Sisters Are The Best

Today is my sister Barbara's birthday.  While I won't tell you how old she is, I will mention that she is a tad bit older (and MUCH wiser, she would tell you).  Here is one of my favorite pictures that I took of her in her then new home in Washington State.

I have such happy memories of her throughout my life, especially after she got married when I was ten and during my teenage years.  Here are some of them:

• When I was young, she would tuck me into bed and tell me the best stories.  My favorites were the ones she made up but I'm sure she read me the standard kids stories as well.
• She used to pick me up from junior high school and take me and my friends in her really cool Cutlass (a souped up car) to get an ice cream, go shopping or sometimes just take us home so we didn't have to ride the awful bus.  It was awesome to have an older sister who could drive; I couldn't wait to get out of school and look for her Cutlass parked up the hill above the school parking lot.  It meant a lot to me that she would take time from her day for things which meant so much to me and were probably just another thing to do in her busy day.
• In the 9th grade, I had to do a huge report on a country for my geography class.  I chose Japan since I had lived there for three years when I was young (from age 3-5, attending kindergarten there!)  Of course, there was no computer then, which my kids and grandkids (luckily) will never understand.  Barbara was a very fast typist since she had been a key punch/data entry operator.  She typed the whole report for me, which wasn't easy on an old Smith Corona with keys that stuck.  The term report was about 30 pages long and had to be edited a lot (and thus individual pages had to be re-typed).   She lived in LA at the time and stayed in Vista overnight to finish typing it which was a lifesaver. 
• I never had much money for school clothes.  I would save and save for ages and then she would drive down to Vista from her home in LA and take me clothes shopping.  In these days, Zody's (kind of like a Target now) was the best place to shop.  After selecting more clothes than I could afford and trying them all on (back when everything fit and was cute), we would sit at a table in the eating area and decide which clothes I had to have.  We would make lists on paper (yes, my list-i-ness is all her fault) and decide which outfits would coordinate so we could get the best bang for our buck.  She frequently added "just a few bucks extra" to help me buy more outfits which I realize now was difficult for her financially (but she never let me know then).  This is one of the sweetest memories to me.  I liked to be dressed nicely but had to stretch my buck, if you know what I mean.  (And, did you notice I coined a new word above that fits me just perfect:  list-i-ness.  I love it.)

I could go on and on about my wonderful sister but it would embarrass her because she isn't as gooey and sentimental as I am.  But suffice to say that she is the best friend I could ever have.  Luckily we get to go through this journey we call life together.