MY GLAMOROUS SISTER and UNGLAMOROUS ME part 1

My sister, Her Imperial Majesty wanted to be glamorous. She stood endlessly in half finished dresses while Mother pinned and tucked and basted, trying to get them just exactly right for her daughter-of-royal-birth.

There would be pins sticking out like the quills of annoyed porcupines, threatening to tear the flesh off anyone who got too close. Her Imperial Majesty would walk, with extreme care, to the bathroom and then would stand in front of the full length mirror, corkscrewing, trying to see if it fit her waist tight enough. She would purse her lips in that movie star sort of way and look down her nose, practicing, I think, to snub those of less nobility. Practicing to snub me, for sure.

Her small waist was enviable, smaller than mine and I was nine years younger. Someone once told her that she was built like a Coke bottle and that made her deliriously happy. That wouldn’t be a compliment now, but then Coke bottles were nipped in at the middle. She spent a great deal of time in half finished dresses saying, “Can you just take it in a little bit more, right here?”

I thought having Mom make a dress was a big fat waste of time. She once made a dress for me out of patterned corduroy, which I might actually have liked if she hadn’t turned one piece of pattern the wrong way and the nap of the corduroy was pale. The rest of the dress had beautiful, rich autumn colors.

I wouldn’t wear it. Mother tried all sorts of persuasion.

“It looks perfectly fine,” she said.

“Mom, this whole side is a different color.”

“I don’t see it, I cut it out of the same piece of fabric. It looks EXACTLY the same to me.”

We had an endless discussion about the possibility of her being blind and me being stubborn and in the end I didn’t wear the dress.

Mom said she’s give it away to someone who appreciated her slaving over a hot sewing machine. I don’t know who that would be; perhaps the Indians who Mom was always telling me she was going to send me back to. I had seen the Indians and they wore beautiful velvet skirts and wonderful turquoise jewelry and had that blue black hair I envied so much. I knew they wouldn’t be bothered with a corduroy dress with the nap running the wrong way.

The dress was like one of those cars you see with one purple door while the rest of the car is white. They are usually driven by teen-age boys who are happy to be driving anything because their insane insurance rates are so high, or by old retired men who have no dignity left and just want to get out of the house. So, I think the dress never did find a home and it will turn up on ebay one day and it will receive no bids.

Her Imperial Majesty was the designated recipient of all of Mother’s sewing ambitions. Mom actually made her wedding dress. That was a month and a half of pure patience on Mother’s part and a month and a half of Her Imperial Majesty marathon pickiness and extreme desire to have every stitch perfect so she look like the princess she knew she was born to be.

Mom also made my bridesmaid dress, a sky blue creation and turned dark blue with the least trickle of perspiration. I had to wear dress shields so I wouldn’t look like the sweaty thirteen year old that I was.

When Puberty revved up all her interesting little hormones she gave me an extra dose of underarm glands and the only reason I survived teenager hood was because my cousin had the same runaway glands and I had someone to cry with. My cousin was all-things-beautiful and so I felt that someday the Universe would in some way compensate me for my great sweaty trial as it had her, DURING her great sweaty trial. I felt it was worth waiting for, and so I endured. I’m still waiting but when the great compensation comes I will be so happy and fulfilled.

To be continued.

BIG SNOW--LITTLE SNOW. LITTLE SNOW--BIG SNOW.

Derrel--one of the world's most delightful people--grew up hearing this saying: "Big snow, little snow. Little snow, big snow. " This wisdom came from the Indians. Perhaps the Piutes, who lived in and around Kanab, Utah where Derrel grew up. There were Navajos Indians living there too. Derrel doesn't know exactly which tribe had the saying. Perhaps both. Perhaps all the Indian tribes who live in parts of the country where snow is prevalent have this saying.

I just visited with Derrel on the phone and he says he can hear the Indians say it still. Slowly, with dignity. "Big snow." (Pause) "Little snow." (Pause, pause.) Little snow." (Pause.) "Big snow."

When the snowflakes are big the accumulated snowfall will be small. When the snowflakes are little the accumulated snowfall will be big. Derrel says that through the years he has seen this proven to be true almost 100% of the time. Since Derrel told Phil this about ten years ago I have observed the same.

Today was a little snow, big snow day. The snow sifted down, as if the angels, dusting Christmas cookies with powdered sugar were making a mess in the Heavenly kitchen. I was driving with my daughter, Elizabeth, in the powdered sugar snow. At first it was fine, the windshield wipers took the sifting off with no problems.

We went to Borders. We browsed for a l-o-n-g time. When we came out the car was covered. The side mirrors, which I didn't notice, looked like oblong snowballs. We got back on the road, the v-e-r-y slippery road, and when I needed to change lanes I looked in the side-oblong-snowballs and realized I had a problem. We rolled the windows down, scrapped the snow off but it was frozen in diamonds underneath. With our fingernails we scraped. It didn't make much difference.

I drove to a store--that shall be un-named--to see if they had any good toys I might need to buy for the grandkids. I am not mentioning the name because this store gives my daughter the shivers--she might be somewhat of a store-snob--and she spent most of my in-store-shopping-time in the car, freezing to death and fogging the windows.

The savvy store had printed a $5.00 off coupon and it was like a free five-dollar bill, pulling me in. I did find what I was hoping to, which I won't mention here because there is a slight, very slight chance the parents of those grandkids might read this blog and say to the grandkids, "I know what Grandma and Grandpa are getting you for Christmas." There is nothing more annoying than someone who knows a secret, a secret about you, and taunts you with it. My children take every opportunity to taunt. They have the annoying gene. It comes from my husband's side, I'm pretty sure. Okay, there is a slight chance it comes from mine. Slight.

I stashed my wonderful purchases in the back of the car and got in the driver's seat. I looked at my blue-tinged daughter and said, "Where to now?"

"Barnes and Noble," she said. (She has a hard time getting her fill of bookstores. She writes like a dream, and absolute dream--I am so jealous--and one day her books will be on the shelves. Bookstore air is an elixir to her.)

Backing up was an act of faith, due to Elizabeth's breath coating the windows, and both of us hung out the windows to make sure we weren't running over Rudolph, .

Then I proceeded to slide all over the road. I tried to put 4-wheel drive on but since I have the technological-non-functioning-gene it wouldn't work. Cars, with all their technological innards, enjoy taunting me. There's a lot of taunting going on in this world.

"Are you sure you want to go to Barnes and Noble?" I asked.

No answer. I looked over at her white face and clinched knuckles. "You better just take me home," she said in a weak voice.

"I was going to buy you lunch at Cafe Rio and you were going to come home and download my pictures and show me how to put pictures on my blog."

"Not today," she said, color starting to come back into her face. "Just take me home." Obviously starvation was preferable to what she perceived my driving might lead to.

I drove the car, slipping and sliding but because I grew up driving in snow I knew what to do to come out of a slide. If I didn't we would have done 360's. Lots of 360's. As the car slipped and slid and as I pulled it out of the slides the color left her face permanently. She may have to use tanning cream until she's ninety.

We drove down University Avenue and I pointed out a stand of trees, frosted with snow and a wire fence, wrapped in whiteness.

"Isn't that beautiful?" I asked, trying to ignore the fear we both felt because of the road conditions.

No comment. She had no interest in beauty. She wanted to go to her apartment, where it was safe. Were things didn't slide into each other.

So I took her home and sure enough, the car slipped into the gutter. Because it could and because of the taunting it so enjoys. I couldn't drive out of this one. I could back up but could not go forward. I didn't want to back home in the sifting, powdered sugar snow so I had her enlist the help of her friends and they pushed me out. I drove in first gear for two blocks and then, miraculously, the 4-wheel drive kicked in. It waited until my bloodless-faced child was gone. It so loved to give her a good scare, my taunting car.

I drove twenty miles an hour--or less--the five miles home. I passed every policeman in the city, helping people out of smashed cars. One three car pileup had the middle car tipped in the air like a stink bug. I wonder how the end car felt as it watched the rear end of the middle car plow into it's windshield.

So, today was a little snow, big snow day. I don't know if the Indians have any wisdom about the slipperiness of the snow but if they do, I'd like to know what it is. The next time those conditions are right I'm staying home. Bookstore or no bookstore--bargains or no bargains. I'm staying home.