LadyLee, Kentucky, and Milk and Cookies.

They say a picture is worth a thousands words...


Well this one here is worth far more than that...

This is the only professional picture of myself, my baby bro Milk and Cookies, and my sister Kentucky that was ever taken. It was taken back in 1989, when I was 19, Kentucky was 6 or 7, and Dakari was somewhere between 15 and 20 months old, I believe.

I was supposed to take the picture with my boyfriend Eli, but we had a big argument the day before. So I got up, put on my favorite lavender shirt, my favorite silver herringbone and silver hoops (ya'll know ya'll kicked the silver back in the day!. I got Kentucky and Kari together and we went down to Zayres on Ol' National Highway for the free picture.

The photographer got us all set up. Then he made a comment that rubbed me the wrong way.

"You got started pretty early, didn't you?"

I had to keep myself from kicking the hard eyeroll. It has always disturbed me that people always thought that my brother and sister were my children.

"No, this is my brother and sister."

Kentucky smiled. The photographer looked at me like I was telling a lie. I wasn't going to argue with him.

Then my brother told his first joke ever.

"Yes I is, Lee!!!"

... The photographer took that to mean that he was my child.

Apparently, my brother had picked up on this "irritation" that I would get when people asked me if he was my son. And I guess he decided to make light of it.

As a result, the photographer gave me a look that said "You should be ashamed of yourself for lying like that."

Milk and Cookies burst into a fit of giggles and bounced up and down on my lap, arms flailing and yelline...

"Yes I is, Lee! Yes I is, Lee!"

Took all I had to smile for the picture. When it was over, I snatched them up and got the hell out of the photo area with the quickness.

Milk and Cookies soon forgot about this when I put him down on the floor. You see, he hadn't been walking for long, and had just figured out how to run, so I spent some time trying to catch up with him while he took off down wide open aisles.

Later, when the picture came back, Kentucky was running around talking about she put a curse on me. When you put your arm on someone's shoulder like that, it apparently meant that you were putting a curse on that person.

*crickets*

(Where the heck did she get THAT from? We never figured it out. I was looking at her sideways for a long time after that.)

And that's the only professionally taken pic we have together. It is hanging on our mother's bedroom wall. I have one other picture of us together, our arms around each other at our grandfather's funeral. I have no idea what I did with it. I just remember that my brother was just a bit taller than us there, nothing like the baby he was in the pic above.

Maybe we will go take a family picture together again... someday soon.