TigPig

I cannot resist the random setting.  I am mesmerized by these colours.

We spend a good portion of Sunday at hubs-elects family house, going through old photos.  I want to make a little "story of us" scrapbook photo album to use as a guestbook, and I was hoping his mom might have some old gems for us in her taken-with-actual-film archive.

This led to several hours sitting over the kitchen table, laughing at how we used to look.  Or in my case, going back and forth between pleased, and cringing (how did I not know that bikini was way too small???).  But it was pretty awesome, and I feel like I have some good dirt on my new brothers, or would if they had much shame.

It also made me really think about how much impact we can have, unknowing, on the lives of whole families based on interaction with one member.  I have been with Brandon since we were just kids really, to dumb to know better, but my actions have had permanent outcome.  Take Tigger here, for example.

Tigger is the result of my desperate wish for a pet of my own.  But because I didn't have the means to just go out and adopt a cat I'd actually have to pay for (and if I had, I would've gotten a dog), I decided to suggest to Brandon that for his mom's birthday, wouldn't it be nice if we got her another cat? She loves cats! Let's go to the animal shelter TODAY and pick one out please?  And faced with that kind of logic and my best puppy eyes, both Brandon and his dad caved.  I mean, she does love her cats.  And she loves Tigger.  But what right did I have to even make that kind of suggestion?  One could argue that I was old enough then to know better, and I am definitely not making excuses for myself - what I did was wrong, and the fact that the outcome worked out fine does not make up for that. But.  Just look at that face?!

Brandon and I used to refer to the TigPig as "our child," and Brandon's dad used to joke that we'd better take him when we moved out.  And Brandon's mom would just smile, hug her kitty (who absolutely hates it) and say, "Over my dead body."  So at least there's that.