A Year of Blogging: November 29, 2011

November 29 is 'Square Dance Day'. I'm going to fly my dork flag now. I enjoy square dancing. I always have. It was my favorite unit in gym each year. Most people dreaded it, but I loved it! In college, I took square dancing as a unit in PE for credit. Each summer one of the neighboring fire departments near Berlin had a block party. At least one year they had more than one band, and in one section of the hall they were doing square dancing. One of my friends was there with his parents and we square danced for quite a while. We were the youngest ones on the floor! One of my Aunts and Uncles used to belong to a square dance group- complete with the full skirts with tons of petticoats and the guys in matching outfits. I don't think they still do it though. At a party I tried to square dance with my grandparents and their friends. Did I get a lesson that night! I was spun almost out of the square. But it was so much fun! In our family, November 29 is special because it's my sister's birthday. She's 33 today. Although she says she's 29. We've had our ups and downs. What relationship that has spanned over three decades hasn't? There are some classic stories that we'll be telling for many more decades. When we were little and Mom asked me to clean Laura up after lunch. So I got her out of her high chair, and we went into the laundry room. I put her in the washer and was trying to reach the detergent when Mom realized she didn't hear the bathroom water running. (The bathroom and laundry room are separate rooms, but both off the kitchen.) She came in to find Laura standing in the tub of the washing machine, looking at me with a trusting look in her eyes. Or there's the time I tried to trade her for a brother. I was in second grade, and was tired of having a sister. She followed me everywhere! I asked Mom to send her back for a brother, and Mom explained that wasn't possible. One of my friends had a little brother who annoyed him as much as Laura annoyed me, so we decided to trade. The plot fell through when his brother, who wasn't yet in school, refused to get on the bus with him in the morning. When I started driving, we went exploring after school. My sister is incredibly nosy, so we drove around in the hollows and back roads. We drove all over the valley! The one day we went so far we weren't even on a real road any more, it was a logging road. You couldn't back up, so I had to do a three point turn with a mountain on one side and a cliff on the other. The whole time I'm trying to get us out of there (and praying a logging truck isn't coming down the hill towards us), my sister has her hand clenched around the door handle and she's screaming 'OMG We're gonna die!' Who else does that to you? That phrase, by the way, is one of her signature phrases. She does not find it so funny when you utter it while she's driving. And there have been times, I've really believed I was going to die while riding with her. We may look a little alike, but we really are polar opposites. We always have been. Dad used to say we were like night and day. Yet for all our differences, we can spot the same thing at the same time and react the same way. Sometimes, it's like we're in the other one's head. Even though sometimes we have huge fights, we know that if we need someone, we can always count on our sister. So Happy 33rd Birthday to my sister. I like to remind her of her real age. She likes to remind me that I'll always be older. That doesn't bother me. I look at it like this: I was such a joy and such a wonderful child, my parents decided to have another one. Then they had Laura and said 'two's enough!' .