BIRD!

While going through things at Dad's on Saturday, I found photo albums with an abbreviated assortment of photos capturing yours truly...years ago. Not many pictures of me...years ago actually exist. I learned camera dodging early-on, and even took up my mother's habit of going through pictures as soon as we got the developed prints back and tossing the ones of myself that I didn't like—all of them. Nick has never really been shown the former me.

I'm sure he's wondered at the many times I'll see someone in passing and murmur, "I know them," never actually greeting them. They wouldn't recognize me, and the situation would feel very awkward, me having to explain who I am. The first time I flew home, half-way through my weight loss progress, my own aunt didn't even recognize me in the airport. It's a little lonely at times.

Years ago, a friend who struggled with their weight told us of a visitation she attended for a dear relative. She felt rejected and ignored looking at the poster boards of photos because there were so few of her and the aunt that she always felt closer to than her own mother. A while later, a family member came up to her all teary-eyed and apologizing profusely. "I'm sorry. I could barely find any pictures of you!" She had avoided cameras all her life.

Well, after a lot of deliberation, I decided to show Nick the pictures. He seemed to recognize my cousin Michelle quickly enough, my friends Sarah and Anna—all people he has met in person—but looking at my image, which I found myself having to point out to him, he could only say that I looked really different.

I told him just last night that it's difficult to be proud of what you accomplished when you're so ashamed of where you started. I'm almost shy to bring up my lifestyle change—even though I'd wager that I am healthier than those who have been thin naturally their entire lives—because you worry that the stamp of who you were will obliterate who you became. Ghosts.

Jared, the Subway© guy, said in interview once that when people saw him eating out, they would stare at him, waiting for him to overeat, overly eager to warn him not to finish his plate. It angered me when I read it. Ignorance...pft. Those who have been inducted to the "100 pounds club" know what it takes.

But I've done it now, shown Nick the barely recognizable face that he looks into every day. I guess I wanted to make sure he knew me first. I had nothing to worry about.

All the kitties in my life have loved this toy, yet I hesitated getting it for Sophie. In our pre-adoption pet store shopping spree, we had gotten our new addition a fishing pole wand, and she was terrified of it for the longest time, sprinting away in an ear flattening speed whenever one of us waved it about. Every day, I would come home to find the fish forcibly removed from the wand so that she could play with the string instead.

But, after last weekend's playful display, and subsequent incident wherein our strong-jawed ward enacted the wand to break in half and chase her around the house with the line twisted around her tail, we decided that this was way too much entertainment for us to not replace the toy. Yesterday, I decided to do it, to buy her the toy that has never failed to entertain—a fishing pole suction-cupped to the door! Brilliant!

She began playing with it almost immediately and throughout the night. I heard thumping sounds from bed and knew she must be flopping into the door again—get a look at that sharp little tooth in this picture! Last Friday, grumpy, I told Nick that his cat kept batting at my butt cheeks while in bed. With no sympathy at all, he replied, "She bit mine."

So, Saturday, we had this thing. It's this monstrous fireworks display set to music and this is my second year seeing it live—I can pretty much say that it ruins you for all other fireworks displays.

Warner Park is alive with activity the entire day though, chock full with rides, concessions stands, souvenir peddlers and clowns making somewhat obscene (to the dirty minded, perhaps—but elephant face my tuckas!) balloon objects for the wee ones. But, what I had been most excited to see, and have been twitching about for well over two months, is the WOLX (local oldies radio station) stage at 2:00 p.m.



With John Lennon dying shortly after I was conceived, my chances of ever seeing the Beatles live were nonexistent at best. But as we paid the entrance fee, had our hands stamped, our right-to-drink-adult-beverages bands secured, and I heard the telltale opening to "A Hard Day's Night", my knees buckled. Tribute band or not, they looked and sounded like the real thing.



The show started with the early 60's lineup, matching crisp suits, mop-top haircuts, and banter with dead-on accents and voice timbres from every audio clip I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. They had us all stand up (we had to find a place to put our beer) when they sang "Twist and Shout" at the end of the first of three segments of the show. Nick seemed surprised that I jumped up so willingly—I'm not much fond of dancing—and I told him that I learned how to Twist straight from Chubby Checker when he appeared on a talk show some ten years ago. He said the Twist is done by pretending that you're simultaneously drying your bum with a towel after a shower and putting out a cigarette with your foot.

Okay, how many of you just stood up and tried?



And then they got all psychedelic on me and I sang my voice raw, being an even bigger fan of the latter half of their career than the first. I sent Nick on the photo quests, it being his camera and all, while I held back to babysit the beverages. I didn't know that there were three parts to the show, and when they left the stage in their Sgt Pepper garb, I think I actually pouted, "It's not over, is it?"

But then "George" came out in his gravedigger gear, singing "Something" and I pepper Nick with all sorts of Beatles trivia—I go on and on about the "Paul is Dead" theory and how the Beatles perpetuated the absurd notion, the double meaning of the Abbey Road Album Art—they're walking away from a cemetery and John is dressed in all white (the Preacher), Ringo is dressed in nondescript black (the Undertaker), Paul is in a respectable suit and barefoot (the Dead Guy), and George is dressed head-to-toe in okay-to-get-dirty denim (the Gravedigger). Also on the Sgt Pepper Album, it looks like they're all standing around a fresh grave site covered in flowers with a left-handed bass—the instrument Mr. McCartney played—that also can be rotated to look like a "P" (for Paul). Those Beatles...I love how they messed with gullible minds!



And then the rest of them came out and being able to participate in the vocal riff of "Hey Jude" was easily one of the highlights of my life. My face ached from constant glee and my hands were numb from applause when they announced that American English would be available to meet and greet momentarily. Nick took a self-portrait of the two of us to commemorate:



I was humored in looking at this photo full size the next day. I had congratulated Nick on the shot in the preview-viewing on the camera screen because I didn't think it looked completely obvious that it was taken by one of us. Then I zoomed in on the reflection in my sunglasses.





"George" told me a couple times that I had a nice smile. Some radio station with a camera and a mic asked me if I enjoyed the show. When I replied that I did, they'd ask me if I'd sleep with the band members. I replied honestly that I couldn't really say with my boyfriend standing right next to me.