Sister's Coming

My sister drove away from Portland, Oregon, this morning headed for Southern California -- our city to be exact. She arrives here tomorrow evening sometime. Thankfully she has a window of good weather for traveling.

I've written about my sister previously, so I don't want to repeat that story. Two years ago on her November birthday we reconnected when I sent her flowers; then 2 months later in January of '08 we saw each other for the first time in about 30 years when she spent a weekend with us.

Annually she closes her K-9 Kamp the last week in January for some vacation time. Last January, we met her halfway and spent a week on the shore of Monterey Bay in Santa Cruz. (The series of that week can be viewed by tapping the "year ago" shot here on this page.)

Today Mr. Fun & I washed the sheets on the bed in the guest room and made sure drawers were empty in the dresser for her things. Near the end of the afternoon with the sun shining brightly through the window, I stepped into that room to make sure it was ready. I was holding Grammie Teele's mirror in my hand and held it up to look at the room from some other perspective.

Since Christmas Mr. Fun & I have been sleeping in the guest room . . . oh yeah, and Bob dog too. It is a room that we love. We have a lovely large master bedroom, but every year for about a month in winter and a month in summer we seem to find our way back to the guest room. It is on the opposite back corner of the house and has just a slightly different view of the foothills south of our town. We won't tell my sis that we've been occupying that room. As I stood in the room looking and lingering, I hoped she would feel as comfortable in that room as we have.

When she gets here our home will fill with energy and life and commotion. She is bringing two dogs with her -- her own dog, Razzie, who is a blind Schnauzer, and a Mini-Doxen, Sporty, who stays at her house often and has been having some pains lately. He's on the mend, so she didn't want to return him to his family yet; besides she knows he has had a crush on me since April '08 when we spent 5 nights at her place. So I think she secretly wanted to bring him. Actually, there was no secet about it. When we asked if she was bringing Sporty, she was elated, and the immediate answer was "yes!"

Once she is here we'll talk non-stop and laugh a lot, and if she has her way we'll eat a lot -- of course it will be all organic, whole grain, fresh grown, healthy kind of stuff. She has a coop of chickens, so she's bringing organic eggs.

If weather is permitting, the one thing on her agenda to do while she is here is for all of us to pile into the car and drive 75 minutes south and to the coast to Carlsbad to see Grammie Teele's old house. The house where many of our memories were birthed. It will be a spine-tinglng moment to say the least and possibly a "blip" producing moment too. Because my sis is a docent at the Portland Zoo, she would also like to see the San Diego Zoo, but we're not sure how we're going to manage that with 3 dogs to care for. But honestly, if it is possible, my sis will figure it out.

So for this next week, I'll be the little sister 24/7 and I'll also be the quiet one between two people who love to talk and laugh and have fun. My sis likes Mr. Fun a lot, she always has, so the 3 of us won't have a dull moment, and when she drives away from here next Saturday morning, she will leave a vacuum that will not be easy to fill.

So looking into Grammie's mirror this afternoon, surrounded me in memories and overwhelmed me with the potential this next week presents.

I wasn't looking forward to the week-long "Bliptogether parade" ending and was wondering how I'd transition away from the wonder of it and now I realize a whole nuther parade is coming my way. (I know nuther is not a word, but I think it ought to be.)

Good night from a dry and cold Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol