My Good Side

Saturday was not a good day for me. In fact, last week was not a very good week for me. While we're at it, and I'm sure a chorus of hallelujahs will reign in from the back, this year has not been a very good year for me. I digress.

We were scheduled to take our Christmas card pictures Saturday morning. I say morning, but the truth is the time had been scheduled and rescheduled to the point of madness even up to the night before and we had finally settled on 8:45 a.m. bright and early on Saturday morning. I am not a morning person, I rarely feel like a human much less a smiling, card-worthy version of a human before noon, but photographers always say things about sunlight and scheduling and I have a puppy who loathes sleeping anytime past dawn anyway, so why not?

I had asked an acquaintance of ours who just happens to be a pet photographer if she would take our photos. She hesitated, and explained that while she loves taking pictures of animals, she is rarely pleased with the way her people pictures turn out and therefore, rarely does photoshoots with anything not four-legged. However, I can be charming when I need to be, and I managed to guilt this poor woman into coming to our backyard to snap a few quick shots of the three of us. I knew that the ten month old puppy would, after all, be the hardest thing to capture on film--most of the pictures I try to snap of him are a white blur as he whizzes by--and even though sweet Deb the pet photographer had a jam-packed schedule, she agreed. 

I had a hard time waking up Saturday morning. I wasted time making up the bed (why I deemed fluffing my throw pillows before the sun came up important, I'm not sure, but in my defense, I was not yet caffeinated and cannot be held responsible for my decisions). The puppy has bigger hair than I do and needed to be both fed and brushed, and our house smelled like garlic bread from dinner the night before and the Southerner in me could not allow a visitor in my home until I lit a pleasantly fragrant candle to mask the smell...I was, in a word, distracted. I was running late. I never run late.

I had a sample picture I found on Pinterest for our card that I planned to show the photographer, just as a sort of idea for our pose, etc. As I hurriedly dressed, I consoled myself with this sensibility: the couple in my demo photo weren't facing the camera straight on; in fact, only one side of their bodies were showing. I noticed that, per the Pinterest photo, only my left side would actually be visible in the card. Eureka! No need for full body perfection here. I took a deep breath and saved time and sanity by only coiffing one side of my hair. I focused all my effort on getting those left eyelashes perfect, and my left brow. Oh yeah, it's a shame we can't live our lives with just one side of ourselves made up. What a clever plan. I finished getting dressed and strutted my ingenious self to the door, just as the photographer arrived. Not a minute to spare. 

I hope by now you know me well enough to see where this is going. We walked outside to the spot in front of a beautiful holly tree filled with bright red berries that I had scouted for our pictures. I turned my carefully arranged left side toward the camera and flashed my most dazzling smile, clean fluffy puppy and freshly showered and pressed hubby gathered 'round. And then the photographer said: "Susie, I'm actually thinking this will look much better if you guys switch sides. Can you turn to your right instead?"

I SO should have seen that coming. What could I do? I turned my barely brushed right side with the sad, hurried lashes toward the camera and gave what I hope was a smile, although inside I was wailing. Well, I'm sure the puppy will look great, anyway. All I can say is that when you get our card this year, my 2020 side is definitely showing!