Twin High Maintenance Machines

So my kid sister, Weathergirl (referred to in previous posts as the Meteorology Major), is coming to visit me for her 21st birthday. We have Big Plans. We are getting haircuts. We are going out to eat and drink. We are going to have our Seven Year Portraits made at the insistence of Our Very Dramatic Mother. We are going to invest modestly in the American economy and support capitalism, because as green as I may be in some things (laundry and dish detergent, bath soap, cleaning rags, meat and produce), shopping is something that the women of Scooter Nation were born into. Like a religion. Or a cult. The Sisters of Scooter Nation, aka, We Who Shop.

The Seven Year Portraits are a bit of an anomaly, I’ll grant you. My sister and I are almost a neat seven years apart in age, so every seven years, our ages are, in fact, multiples of seven. Don’t ask me to explain why my Mother—who holds a Master’s in music and couldn’t figure her way out of a paper bag—is obsessed with multiples. All I know is that Weathergirl and I had pictures made together at 1 and 7, then at 7 and 14, then again at 21 and 14. It’s now time for the 28 and 21 shots. Of course, Weathergirl and I roll our eyes at this—particularly as we get older. Our Very Dramatic Mother doesn’t exactly give us a choice in the matter—she refers to us, at Seven Year Portrait time, as the Greatest Works of Art she has ever invested in: “I spent good money on those braces! And contacts! And zit cream! You are my Picassos! I deserve to hang you on the wall if I want to.”

You see, perhaps, where her moniker comes from.

But we are, nonetheless, Rather Excited.

As a matter of fact, this year I’m Especially Excited because my friend Big (of Big and Little fame) is going to shoot them. And this year, you know, both Weathergirl and I are pretty much past that whole Teenage Awkwardness, so they might actually turn out to be something other than those Horribly Embarrassing Pictures that Mother Hangs on Her Walls. You know the ones. You hate them. She loves them. They’re the kind that you dread people seeing, especially when your significant other visits your parents for the first time and sees them and chokes back wild laughter because dear god, you looked horrible.

Of course, since passing the Teenage Awkwardness, I have now entered into the Evil Desk Job Frumpiness, but Big has assured me that with digital photography being what it is, he can remove any unsightly bulges and maybe even take a few subtle pounds off of my Ample Hips.

I asked if he could give me bigger boobs, too.

He asked, “How big?”

Oh yeah, baby. Not only will we feel like movie stars, but we can be air brushed like movie stars, too.

Picasso, here we come.


General Note

Apologies to my faithful readers (all 1.5 of you) for the extended absence—I do have Much Newness to convey! For now, though, I must madly clean my little hovel. If our Very Dramatic Mother taught Weathergirl and I anything, it’s that when company comes, Thy House Shall Be Spotless, and sister or no, Weathergirl counts as company. I do have my priorities: 1) Do mounds of laundry. 2) Terrorize Pre-Kids with vacuum. 3) Write prolific blog posts.