the post in which

I channel Sophia Petrillo.

Picture it. Penn Yan, New York. 1983.

It was the day I turned five years old. And my very first day of school. On the corner of my mother's beloved corner lot, my brother and I waited for the school bus; him in his Firemen hat (the baseball team on which he played) and me decked out in the finest home-sewn, coloured polka dot dress a girl could want. I imagine I was a giddy little girl when my mother finished it and gave it to me but all I remember about it is standing in our kitchen holding the McCall's pattern in my hands and thinking how cool it was that Mom was going to turn drawings of something into a something I could actually wear. Paired with the baby blue sweater knitted by what I believe was one of my two dear grandmothers, I think I was quite stylin'. But it's really the cross-stitched-with-love gingerbread handbag I'm carrying that really pulled the outfit together.

I don't remember how school went that day or if I celebrated my 5th birthday like a rock star. Or who the hell the kid is in the background watching the teary-eyed mother taking a picture of her babies as the youngest heads off on her own into the world for the very first time. There's not even a crazy, made-up story that goes along with this photo, so I suppose that makes me a pretty piss poor Golden Girl knock-off.

But it's one of my most favourite photos ever and just felt like sharing.