Jeanie and James

I've written a lot of blogs featuring tidbits about my something funny my mom said/did and I also like to feature some of the calm, collected advice my father, (true to his role as the only sane, non-ball of hormones member of the family) has bestowed to me.  But I seldom write about my sister.   I have one.   I know she has been featured in a couple blogs before, for instance Sister Bonding.  But the truth is, sadly, I don't talk to my sister very much in my day-to-day anymore, which is why she doesn't pop up as much as my mom (who I call, email, or text multiple times a day) or my dad (with whom I have marathon phone conversations).  But the truth also is, my sister is one of my favorite people.

Most people who meet my sister comment that they've never met anyone like her before.  She is an odd bird, a strange duck, and someone who truly marches to the beat of her own drummer.  Which is also the title of a song she made up about Henry David Thoreau in fifth grade for a school project.  She used to lead me on countless fantastic adventures; from playing "tightrope" on top of the monkey bars as a little kid, to playing "body parts" at the bar as an adult (it's totally fun, I'll explain it to you if you want).  

If I wrote a personal ad for my sister it would read:
Have you ever found yourself driven by the need to run around your house naked and flail around, disgusting your whole family?   Do you take great pains to play soothing music for your plants because you believe it makes them 'happy' but you break into hives at the thought of making dinner reservations?   Are you loud and outgoing, the life of the party, but actually hate being the center of attention?  If so, I am your dream girl!  You and I should go to an obscure ethnic food eatery which will probably give us both dysentery, and discuss moral relativism and how even trees have souls!

Needless to say, I was concerned about the dirty, smelly hippie weirdo Jeanie would bring home for keeps.   I love love lover her--but she's my sister, so I can overlook a lot of her nonsense and idiosyncrasies whereas in another non-related human these very same qualities would drive me to the brink of insanity (or at least constipation) in the act of trying not to say something bitingly sarcastic to her paramour which would be interpreted as aggressive which would lead to Jeanie being mad at me and my mom asking why I couldn't just be a lady.  Again, I will repeat, I was concerned.  Especially since Jeanie did not date very much in high school or college, so I had very little concept of what she found to be attractive in a member of the opposite sex.  A nudist, maybe?   A drug dealer?   Or worse...gulp...someone who voted for Ralph Nader?!

But thankfully, while her current adult relationship is with a man whom one would not consider to be, conventional, it is with a fantastic gentlemen who fits pretty seamlessly into the family. Which is good news--because she married this one.

Without going into too much detail out of respect for my sister and brother-in-law (yay, I have one now!) who are both intensely private, I want to share a little of their relationship.   They met in Morocco while they were both in the Peace Corps, and in typical Jeanie fashion, interacted further when Jeanie stole food from James's plate citing "friendship" as an excuse.  James, understandably annoyed with food-theft from someone he considered more of an acquaintance than a friend, called her on it, and so obviously, to repair the damage, there was nothing left to do but to actually become friends.  Well, friendship turned to more, and last year they married in a private spiritual ceremony, just the two of them, without any family.  This caused my mother's head to fucking explode, especially having never actually met James. Fast forward a year later; vacations and holidays spent together as a family, and everyone is on board with their arrangement and spiritual marriage--but being conventional folks to Jeanie and James's non-conventional, my family was thrilled to bits to hear that the two of them decided to make it legal.  In the United States.  Like, they can get credit at a mattress store or visit each other in the hospital kind of legal.  And better yet, the fab four were all there, plus his mom and sis, to experience the joy together.  In an Italian restaurant by simply signing a piece of paper.  You know, like you do.  :-)

I wish you both a blessed and happy marriage, Jeanie and James.  And this time, I was very happy to actually be able to be there to experience it's legal consummation (oh wait, maybe that is something else.  No I wasn't there for that--I meant like, legal documents).