What are we talking about today?

I'll get back to theme days once I find a groove of posting regularly. In the meantime, most of my posts are about some variation of books, bikes, buses, or Broadway. Plus bits about writing, nonprofits, and grief from time to time.

This blog is mostly lighthearted and pretty silly. It's not about the terrible things happening in the world, but please know that I'm not ignoring those things. I just generally don't write about them here.

15 December 2010

Happy Birthday!

I had this as my FB profile pic for a
while, and Chad's friends who don't
know me kept asking if Denise was his
wife. I changed the pic.
My brother and sister have birthdays so close together it should be illegal. My parents didn't do it on purpose, but these two have holiday-ish birthdays while I'm way off on the other side of the year.

Not that I am complaining.

Anyway! My delightful, charming, lovely baby sister, variously known as Denise, Neesee, Hermanita (I'm the only one who calls her that), and an assortment of other nicknames, is celebrating her 28th birthday today.

Which is weird for me on a lot of levels, because in my head I have her frozen in time; she's supposed to be about 15. Or, maybe, 20. But 28? Sheesh.

She was explaining something about
the CD. Her favourite colour is
green; can you tell?
She is taller than me by a few inches, like every other member of the family, and has been since she was about 8 or 9. This has led, ever since, to people thinking I'm the younger one. When we were still teens, this annoyed me and delighted her; now that we're into late 20s/early 30s territory, we feel the opposite.

The summer that I was 19 and she was 14, we spent a week at our summer camp; I was a counselor, she was a camper. The counselors have to turn up a day early, and since it would have been silly to make two trips, we went together the day before camp began. So Denise was present for all the pre-camp stuff. Before a counselor meeting that night, one of the guys was handing round packets with information, meeting agenda, that sort of thing, and he handed one to Denise, who handed it to me. So he tried to give her another one, so she said, "I'm not a counselor."
He said, "Oh, okay," and then tried to take the packet away from me. So I told him, "No, I am a counselor, I need it."
He stood there for a minute, looking back and forth between the two of us, before I said, "I'm the older one, she's the younger one."
He asked Denise, "You aren't twins?" Now it was our turn to be confused. Denise said, "No, I'm 14 and she's 19."
He still didn't go away, but stood there for another second before he said, "Are you being serious?"
This had us and everyone standing nearby laughing. In the end, we convinced him that she was a camper and I was not.

I assure you, her head is in no danger
 of catching fire.
And one more story before I go: At my wedding, Denise was the maid of honour, and towards the end of the ceremony she had to cross the stage. Chad and I had our unity candle in more or less the same place as it is in this pic (which is from our brother Billy's wedding, not mine). Denise bumped the table as she went by, knocking over the candle. Fortunately, it went out before it hit the carpet, but not before giving everyone a fright. (Our family does not have a lot of luck with unity candles. But that's another story entirely.)

At Billy's wedding, I had done Denise's hair, with the aid of copious amounts of hairspray. So she frequently jokes that this picture makes it look like her hair is on fire, and that if she had gotten any closer, it might well have gone up in flames from all the flammable chemicals I put on it. I tell her she's better off just staying away from fire altogether.

Yep, those were some goofy stories. Happy birthday, Denise!

9 comments:

Felicity Grace Terry said...

A February baby, I'd hate it if my birthday was any closer to the holiday season as everything would come at once with no further personal celebrations for a year - much better to have a birthday mid June/July. Happy birthday to your brother and sister.

We had a similar candle incident at our Nephew's christening - a floor standing candle, the vicar caught the stand with the arm of her robe sending candle and hot wax everywhere. Luckily it didn't hit anyone but my sister slipped on the coolong wax and nearly dropped the baby.

Timbra said...

what a sweet sister post. . .haley and i have the same "taller=older" situation. When I was 16 and she was 12, I went to give blood and brought her along after school. I had to give ID showing I was old enough, and it obviously showed I was 16, but then the lady asked Haley if she was giving blood too. . .UH. . she's TWELVE!!!!! Apparently she looked 18. . . Now I think we look very similar in age (but we're still 4 years apart :)

Su said...

@Petty: I feel the same about being a spring baby. It's great. :) And YIKES about the candle at the christening! I think I'd be afraid to wear the robe around candles ever again, if it had been me.

@Timbra: You could give blood when you were 16? I guess I didn't think about that varying from state to state (it's 17 in Indiana). What I didn't share in the post is now that I have fine lines and grey hair and she does not, people have stopped making that mistake. ;)

Denise Covey said...

I really feel sorry for people who have their birthdays over Christmas. A friend's birthday is on Boxing Day and she usually gets a lot of leftover Christmas chocolates etc for her gifts.

Su said...

Our Dad's is the day after Boxing Day... cue the moaning every year. But my sister doesn't seem to mind-- that could be because her birthday is before Christmas, of course.

Grandpa said...

Can't blame those who thought that you were twins...

You had your sister well-groomed in the last pic, wearing what appeared to me like a big yellow hair clip

Su said...

LOL, thanks! I've never noticed that it looks like a hair clip!

Unknown said...

Hope you had a happy one dear, dear nisey!

Su said...

We should probably get her to choose a spelling...