My Sister's Birthday

3/10/2014

Today is my sister's birthday.  She is 8 years younger than me, but if doesn't stop having birthdays she's going to catch up with me!

I remember sharing a bedroom with her.  The walls were painted light lavender and our bedspreads had three ruffles on the edges varying from pale lavender to deep purple.  I thought the room was beautiful.  Lavender and purple have always been my favorite color.

It's not easy to have an 8 year age difference, we were definitely at different stages of our life and for the most part had nothing common.  That did change when we both were adults.

One Christmas my sister needed to have an appendectomy and she had to stay in the hospital for a few days.  Opening Christmas presents was delayed until she came home.  I don't mind confessing that my brother and I were not very happy with the delay - selfish creatures that we were.

I remember my sister wanting to stay overnight at a local church for some teen event and I offered to be a chaperone.  Longest night of my life.  It wasn't bad enough that we slept on the floor, but the near constant giggling kept me up most of the night.  I suspect from a teenager's point of view it was a fun night - for me - not so much.

I remember taking vacations by car with all three of us kids in the backseat.  Naturally we didn't get along that well being scrunched together.  Age does have some advantages, since my sister was the youngest and the shortest, she had to sit in the middle where the dreaded hump was on the floor.

When we were living in Illinois, I was responsible for taking shelter underneath the house in the crawl space in case of a tornado.  Okay just for tickles and grins, we looked under the house once and both of us decided that it was too dark, creepy and probably some kind of critters underneath the house.  Luckily, I was never forced to make the decision requiring us to suck it up and crawl under the house.  Whew!  If we had needed to, I know that we would have both survived, but it wouldn't have been pretty!

Once we were adults, my sister and I went to the YMCA for I believe Jazzercise.  Okay I'm not known for being light on my feet, so we didn't last too long in that class!  

I wanted to take a refresher course in Shorthand and didn't want to go along.  So I dragged my sister to come with me, even though she had never had shorthand before.  She was a good sport about it and I know I was, and likely her as well, when that class was over.  We took a calligraphy class the junior college.  My sister has more artistic talent than I do, so she loved the class.  I put up with it, much like she did during shorthand!

My sister was my maid of honor with I married Jeff.  The morning of my wedding, she and I went to the beauty shop to get our hair done.  Once at home we polished our nails and sat around in bathrobes until it was t-minus to get dressed.

We found great enjoyment in browsing through antique and vintage stores looking for pretty much anything.  We weren't particularly looking for anything, it was more about the browse.  When I was expecting Scott, my sister went shopping with me through stores until we found a used dressing table.  Of course in our infinite wisdom, we had no way to get the table home.  Jeff had to come down and pick it up.

My sister went to my baby showers for both Scott and Andy, and suffered along with me, as we played silly baby shower games.  Glad that part of my life is over.  Nobody wants to have a piece of string around your very pregnant belly while people guess how big you are!  Ugh.

We ordered Tupperware and when the order was in, the Tupperware rep. asked us to come down and pick up our order.  The lady lived in Long Beach (if my memory serves me correct).  The night in question it was raining cats and dogs and I was driving.  Now all of my friends know that I hate driving - in the dark - and in weather!  But in those days I was a bit more gutsy, so off to Long Beach we went.  This was in the days before your dashboard talked to you to tell you when to go left and right.  Somehow we made it to Long Beach but not before ending up in the shipyards!

We did some ceramics together even though my painting skills was pretty marginal and I hate to say it but hasn't improved over time.

Before I moved to Maryland, I was less fearful and willing to try pretty much anything.  Many times my sister was my "copilot" as we enjoyed our adventures!  Sadly, the last time I saw my sister was at our mother's funeral and that was a long time ago.

We both love books and when I was still in California we shared our favorite books with each other.  Just recently I read two books that I thought were outstanding and I mailed them out to her so that she can enjoy them too.

My sister and I don't talk on the phone.  Don't misunderstand that there is something wrong with our relationship.  The relationship is fine, I just don't talk on the phone and she knows this about me.

I know there are more memories that I just can't bring to mind at the moment. 

I want to wish my sister a very Happy Birthday and I hope she gets to spend it exactly as she wants.

Love P