I always thought table tennis had a reputation for being serious shit amongst those who take it seriously--I mean, in a different way from ultimate frisbee. I mean, I heard so much about the Soviet Bloc domination, or whatever. I figure, if China is bothering to squash the competition, there's some shit going down.
I had asked my mother to look through her pictures to see if there were any of sis that could be useful, and then I'd send over M's best friend to do the technical legwork, because my mother doesn't know how to use her scanner.
I call today, and mother dearest is in the middle of a scanfest. Unfortunately, it was a 200 DPI scanfest, so I made her go back to the beginning, but for all her complaining about not being able to multitask and losing files at every turn and "how do you undraft an email?" I still got the first bundle of higher res pictures that are at least high enough quality for a collage.
I've made a flickr set with one of my alternate identities to collect pics from everyone else in the core group, and I hope they have some good stuff. But even if they don't, my mother has found some absolute gems. And some horrors, including me. But is my sister not ridiculously cute here? If it weren't for this picture, it might be my favourite. This isn't so much about my sister as it is about my mother. That's a Barbie doll cake, except my mother thought Barbie was an oppressive tool of The Man, so she painted her skin with browning, and tied her hair up in a wrap.
This picture makes me laugh, because I don't remember having Astrid's hair during high school...I don't remember ever looking like that, actually. This blurry mess is made even more unfortunate by the fact that my dress is gaping between buttons just below where I cropped the picture, so--eyes up! Concentrate on the hair!
And, last but not least, my mother is the only redeeming feature in this horror. I would have given my sister a pass, but then I saw her socks. I...I cannot be saved. Nuke me from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.