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I’m posting infrequently these days, so I feel compelled to continue sharing my embarrassing old photos.  I want to give you maximum value for your reading time, and I know there’s nothing more fun than laughing at others’ terrible fashion choices. This started as a bad hair series (and, never fear, there is more bad hair to come), but I couldn’t just let these gems lie around in a cardboard box simply because their sins are not confined to hair, now could I?

This ensemble was a hand-me-down from my cousin. I’m quite sure it must have been someone’s 4-H project in the late 1970′s. The cat was attempting to claw its way off my lap, probably in a patchwork-induced seizure.

Did you have spirit week at your junior high? We did. This was punk rock day. I was wearing my mom’s earrings from the 1960s, one set of legwarmers on my legs and another set on my arms, as sleeves. Watch out, Sid Vicious.

Best Trip:

Our life was all about travel for so long, we’d become experts at hotel sleeping and bag packing and hellos and goodbyes. So when we moved back to Portland, we plunked down our suitcases, heaved a sigh of relief, and pledged to settle down for a while. We took a couple of weekend trips and a quick Vegas getaway, but there wasn’t much glamor to speak of – nothing compared with Easter in Spain, or a villa in Tuscany, or an accidental trip to Hong Kong.

Whatever my twentieth high school class reunion lacked in glamor, however, it made up for in genuine fun and good will and laughter. It reminded me who I am and how I got here and made me proud of the people I started with, and who know me in a way that no one else does. (They also lived through the bad hair years with me. Never fear, you’ll get to see more of that this month too.)