So today is the day.

The day all these silly posts have led up to.

The day P turns 21.

The day where I feel pretty darn old.

It’s finally here.

I remember the day in 1989 when we were living in Germany and I got home from school and heard the news that I was going to have a baby brother or sister.

I remember walking down the stairs to see the light on in the kitchen and finding my mom eating potato salad- which is what she craved throughout her pregnancy with P.

Hmm- P? What are your thoughts on potato salad? Mom craved Suzy Qs with me and to this day whenever I can find them (which is very rare) I have this unexplainable impulse to buy three and eat them before I even leave the parking lot. For some reason I can’t see you doing the same with potato salad.

…

Moving on…

I remember the day when P was born- “way” back in 1990. It’s weird to think that I can actually remember that, but I do. I was in school and one of my mom’s friends came to pick me up because “it was time!” She was born with a low white blood cell count and had to stay in the hospital an extra few days and I clearly remember going to see her in that tiny little incubator. She had these little foiled heart-shaped warmers on her back to keep her temperature regulated. I remember having to scrub, scrub, scrub my hands at the hospital before I was able to touch her tiny back- and I remember being amazed that I had a little baby sister. I remember thinking how much I was going to love her and play with her and take care of her and be her best friend forever. When I look back I liken it to Elvira on Tiny Toons. Do you remember that? The girl was always on the lookout for a pet and always telling potential animals- in a scary high pitch shrill, mind you- that she would love them and squeeze them and hold them forever and ever and ever! Yep, I was pretty excited to have a little sister. Poor thing. She never had a chance.

I was like her second mom, she was always on my hip and with me all the time and I was fine with that. Granted, as you know from previous posts she drove me crazy sometimes, and I’m sure I did the same to her. We’ve fought. We’ve cried. We’ve laughed. And we’ve been mad. But who hasn’t when you’ve cared for someone? I’ve watched her make friends and change friends and change schools and change boyfriends, and she’s watched me do the same. We went from superficial closeness to a deeper friendship as we’ve gotten older. We don’t hold back and share everything, our fears, our deepest secrets, our insecurities, and our worries. And it’s okay.  Because we’re safe to share those things with one another because we know it’s okay. It’s home. And it always will be.

So here’s to the first 21 years with P- I’m really thankful for them and so blessed to have a sister than I can be unbelievably close to. Friends are overrated, right P (haha)? And here’s to 21 more. And 21 more after that. And 21 more after that! I want us to be in some nice retirement village drinking mimosas and sneaking peanut butter patties past the nurses one day.

So friends- today we tip our hats (ahem- and glasses. Big, big glasses) to miss P. She’s a big girl now. Cheers to her and cheers to what might possibly be one of the more fun weekends in our 21 years together.

Happy birthday P Dub. I love you.

Chicago here I come!!

As you may recall, Will and I made the move to Kuwait during the late spring of 2005. When we got there, we lived with my parents and sister in an apartment. Defintiely not ideal living situations for 5 people! Not to mention the fact that when we moved there, I was still unemployed. The summer of 2005 was interesting. At the time, it was a mix of fun and pain, but now that I’ve been removed from the situation for several years, I look back and think it was such a great time in my life. Something I needed and learned from and appreciated. Something I wouldn’t trade.

The summer of 2005 was full of a lot of navigating. Learning the ropes of living in Kuwait. Getting familiarized with the culture, the area, all the different cool things that existed in this new world…I learned about the dust storms and kitchen fans (check out this post), running out of water, and all sorts of other things. Seriously, if you get bored, you ought to check out the summer of 05 archives. Good times.

I learned a lot, and it was nice to get to learn it with my sister. Because I was unemployed and had no Kuwait license yet, P and I were homebound during the day. All day. For months. Literally- the only time we would get out of our apartment complex would be on the weekends with our family, and then at the bottom of our building to get bread from the bakery. So- it’s not like I need to tell you this, but- we didn’t get out much. I would shower and that’s about it. Poor Will. Literally days of no makeup or doing my hair. Sexy.

P and I became pretty good at staying home all day, everyday. We even had a system. Will would get up at like 4 in the morning to be able to leave for work, so I would get up with him, go back to sleep, we’d wake up, have breakfast and watch Home And Away- this incredibly porpular Austrailain show. I would clean the apartment. We’d have lunch- which often consisted of thin crust cheese pizza from Pizza Hut. Then we’d freak out over how much we were eating and go work out. Sometimes we would swim, but that ended quickly because the building owner would watch us and it would creep us out. We’d spend time on the patio outside too, looking at life go on while we were stuck inside. Then we’d make dinner. We tried to actually take time to make real meals for our family since we were home all day and they were at work for 11 hours straight.

I remember one time in particular we were having a bad day. I don’t remember why, but I remember being pretty bummed, mainly because I wasn’t able to find a job. I was on edge. I was irritable. I was not ready for anything to go remotely wrong. Plus I had just cleaned the house. We had decided to make homemade baked chicken strips with our own breading. So- we put the chicken in a big gallon size bag that had lots and lots of breadcrumbs in it. P was in charge of coating the chicken. She began coating the chicken, and then ended up just shaking the bag to try to coat it evenly. Only the bag wasn’t sealed. And chicken and breadcrumbs when every where. And I seriously freaked out. In fact, I think there was a time in which P and I actually named that day, “The Chicken Finger Freak Out.” Because I remember literally screaming. I don’t think I screamed a word- I just screamed and I think I totally terrified P.

It was one of those moments where I had just reached my limit and the breadcrumbs flying everywhere was more than I could handle. And P was there. She was there to help clean up the mess and she was there to laugh about it with me. She was there to make me realize it was going ot be okay. She was just always there when I needed her most. Somewhere around that same time, during the height of my frustration of living with my parents in a matchbox and being uneomployed me and P did something silly. I remember we had gone out with my family that night and it was sweltering outside. We were hangingout downstairs by the pool for some reason. P and I got restless and bored and were already in a goofy mood. Plus we were hot, so we ended up both getting a running start and jumping into the pool together, clothes and all! What a sight. That just helped keep things in perspective for me. Things don’t always go as planned, but you just hav eto dive in and go with the flow. And I was lucky enough to have my sister right there with me.

In the summer of 2002, the summer before I met Will, I broke up with my boyfriend of 2 ½ years.

It was a pretty rough time. I remember P was so great and was my best friend and we got so close that summer. All my friends had already gone off to college and so that summer aside from my church friends- who were also friends with this guy- it was really me and P.

We had a lot of fun that summer. We’d hang out at the pool, make late night Dunkin Donuts runs, I even recall eating ice cream out of the container and picking all the delicious toppings out with or hands (classy). Just a lot of silly fun.

There’s even a video floating around there somewhere which would most definitely seal my fate for never being able to run for public office. Nothing risqué, but pretty freaking hilarious.

We are just a lot of fun when we’re together and she will never know how much she helped me through that breakup. I know it seems silly to say that my 12 year old sister helped me- a 19 year old- get through that time, but she did. I think the glaring giant age difference between us made a lot people scratch their heads as to how we could be so very close. I mean, it’s practically a decade. When I was driving she was learning to write cursive. When I was going to college she had just started junior high. We were on entirely different planes, but it didn’t matter. We would still laugh and joke and kid and drive others around us crazy with all our inside jokes.

You know when you’re just made to be close with someone? That’s how it’s always been for me and P. We are like kindred spirits, two bodies linked by our one connection together, our “sisterhood.” It just can’t be explained sometimes, and anyone that is close to their sibling or a longtime friend definitely gets that. 

When P and I were younger we had an above ground pool in our back yard. We spent every single day out at the pool during the summer. We would play all sorts of games, from Marco Polo, to “guess what color I’m thinking of, and I’m going to dunk you until you say the right one,” to giving each other tours of the pool while riding on a float, and finally- we would occasionally get all self righteous and baptize one another. Very nice. We had a lot of fun summer days together in the pool. 

I posted this ages ago. It was about how P and my mom came all the way to Camp Arifjan, where I worked in Kuwait, and surprised me with a Johnny Carinos canolli and a crown for being “Employee of the Month.” It seems sort of silly when I look back on it now, but at the same time, when I look back on it now, it touches me even more.

For one, I hated my job experience in Kuwait for a long time. If any of you have read my blog from those days you know I had a hard time. It was so sweet when they came up to my work and surprised me with such a thoughtful gift just to show they loved me. Also, getting onto Camp Arifjan is a giant pain in the ass. Yes. I said it. Ass. Because it is. It really is, and there’s no way around not cussing because it’s THAT much of a pain. Anyway- it took a lot of time driving there, waiting to get to the gate, having your car searched, getting fondled in the 100 plus degree heat, and then getting to my office. That alone shows the thought behind the gift. What a nice gesture. I’m a really lucky girl. 

