unattractive stepsisters and their ancient poodle. This combined clan moved into a new house, and my mom wanting to pretend we had been a family all along, covered a wall in the upstairs hall with dozens of photos of us kids. Diplomacy demanded that equal time be given to each of us, so rather than go heavy on head shots from my modeling portfolio and further alienate the toad-like step-sibs, she dug out every ugly picture of me ever taken. And that horrendous second grade picture had pride of place. When Drucilla and Anastasia saw it they fell down laughing. None too pleased about being stuck with a goddamn model for a new sister, they were delighted with that picture. They snorted with glee and said I looked like a twin of their 15 year old snaggle toothed poodle, Fifi. Not quite. In the photo my hair was brown and Fifi’s was technically grey. I say technically because Fifi was rarely the color God intended her to be. All 5 women colored their hair and we’d fiendishly put the lees of our hair dye on Fifi. Cinnamon brown, ash blonde, honey blonde, various red shades, Fifi was the only tie-dyed poodle in town. Dyeing the dog wasn’t the only torture we’d put her through. We’d dress her up in dopey outfits. We’d paint her toenails. Make her wear sunglasses and hats. Though our favorite prank wasn’t so much on the dog as it was on guys who came to pick us up for dates. Unless it was actively precipitating our dates had to wait for us on the back porch. My mother didn’t want to be seen in her dishabille, nor did she want us getting the idea that people were welcome in our home, a Kool-ade mom she wasn’t. Anyhow, on the back porch was a kettle style BBQ grill. When some new guy was coming over we’d put the dog in the BBQ (unlit, of course!) and close the lid. Fifi didn’t seem to mind too much, but she did tremble trying to keep her balance on the slim grid wires of the grill. So the guy would be escorted out onto the porch and we’d leave him there next to the shaking BBQ. When were we sure he’d noticed, someone would call out loudly that one of us should check on dinner. We’d come out, lift the lid, pretend to poke Fifi with a BBQ fork, announce that dinner wasn’t ready yet, and close it back up with the dog still inside. The looks on the hapless dates’ faces were priceless. And here’s hoping that Wolf doesn’t give himself a shiner or decide to experiment with Daddy’s beard trimmer again and that we get another priceless look, a decent school picture. LA’s Pick of the Day: “Freeze Frame” by J. Geils Band
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