Photography

With the holiday season nigh upon me, I was reflecting as I jogged to nowhere without hurting my joints on the ellipitical machine about PolackPappy's fondness for taking pictures and that special Polish flavor he adds to each shot.

And by special flavor I mean that he makes it his mission to catch all the women in the family at their most unattractive.

I first noticed this at McMumsy's 50th birthday party some years ago (and I won't say how many) when he got all worked up about what he called "the unveiling." The unveiling featured a picture on an easel in the center of the room, covered by a velvet cloth. The high point in the evening came when Pp whipped off the cloth with a flourish revealing a photo of McM tucked in bed, pregnant with me, all buck teeth and giant glasses. In my own collection of McM pictures is one he took of her oh-so-attractively gnawing away on the three-pound hollow chocolate creature he gets her every year from The Chocolatier. You have to open your mouth pretty wide to fit that thing in there and McM did not disappoint.

Then last year Moo was the last to get up for X-mas morning. As she shuffled sleepily from the kitchen to the bathroom to do her business Pp called excitedly to me in a low voice "McPolack, McPolack, come here! Your sister looks like crap. You keep an eye on the bathroom and let me know when she's about to come out and I'll take her picture!"

In his defense, Pp does allow all manner of ridiculous pictures to be taken of him, including a couple last year when I asked him to act like a crazy old man. As you can imagine, this was not a hard look for him to convey, although he did take out his teeth to add that extra je ne sais quoi.