Friday, March 5, 2010

Cool With A "K" PART 19 - CHAPTER 1

When I got up yesterday (Saturday morning), I came into the quiet kitchen. The quiet kitchen? I looked around; It was quiet, clean, and empty.
Chris came into the room and I asked him, "Hey, have you seen Mom, Chris?"
Chris shrugged and we went into the living room. It turned out Mom was in the living room, going through a photo album and crying. No, no, not a photo album, a lot more than that. In fact, she had piles of them next to her on the couch.
Chris's lower lip quivered and he ran over to Mom, "You don't have to cry, Mommy!"
She hugged him and laughed, wiping her tears away, "Thank you, Sweetheart."
Geez, dramatic much? I rolled my eyes at them.
Mom smiled and said, "Angela, come see this."
I came over to the couch and Mom pointed to a page in the photo album, "See? It's you two as little kids!"
Chris gave Mom a look and said, "Mom, I'm crying in that one."
"And that one." I said when Mom turned the page. I couldn't believe Mom's camera lived long enough to take this many pictures! Every page was filled with pictures of me and Chris from sonograms to the first day of kindergarten to our 8th grade graduation.
Chris nodded, "Oh, don't look now, it's more crying me."
Mom shook her head, paging through the book, "There's got to be one...."
Mom put the photo album down and reached for another, "Maybe in this one...."
I snickered and Chris elbowed me. Mom pointed to a picture and said proudly, "There! You're not crying in that one."
Chris pouted, "Why isn't Angie crying in any of them?"
"Because," I said, "I was afraid of everything like someone I know...."
"Angie," Mom said sharply. 
I shrugged and looked at the picture with Chris. I laughed, "That's so cute! Chris and me in drag!"
Chris smiled as we looked at the picture. It was a picture of Chris and I when he was four and I was five. I was wearing one of dad's button up shirts and a tie. The cute thing was that the shirt came down to my knees. Chris was wearing one of mom's summer dresses and one of her hats. Cutest. Freaking. Thing.
Chris laughed and pointed to the picture, "Look at how short our hair was! I remember now, that was right after me and Angie cut each other's hair!"
I laughed when I remembered the story. I had almost forgotten! Chris had really wanted to play Hair Salon that day and it sounded like fun to me. As a result, we took a scissors to each other's hair. Mom totally flipped at first, but she let it go and decided it was cute. She told us to get dressed up in 'fancy clothes'* We did this and she took a million pictures. Dad wasn't as excited about the situation and insisted that we go to an actual hair salon the next day and get even haircuts (which were very, very short).
"Oh, how adorable!" Mom gushed, "You two were the cutest little things! Not that you aren't now, of course!"
She pinched Chris's cheek playfully and he giggled. 
I smiled and decided to go through some of the other photo albums. There were probably at least thirty albums purely full of pictures of Chris and I, I swear. Yes, Chris was crying, clinging to my arm, or sitting in mom's lap and recovering from crying in almost every picture of us. There was a really cute one from our trip to Mexico when Chris was seven and I was standing in front of this big, beautiful building, holding him like a baby.
I patted Chris's shoulder and said, "Ah, brings back memories. Doesn't it, Buddy Boy?"
Chris grimaced slightly and nodded, "Oh, it does. I remember that Mexico one; That was the day that I got food poisoning from that enormous black bean, cheese, and beef burrito."
I chuckled, "Dude, you remember it that clearly?"
Chris nodded, his eyes wide with enthusiasm, "Yes, I do. I remember exactly what was in that burrito...."
I laughed again. Chris's memory is insane, I tell you. He could describe a dream he had when he was six years old if you asked him to.
We got totally sucked into the pictures while Chris reminded us of every last detailed story to each and every picture.
When he was finished with his story about when Mouse pushed him into the fountain at a mall when he was ten, I said, "Okay, this has been fun, but I should probably be doing something productive."
Chris laughed a little, "Yeah, me too. Thanks for showing us these pictures, Mom. They're really cool!"
Mom smiled cheesily and said, "I'm glad you liked them, Honey."
Before Chris could break down and run over to hug mom, I dragged him out of the room.




Chris definitely came dominantly from mom's side of the family.






*'Fancy Clothes' was Chris and my term for 'dress up' when we were kids.

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