You're Never Too Old....

.....for your big sisters to take care of you.

I don't know how women without sisters make it to adulthood. Or how they even live in the first place. Or why they would want to.

I used to think I was cursed for having two MUCH OLDER sisters (you're welcome), because it seemed I just had a plethora of mamas. Don't you just love the word "plethora"? I wasn't one of those kids whose house everyone went to on the weekends because the parents were out of town. That would be Amanda. When my mother went out of town, I had a sister's house to go to. I thought it was an anvil around my neck at the time, but that fact probably kept me out of jail on at least one occasion.

But even though they bossed me around and told me what to do and pointed out the mistakes I was making even when I was too stupid to listen ("I can TOO go to a big university and not get put on academic probation" and "Of course he's the right one for me and we're going to be married forever" [times two]), they have always been there for me when it counted.

Neither of them complained a bit when they had to wear sunshine-yellow bridesmaids dresses from THE J C PENNEY CATALOG for my wedding.

They both came to my house to keep Mama from killing me when I was suspended from school in the tenth grade.

They both allowed me to live with them at one time or another. Well, one actually moved in with ME, but that's splitting hairs.

I have the advantage of being the baby, because they continue to feel the need to take care of me. And I let them. I feel a little guilty because I don't have anyone to pay it forward to. But only a little. I feel more guilty about the fact that I just ended a sentence with a preposition.

Sometimes it's the little things that I'm most appreciative of. Damn. Did it again.

I'm sure I'm not the only person in the history of the world who has lost a casserole dish. [Stick with me here. I promise there's a connection, I just didn't have a good segue.] I recently realized I had lost one of my favorite casserole dishes. It's like this one, only bigger and more shallow.



I got these casserole dishes when I married my baby daddy (I think), although I can't remember who gave them to me. If you're the one, I apologize that I can't remember. Never mind.

I liked them because the design on the sides was new at the time and it had yellow in it. It's all about the yellow.

Not only do I not remember where I left the dish, I don't even remember WHEN. It may have been a year ago. Or more. It's not like I frequently take dishes to church suppers, at least not since I quit playing the piano and decided to become a heathen. The only places I take covered dishes are my mother-in-law's house on Christmas, and the occasional "Friday Feasts" we have at school. I know I took a cherry crisp (or crunch - whatever) to school in that dish once. I don't even remember which year. And I'm embarrassed to ask now.

At any rate, I mentioned rather off-hand in the company of both sisters a few weeks ago that I needed a replacement casserole dish. I had no idea they don't even make that style and/or size anymore. We looked in a couple of stores, and I was crushed that there wasn't something even similar.

So what does Mom bring me this past weekend?


It was sent by Nurse Jane, my eldest sister. Good Lord, now I'm writing in passive voice too. Someone please make it stop.

It is the same size as the one I carelessly left behind somewhere. And you know what? Odds are good that Nurse Jane NEEDS it. But she's just that kind of sister. She is much more likely to take a covered dish to a church supper, but she sent this to me just so I wouldn't have to cram all my cheesy chicken into the smaller one. Or make a squash casserole that's not done in the middle.

This past weekend when all the sisters were together (along with Mom), we took a walk at Katydid's house. I spotted this on the ground and picked it up:



In case you don't recognize it, it's the ring off a gallon of milk. The thing we have to tear our fingernails open on because of some Tylenol terrorists from the 80's.

I casually mentioned that I wish I had a bunch of these, because I like to crochet Christmas wreaths out of them. We looked in the craft section of several (okay, three) stores looking for plastic rings about the same size, but the rings were either metal, too big, too small, or too expensive.

Today I got these in the mail from Nurse Jane:


She's just that kind of sister. She would cheerfully have gone into a grocery store and removed the tamper-proof rings from three otherwise perfectly good gallons of milk just to send me these plastic rings. She may have. I don't want to know.

It's good to be the baby of the family. I'm very blessed.