I’m hoping it was the new haircut. Or maybe the turtleneck sweater. Then again, it could have been my glasses. Or a combination of all three. The blue eyes? Yes, that could’ve been it, too. We can safely rule out size, because the clothes in my closet have a "1" in front of the solitary "2" found in hers. Whatever it was, I’m just seriously hoping it wasn’t the wrinkles...

Augie returned on Thursday from a long stint of business trips, and we were able to spend Friday together as a family. We have a membership at the Virginia Aquarium for our home school science co-op this year, so we decided to take a picnic lunch to Owl Creek Landing, watch the boats come in and out, and then go inside and enjoy some of the aquarium’s exhibits.

I was standing at the Albino Alligator display with the girls when one of the aquarium’s docents approached us. This sweet, older gentleman looked old enough to be my grandfather, which puts him in the pushing-80 bracket. He started to tell us all about albino alligators. Now, I don’t know about your kids, but when mine are presented with live, wild animals on one hand and a live, tame docent on the other, they are going to pay more attention to the animal than the docent. To counteract this unintentional rudeness on the part of my kids, I often find myself overly-animated in my comments and reactions to the docent’s gentle instruction about those wild animals. I provide lots of eye contact and encouraging smiles to make up for the fact that all he sees of my kids are the backs of their heads.

So there I am, smiling encouragingly, as Al (the kids found it amusing that his name was Al and he works in the alligator room) tells me why albino alligators don’t like the light. Suddenly, Al interrupts his educational insights with this: “You know you have a twin?” I’m a bit confused, wondering if he’s going to launch into some scientific mystery, glancing around the room to see if there’s someone else in there who looks like me, when he follows that up with, “You look like that movie star; what’s her name?”

All right, people, if this has ever happened to you, no matter how ordinary you consider your looks – and I consider myself rather ordinary – your mind goes to attractive stars to whom you might bear some small, minute resemblance. Most of us think of someone around the same age as ourselves, or perhaps a bit younger, if we’re feeling confident. We might immediately think of someone we’d like to look like, if we could raise some cheekbones here, smooth some wrinkles there.

“I’m not sure whom you mean,” I say as my mind is whirling, when Al has a eureka moment and provides the tack to prick my bubble of pride. “Diane Keaton!” he says enthusiastically. “You look like Diane Keaton!” “She’s a beautiful woman! And you look just like her!” I think “Oh...” is all I was able to muster. A few minutes later we thanked Al for all his helpful instruction and went to find the boys.

“Hey, hon! Mr. Al over there says your wife has a twin who’s a movie star.” “Oh, yeah?” Augie says, turning from the display of alligator skin products to give me his full attention. “Who?” I snuggle in close to whisper the revelation in his ear – “Diane Keaton!” His response was a bit more animated than mine had been. He burst out laughing.

Okay, okay, it’s not like Diane Keaton is unattractive. When I’m her age, I hope I do look like her. When I’m her age! Which is not for another quarter of a century! I just hope this was the image that came to Al’s mind when he made his comparisons...



...or this...



...and not one of these!