Today, A Guest Blogger...
Yesterday was my Thursday Thirteen, and today... my guest blogger presents a Friday Fifteen. Pretty snazzy, huh? And you know, it may be totally self centered and self indulgent to allow someone to post a list all about how great you are - and that's totally what it is - but whatever. If you can't do that on your own blog every now and then, where can ya? So, with my blessing - and already growing ego - I present.... (drumroll)
HolySister!
HolySister's Fifteen Things I Love about My Sister
1 – She’s my first memory. She was a grunty, little red-faced infant, being placed on a pillow in my toddler lap. I reached around to find her face and she bit down on my fingers with hard little gums. From then on (or maybe a few minutes later, once the pain and indignation had faded), she was *my* baby.
2 – We have a shared list of words we nominate for extinction. We both agree that ‘moist’ and ‘utensil’ have got to go. She vetoes ‘fig’ (which I kind of like) and ‘heinous’ (which I admit to overusing during my freshman year in college.)
3 – As a fan club of 3 (including our mom), we refer to Dillard’s as The Mother Ship.
4 – Kelsey can raise her eyebrows, widen her eyes and look sideways with far more variety and eloquence than any other non-verbal communicator I have ever encountered. Ever.
5 – She has a very thoughtful if hilarious hand-gesture for warning people around her that she’s about to sneeze. (It only works if you know what the frantic hand-fluttering means. Otherwise you’re sitting there and after a moment of crazy silent scowling and waving an explosive noise sort of rocks you back in your seat and in the immediate silence that follows everyone checks to make sure that their clothes are still on straight.)
6 – She has gorgeous children and is a great mom. Very inspirational. She’s observant and amused and is totally tuned in to each child’s unique gifts and quirks and fears. She generously lets me dote on them with very few restrictions. (And she doesn’t even mind when the latest little baby has me utterly paralyzed by cuteness – ie, the cuteness is so great, that I have to stop whatever task it is I’m supposed to be doing – changing, dressing, feeding – and indulge in a frenzy of kisses. An irresistible urge, believe me. Her kids are *that* cute.)
7 – Although there are a few differences now and then, she is one of the few people in the world with whom I share the remembered geography of our grandmother’s house. It was an important place for both of us, and included a large number of objects, memories, scents, sounds and traditions that no one else remembers. It’s like a secret lost language that the two of us know. A few other people in the family usually know what we’re talking about, but the two of us have the most complete shared sense of that place. It’s good to have someone else who knows.
8 – Two words: E. Bay. She’s the queen. It’s hilarious because most of my friends consider me their eBay advisor, but I’m a total amateur compared to Mom and Kelsey. If I get asked a question I can’t answer, I always defer to K.
9 – Together with our mom, we are one of the closest triumvirate of women I have ever come across. We’re very good to and for each other. The older I get the more I appreciate that.
10 – She calls me every few months to ask how to boil an egg. I love that. She did call me once last year to ask how to fry chicken. And then half an hour later she called back to describe the fire she had just started and put out in her kitchen. Despite all this, she cooks and eats quite well in her lovely big kitchen. Her pot roast recipe rocks.
11 – She is the person in my life who probably has the highest opinion of me. That sounds like a pretty self-centered thing to put on a list that’s supposed to be about someone else but think about it. Everyone needs that person who not only thinks the best of you, despite probably having seen you at your worst, but is able to convince you now and then that they’re not crazy for thinking so. Kelsey is that person for me. She’s very good at shoring up confidence when it crumbles. That is a rare and generous talent. She has it by the bucketful.
12 – When we eat chocolate together it is a guilt-free zone.
13 – We have completely opposite tastes in a few key areas and we manage to be amused rather than annoyed by it. The example that leaps immediately to mind is gardens. Kelsey loves extremely formal, geometric, French-style gardens with topiaries and only white blossoms. Clean lines, sharp angles, everything arranged with precision. I, on the other hand, love English cottage gardens, all chaos and color and fuzz. There is really no compromise here. But we laugh and move on.
14 –She’s an excellent writer and editor. Always entertaining and very thoughtful. Not only in her professional capacity as blogger and author, but also in emails and letters between family and friends. She and J-Mom set very high standards for communication.
15 –When we went to Australia together for the first time back in 1991, we kept seeing restaurants with B.Y.O. on the signs. We had no idea what that meant. (Aw, the innocents.) So we spent a lot of time speculating on possible meanings – the only one we came up with that I remember clearly was Butter Your Own or Butter Your Onion. We thought it might be some weird Australian custom that actually made us a little nervous about eating in local restaurants. Eventually someone (probably Mom) took pity on us and let us in on the secret. We had no idea such a concept as ‘bring your own’ existed – outside of the cover-dish dinners of our youth. It's a comfort to look back on that moment of shining ignorance and know that it was shared.
{HolyMama here: Dude. She used the word 'triumvirate.' Whoah.}
Kelsey, Seth-5mth, and HolySister doing the "Baby Kiss Sandwich"
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Very Cool.
I'd do this with my sister but I refuse to give open access to my blog by anyone who has changed my diaper. She knows stuff the world is not ready for.
I like the idea of a guilt free zone for chocolate. Very cool.