soeurs du jour

laughing out loud

As I sat down tonight to write this post I was filled with all sorts of interesting, must share thoughts.  Ideas were swirling in my head.   I'm sure you all experience this as well, you have these ideas, something crosses your mind, you are doing something and you think, "I am so blogging this.  This is great! I'm having the best time".  I was having one of those nights.  

We have company, dinner was quick, our guests were off to the theatre, BB had to work and I had had some interesting conversation, not to mention that I had thrown dinner together in 20 minutes (seriously, go cook that pasta on the recipe blog, it's a winner).  I was going to write about being a reluctant entertainer.

Then, I opened our site to start writing and because my computer is slow, very slow, sadly lacking (yes, I know! save your pennies and buy a Mac!  I hear you), the first thing on the screen was Margie's twitter about flat abs. 

I immediately thought:  WHAT?"  I've seen both of us in the last month and there are no flat abs.  As the screen unfolded itself, I saw the photo.  THE photo (up there, in the corner on the right).  Flat abs?  Sure, but all I saw was the tube top.

We have our short talk, the sisters do, the talk where you don't really have to say much and the sister knows exactly what you're saying.   I'm thinking BFM.  You can be in public with us and whisper, BFM and we'll know you've spotted a "Big Fashion Mistake".  Tube tops are BFM's at any age.

I remember when that picture was taken, Margie's daughter, her first child had just been born.  Flat abs?  Hell yeah.  She had just had a baby.   We were at our parents cottage.  I was eighteen. She was, um, older.

What I love most about the photo is this.   She found it and she made me laugh.  I should probably be horrified, but she's right.  We had great bodies.

We still do,  those great bodies are just slightly different, older and different.  That's all -  different in a more "mature" way.

This picture does kill me though.  I'll confess I have a bad habit, I look at young women and I'm totally enamoured, I stare.   BB mentions every now and then that I'm being obvious.  I'm staring because it drives me crazy that I used to have that body and I don't think I appreciated it.  5'8", tall, slender and totally unknowing.

I have a photo.  It's of us.   Flash forward ten years.  We weren't always hot.

Ten years later, we looked like this:

Sure, still young, slender but, as her son, the baby in the picture, now grown,  said upon seeing it, "Why do you guys look like Marge Simpson's sisters?"

He didn't even ask about those glasses he was so shocked.  I'm holding the baby.  The new Mom is cheerfully sitting beside me.

I like to think we're hot again.  At the very least, we have better hair, you'll never catch Margie in sweatpants and I have new glasses!

Oh, and Marg?  Remember you started it.

hehe

xo
Kath

About my sister.

My heart is hurting a little bit.  Not the way Margie's heart is hurting but mine is hurting for her.  I know this surgery is necessary, I want her to have it so that she can be better. She wants to have it so she can be better.

We have been reaching out to each other more than ever lately.  The emails, texts and phone calls are flying back and forth.  That's why I got in the car and went to see her.  There was a need for distraction and connection.  We needed to be in the same room, even just for twenty-four hours.  We kept it light, we know the seriousness of this but there is no point in dwelling and speculating.  She would send me emails from her doctor's office, they want her to give herself a needle.  I spit coffee on my keyboard.  Right, I laughed, that is never going to happen.  Ever.   But she did it.  I watched her.

I was offering her advice a week or so ago and told her that her job right now, her priority, her only thing was to prepare herself, mind, body and spirit for what she faces.  My advice?  I told her to do all the right things, meditate, exercise, eat well, be calm, treat herself to books and magazines, and to look vague.  I'm not sure what that means now that I'm relating this story.  But I think I meant that she should tune out from some of the demands day to day life puts on us all. 

As you can see from her previous post.  That's not Margie's way.  She will take care of the others so that she knows they have what they need while she's recuperating.  She gave herself the needle, she dragged laundry 300 miles, got it done and likely put it away.  And they aren't going to starve, when she makes a grocery order in preparation for something, nothing gets missed.

Tomorrow is her surgery.   She is showing incredible courage.  She has never once said that she's scared or that she can't do it.    It's hard to face something like this, the fear factor is huge.  We all cope in different ways, some of us don't cope, we curl into little balls and wait impatiently for it all to be over.  Not Marg.

My sister, she's a coper.  I don't know if that is a word but it describes that part of her where she goes to find strength.  She finds her strength in doing.  That's how she deals with the fear factor.

Tomorrow I'm going to post something she has already prepared.  She took care of that too.  It's guaranteed to choke you up.

It's about this wonderful being who is forever watching.

Don't be afraid.  You will be fine.  You're strong.

I love you.

Kath

Whirlwind Visit

Friday evening to today at noon.   800 km round trip. 
The drive could have been shorter and the visit longer.
It doesn't matter though, we made the most of the shorty visit and cooked, ate, drank, walked, talked, took pictures, laughed, sat on the dock and had coffee together two mornings in a row.

The little crocs danced and jumped and hopped and climbed all weekend.



I nibbled on these for the very first time. 



Margie took my picture.