P eats with me.

Like eats.

Girls are annoying. We really are. We don’t eat in front of other girls ever! Because that would mean that we had no mastery over our hunger and that we really don’t survive solely on coffee and Orbit Sweet Ming gum (ha- see yesterday)!!

That’s what I love about me and P. We have lots of healthy moments, but we also have a lot of ravenous manly beast-like moments- especially during special occasion weekends like P’s upcoming birthday weekend! Do you know that this past May when we went to Beavers Bend we literally had smores for every.single.meal. the entire weekend? It was amazing. We are also known for killing an entire medium Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza in one night. And then there’s… well… I think you get the point. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that we DO eat healthy. Haha. Oh- and if you’re wondering- yes, we already have our entire gastronomy planned for the entire birthday weekend. But you probably already figured that. 

The girl goes through Orbit Sweet Mint gum like I’ve never seen.

She’s got a real problem and a bad habit on her hands- she’s up to four packs a day!

I’ve considered an intervention, but, well- have you had Orbit Sweet Mint gum? 

P and I have the best emails and text messages back and forth. We hardly ever write more than a paragraph at any given time and continually exchange short little blurbs back and forth throughout the entire day.

It’s like a Christmas present that I keep getting over and over.

It always makes me so happy to see an email from her. We can literally talk back and forth like this for 10 hours a day via email or text message and never get bored and still have tons of pithy and hilarious things to talk about. Oh guys- do I have some hilarious doozies I could share, but the truth is that if I did share them it would be pretty embarrassing so it’s probably best I do not. Maybe one day I’ll clean some of them up and post a thread or two. Fun times. 

P is very generous. She really is. Every time I visit her I pretty much bring no clothes because she lets me borrow all of hers- and doesn’t complain. In fact, I didn’t want to lug my coat around last year so she even let me wear one of hers. She lets me wear her perfume and makeup and everything. She’s a real nicey.

Also, she’s just very thoughtful. When I went to see her last time she had a tea in her hand when I came off the plane. It was really sweet. She sends me the sweetest video messages on facebook, and is always making me laugh!

Not only that, but she’s generous with others. She went to India last summer to teach children, which I think is so admirable. She also helped out at a Prom Dress event in which girls that couldn’t afford to buy a new dress could go and get slightly used dresses at a discount. She’s just a good person with a good heart. And I’m proud to call her my little sister. 

During the Summer of 2004 I was a newly married college student. That summer I was taking one class and working at the university- which was only like a 30 hour a week job. Put it this way- I had lots of time on my hands. This allowed me lots of time to hang out with P.

For some reason that summer we thought it would be fun to take up tennis. Let’s keep in mind that neither of us have all that much athletic ability. Sure, P was a cheerleader, and yes I work out at the gym- but please let me assure you, that does not convert into athletic ability. Will is always trying to get me to play basketball with him, and I’m just pitiful.

I’m getting off track!

Anyway- because we were so awful we would go in the middle of the afternoon, the height of summer heat and misery and pain, so no one would see us. I’m surprised neither of us suffered from heat exhaustion, really.

We would stand on opposite sides of the net and P would serve and it would hit the net and bounce back to her feet.

Then she’d serve and it’d fly over the net and I’d be swinging in the air on the left side, when the ball was on the right side.

Then I would try to serve and it would go flying, or it wouldn’t pass the net, or it would go into the other court.

We were awful.

We volleyed back and forth a few times- in the course of the whole month we devoted to tennis- but that was the extent of it. My mom and Will would occasionally go with us in the evenings. Will would try to play with us, but unfortunately he has no “off” switch. He is always in competitive game mode, out to win. He had fire in his eyes, and I swear had he been bald I would have mistaken him for Andre Agassi. So while me and P just wanted someone to gently hit the ball back and forth with us, Will was out for war. He wanted to hit the ball hard, he wanted to win, he wanted to make us hate him. He would frustrate me for not just freaking playing “nice” and I would frustrate him for chasing after the ball nonstop and not being able to hit anything. Fun times. Hmm, maybe this Spring I’ll convince to give it another go! What do you think?

Happy Valentine’s Day!! <3