atta girl, sar

A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves--a special kind of double.
--Toni Morrison

Today is scout finch's birthday, and while she's not really my sister, we're the closest thing either one of us had to one, so it's appropriate that I share a story or two to mark the occasion (read: to embarrass her). She gave me some starting fodder for my endeavor on Friday evening when she called and responded to my greeting with a singsong, "Hi-i-i-i-i!" in that tone that makes the mother in me demand, "What did you do?"

"Um. I cheated!" She informed me, though obviously delighted with herself.

"What do y- . . . Wait a minute! You opened it!" I accused. On Wednesday I sent her a package for her birthday with the words "Do not open until 2/12/06" emblazoned on the front. Then, I called her to give the same directive orally, in the off-chance that a crazed postal worker might have defaced my instructions.

"Yes! And I lo-o-o-o-o-ove it! It's going to snow this weekend, and I am going sit in bed and drink tea and watch it!" The gift, by the way, was Alias Season Four, the choice of which was determined, appropriately enough, after a covert call to her s.o. "Hello, [s.o.]? It's [sopheathene], [scount finch]'s cousin. Is she in the room right now? Cough once for yes, twice for no." (The real names have been changed to protect identities. And yes, I soooo wish I were a black-ops CIA agent. Or the slayer.)

I couldn't be mad at her. We've ever only had one fight that I can remember, and that one was fueled by the stress and fatigue of a 24-hour drive straight from Raleigh to Houston with only a few hours of sleep between us. Even in high school, when she told her mom that I was drunk at the Senior Girls' formal, I didn't feel angry so much as guilty for ruining her first high school dance by scaring her and annoyed at myself for being unable to handle my liquor. (Besides, I may have been grounded and had my driving privileges revoked for most of my junior year as a result, but the alcohol had given me the courage to tell pantodapos for the first time that I "loved" him, and I'd say that turned out pretty well!)

We're cousins, but our moms are best friends, so she and my brother and I grew up within a mile of each other in Houston and all went to the same high school, and she and I look enough alike to be twins (except of course, in the grand little sister tradition, she is thinner than I am, and with bigger boobs). In fact, when she would visit me at Saint Mary's, the girls in the dorm would come into my apartment and start talking to her for several seconds before realizing she wasn't me. We even have many of the same things to wear, a fact which used to drive absenceofwill crazy: when I would return from a visit, he would sigh, "What new item of clothing does [scout finch] have that you now own?" We're the Third Generation Grannies, our moms' being the Second and our 87-year-old grandmother and her identical twin's being the Original. Our dream is someday to be the Chaos (SJS-ers, you get the reference)!

I can call her at any hour of the day or night, and she's the only person with whom I don't feel silly doing the over-analyzation of the minutia of a conversation I had with some inscrutable boy. She's more like my mom than I am, but for me that means I get all the support and kindness of the sweetest woman in the world but in someone my own age. It also means I can be as goofy as I wish around her, and confess secret thoughts that I would never tell anyone else. Since all of our other cousins (and siblings) have settled down, we've made a promise not to leave each other behind in the cutthroat, get-married-or-spend-the-rest-of-your-adult-life-sleeping-in-the-kids'-
bunkroom-at-reunions mentality of our family, which pact results in the occasional hilarious exchange: "I'm super happy for you that your relationship is getting serious, but please tell me you're not getting engaged anytime soon!"

I could tell many more stories about the wonderful uniqueness that is scout finch, but I will end with one that we still allude to in restaurants, and I encourage you to do so too, because it is really fun. One summer afternoon five or ten years ago, we were sitting at my grandparents' golf club, perusing the lunch menu, when scout finch asks, "Have I had the 'garden fresh vegetables sauteed together in white wine, garlic, herbs and fresh tomatoes, tossed over linguini' before?" Not, "Have I had the 'pasta primavera' before?" Needless to say, no one could answer her question, since we all dissolved into loud laughter not appropriate for the stuffy club dining room. Try it--you won't be disappointed.

And with that, Happy Birthday, scout finch!