 

We had so much fun.  I didn't want to leave her.

xo Kath

free canada

i have spent the last nine of eleven days at a music festival. my feet are swollen and my voice is raw. every day i would nap so that i could party at night. we saw james taylor, snoop dogg, akon, wyclef jean, boz scaggs, the wailers, tragically hip, feist, sean kingston, sean paul, sam roberts, and more. we were very lucky, the sun shone, sometimes too much, every day but one and on that day the humidity was very high and the rain felt refreshing, and then it poured. on that particular day the party of 30,000 people couldn't have cared less, everyone was having way too much fun. we ate a ton of junk food, drank beer, smuggled in bottles of wine, drank bottles of water for dehydration, sat on our lawn chairs, connected with friends and family. we even took the bus back and forth. it was seriously fun.

throughout all of this i would text my sister so that she would feel the fun. we took photos with our blackberry and sent them to her, she took photos of herself waving hi and sent them back. and we talked in the short form language of texting. please, do not ever have an important discussion through texting because no doubt what you write and what they read will be different.

this flag is really a blanket from the bluesfest. the last night was cool and MBNA was giving away these blankets for free if you filled out an application for a mastercard. we never do things like that, but i was cold. so was a and in his words, we were freezin for no reason. two blankets tucked up under our chins, glass of wine in hand, i sent a text to the sister with a photo of my free canada blanket. she read free canada, as in free the prisoners. or free east timor. i meant free, as in i didn't pay for it.

in the meantime, free canada.

Two to show ...

 

I think it's pretty funny that we both have horse photos to put up.   We're not really horse people.   I like them well enough, but I will not ride one.  My sister used to be a horse girl, she had Timmy but I'll leave that as a story for her to tell because it was, ahem, before my time.  I am the younger sister.

And now, I'm more than half way between forty-five and fifty.  That hill she talks about?  I''ll let you know if I notice it. 

I am married to someone I've known since I was eighteen, too bad about the pesky 25 year hiatus where we didn't know what we could have had and got on with our lives  separately, in separate parts of the country, couple of dummies.   We'll be married five years this July.   We have no children, we had a dog and now we have a blue fish.  Really, I have the fish, Barry has a motorcycle.   

Today marks the day I start officially spending more time in the back garden than I do in the house.   After weeks of grass seeding, planting, mulching, tree trimming and organizing, my backyard space is ready to be lived in.  And in the nick of time, it is hot and humid, but as always, there is a breeze which makes it the most comfortable yard you would want to spend time in.  Over there is the reading nook under one of the big maples, a couple of comfy chairs with stools, a table for your drink.  It is beside the rose garden where the roses are heavy with buds, it's also near enough to the potting shed that if you want, you can plug your lazy old laptop with the short-lived battery in and do some reading and writing.   Or you can lie on the chaise, put your head on the blue pillow and take a nap.  Today, I sat there and started a new book, it's still lying on the table beside the pot of pansies. 

At this moment, I'm sitting at the table, the umbrella is up even though the sun has moved round to the front of the house.  I can see the laundry on the line and my pots of herbs and flowers.  I found these delightful miniature gerbera daisies and have planted them in vintage pots picked up at antique stores and yard sales.  Later, we'll talk about favourite things and wonderful finds, but for now, welcome to the second post by the second sister.

Oh and that outfit that I am wearing?  I recall that not only did I have yarn tying my hair back, but my top was really a dress that I had outgrown, it was candy cotton pink, polyester and had, not real smocking but that stitching across the bodice that was done with stretchable thread!  I have no earthly idea what I was wearing on the bottom (probably black pants made from some frightening fibre like crimpalene) but the too small dress explains the 3/4 length sleeves. 

1972.

I was 12. 

first to the post

two sisters, me and her.  i don't use caps, she does.  this blog began to take form early this morning, over the phone, on the web at the same time.  we were happy with the design, the layout looked good, we loved the colour.   i think we can agree that we have the beginnings of a content plan, and as i was hanging up i said, you have more pictures of us as kids then i do, find one.   

i'm the taller one in the picture.  the older one.  when someone uses the words over the hill, i always think "a hill?  there was a hill?  did i go over it?  i don't remember any hill?"   i am fiftyish half way to sixtyish.  i was married to a wonderful man and left a widow at the age of 45.  i have four kids, a daughter in law, two grandsons.   i now live with an old friend, and he brought two more kids into our relationship.   that's 7 adult children and two real children, the youngest, not counting the babies, 18, and the oldest 30.   four of them live with us.   the 18-25 age group live with us.  my sister has no children.  

i think rather than line of up all the disparities in our lives that it would perhaps be better for us to collaborate on a chart.  i shall ask the sister what she thinks.

by the way, please take note of my excellent hair in the photo.   do i look like i am dating one of the rolling stones?   my hair rocked.   we were going to a wedding, and i remember i was wearing an yves st. laurent look-alike tuxedo.  it was the only outfit i could agree on with my mother, that or jeans, and she didn't love the jeans idea.  and please take note of the lovely hair accessory my sister is sporting, yarn.   i think it's still called yarn.    

we're different, we're the same and we each think the other sister is brilliant genius.   the quality you will find on this blog, second to none.   welcome, the first sister of the day.   (edited to add the photo which used to be on our about page: