Monthly Archives: March 2012

Happy Hour – Default Time!

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19

So I got a message from Monkey Girl yesterday requesting space on my blog so that she could tell her side of the story. I called her back, and told her she was welcome to a rebuttal. And here we are, 24 hours later, with no refutation of the facts. That’s right Monkey Girl, I said facts. You had time to state your case, and since you failed to provide any counterevidence (and for those of you saying to yourselves, ‘I don’t remember you providing evidence to corroborate your tale, Vesta.’ The burden of proof is on the other party. And besides, I threw in words like counterevidence and refutation, which may be used incorrectly, but I’ve already started Happy Hour, so there’s really no point in arguing with me. Ha!), the story of the door stands as is. Thank you very much.

You lose Monkey Girl! It has been said in the internets, which makes it fact!

May I present you with a drink to quench your thirst, best enjoyed with a sense of smug satisfaction?

The Null and Void

  • 2 oz spiced rum (I prefer Appleton’s – the taste of Captain Morgan’s is too overpowering and interferes with the other ingredients)
  • 1 oz amaretto
  • Cranberry juice
  • Club soda

 

 

In a tall, ice-filled glass pour rum and almond liqueur, then top with cranberry juice and add splash of soda. Enjoy!

*Note, these go down way to easily, so be careful. Take a cab, or stay at home!

Also, I am saddened to say that the telephone books are gone, so no more shrines. Just when I was getting into it!

 

United we stand, divided we fall

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As my sister and I grew older, we learned some important things. First, nobody likes a tattle-tale. There wasn’t much satisfaction in ratting the other out if it meant both parties got in trouble. In addition to that, our arguments morphed in to actual fights. As in, bruises, and many broken things. And that taught us the second lesson, which was while our folks may have found tattle-taling to be an annoyance that typically ended with both of us being sent to our rooms, broken vases and whatnot would land us in deep shit. It didn’t matter who broke what, we were both getting grounded. And that was when we realized our only hope to stay out of trouble was to band together. We could be tearing each other’s hair out (literally), but if our fighting knocked us carelessly into something breakable, the catfight ceased immediately, and we became an inseparable team, bonded over the desire to avoid punishment.

Two rules were established. Number one – if it breaks, try to fix it. Monkey Girl and I learned to become extremely handy. In fact, we should have gone into antique restoration or some such field, because we learned to put things back together seamlessly. You would be amazed at what we could do with superglue and a blow dryer.

Nine or ten years ago, she and I were at home visiting for the holidays. We sat in the kitchen chatting with my mom, who was cooking. She opened a cabinet door, and it tapped a ceramic duck pot holder thingy on the wall. The duck’s head fell off, which prompted our mom’s classic look of shock. Monkey Girl and I laughed our butts off, because we broke the head off that duck years before. And that’s how good we were at putting the broken pieces back together. That damn duck survived being hit with the cabinet door for years before it finally decapitated itself.

The second rule was probably more important than the first, and it was, if you can’t fix it, then deny, deny, deny. And more importantly, don’t waver. Parents, or at least ours, are impressive at interrogation – one chink in the story, and it will all come tumbling down. Denial only works when both parties involved in wrongdoing stick to the exact same story. We had so many of these moments in our childhood, it’s hard to pinpoint just one, but at the request of Dogs on Drugs, I’ll tell the story of the door.

A little background – my sister was in gymnastics for years, and she was very good. So much so that fighting with her was kind of scary, because she had some crazy ninja-like moves. I might have been the older sister, and the bigger one, but there were many times I ran like a coward from Monkey Girl. Homegirl could do a flip in the air and kick you in the head before you could blink – it was crazy. Anyway, one day after school, during one of her ninja fighting moments, I ran to my room and slammed the door behind me. She was hot on my tail, and had I not pressed myself against the door as it shut, she would have been in my room. Instead she slammed into it – WHOOMP! The entire house shook, but I managed to keep her at bay. Monkey Girl was screaming like a banshee to be let in (to kick my ass) and slammed into the door again – WHOOMP! After a couple more tries it became clear she wasn’t going to give up, so I steeled myself for the onslaught and moved away from the door. Suddenly, my sister was standing in the middle of my room, with the door knob in her hand. And the door. And the hinges, which had pieces of the doorframe still attached. Both she and I looked very much like this:

Oh shit - we're in trouble now.

And so ended our fight. We had bigger problems on our hands, like how the hell we were going to fix the door. In short, we weren’t. We knew my dad would be home from work any minute, so we devised a plan of action and managed to get the door back in as best we could, and shut it, hoping the shards of wood along the frame wouldn’t be too noticeable from the outside. And then we waited. Not long after, my dad arrived, yelling ‘giiiiirls!’ when he walked in the door and heard silence (because all parents know silence is never a good thing). Monkey Girl and I sat on my bed together, and chimed simultaneously, ‘in heeeeere!’

My dad opened the door, and of course took it with him. Interestingly his face looked very similar to my sister’s when she ripped it from the frame. She and I managed equally shocked expressions and said together, “Daddy, what did you do?”

Surprisingly, my dad didn’t explode from anger as one would have expected, he merely said, “Nice try, now tell me what happened.”

My sister and I maintained our innocence and stuck to the story.

“You did it, Daddy.”

Good sister/bad sister

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23

Day 15

Skulls mocking abandoned telephone book

Shortly after I posted yesterday my sister called, not because she read it, but because we have that psychic sister connection. For real. I once called my sister in the middle of the night after waking from a horrible nightmare in which I was searching for her, but she was gone. The dream was so vivid, that even though it was the wee hours of the morning, I had to check on her. When she answered the phone, the first thing I said was “Are you okay?”

She answered that she was having a nightmare about being lost.

Weird, right? Anyway, I mentioned yesterday’s post to her, since I assumed that was what prompted her call. She had no idea what I was talking about, but after hearing about the sister series, she informed me I was not allowed to embarrass her on the internet.

Well, sissy, I would never do that (I assume she was referring to incidents from the past decade or so, most of which involve copious amounts of alcohol. Obviously those are the best tales, but in order to not embarrass my little sis, I’ll keep them to myself. Plus, I certainly come out looking like a moron in most of them, so silence is to my benefit too).

Anyway.

When Monkey Girl and I were kids we hated each other. Yeah, sure we loved each other because we were sisters, and we had tons of cute sisterly moments. But more often than not we were at war. My mother used to get so frustrated, because she couldn’t understand why her daughters fought like heathens (which she called us on a daily basis, “stop acting like heathens!’). Now, before I go, let me say that whatever I may have done to my sister as a kid, no one else was allowed to pick on her. No one. We could have been tearing each other to pieces, but if some neighborhood kid looked at Monkey Girl the wrong way, instantly I was protective.

To be fair, when she was really little, I totally took advantage. Like when were learned about Carl Linnaeus and taxonomic ranks, and I came home from school and told her everyone really had seven names, but that she wouldn’t find out hers until kindergarten. She begged and begged, and so I made up a bunch of gibberish, and then told her to memorize it all. When she proudly went in to tell our mom her ‘scientific name’, I laughed my butt off, and my mom told me to be nice to my sister. And I am nice, because that story makes me look like a geeky nerd. Taxonomy, who tells taxonomy stories? Geez…

Actually, I have a few stories spawned from science class that involved my little sister. It’s probably sheer luck I didn’t accidentally kill her, because I convinced her to eat all sorts of things.

I know what you’re thinking. I was the mean older sister. Well let me tell you something, she was a little stinker. And she knew how to work the baby of the family thing like nobody’s business. She also knew how to play me for a fool. One time she accidentally was pushed fell from the swing set in our backyard. I felt bad, especially since she was sprawled on the ground crying (which my mother would eventually hear), so I ran inside to get a towel so she could wipe the blood off her face (it wasn’t that bad people, stop judging). Being the loving sister I was, I wiped it off for her, and asked if she was okay. Her response was that she couldn’t see. And she couldn’t, because I had the towel on her face. But I thought she meant she really couldn’t see. Holy crap, I blinded my little sister! Monkey girl caught on to my mistake right away, and she milked it. Finally I had no choice but to run to my mother in a panic to tell her what happened. I knew that if you severed a finger, it should go on ice as soon as possible so that a doctor could sew it back on, so I figured that surely they could do something for my sister’s eyeballs, especially since they were still in the sockets. Needless to say, her eyes were fine, and I got in serious trouble. And she probably got a cookie, or something.

Twerp.

And she still is one, a twerp, that is. During our conversation yesterday I pointed out her birthday is right around the corner. She said it wasn’t, because she refused to turn 30. Uh-huh, poor bratty baby, it must be hard.

Tomorrow, Monkey Girl and I learn about the power of denial.

Sister-sick

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23

Day 14

Death of the Telephone Book Shrine

I realized this morning I’m sister-sick. It has been nearly two years since I last saw Monkey Girl, mostly because we are both busy. She and her husband married shortly after we did, and not long after they moved to the Big Bad Midwest, where they are both working on their doctorates. She studies primates.

This is her monkey:

Sexay, no?

I know I’m sister-sick because she keeps popping up repeatedly in my dreams. Interestingly, she’s almost never the age she is now. Usually Monkey Girl is a kid in my dreams, or at most a teenager, whereas I am my current age. So I think I’m going to do a sisters series this week. I have loads of good stories, and since I’m the one writing them, you know you’re getting the true version of events. Stay tuned for stories of murderous, vicious heathen children (we may have been girls, but we fought like animals).

 

 

In other news, I’m a winner. Yesterday I received a lovely prize from Misty at Misty’s Laws - thanks! And yes, Misty, vodka is totally healthy, just add olives and you have yourself a shriveled up liver salad.

I love free stuff!