And Many More, On Channel 4

Today is Auntie K's birthday. I won't say how old, let's just say she is much, much, much younger than me. She is the youngest of the five sisters. It wasn't very easy being the youngest. We were not a very, um, nice group at times. She was always the butt of our jokes, the target of our misguided pranks, the scapegoat for any trouble. She always got the worse parts in our games. For example,the character of "Dan Doggie" in the Dan Doggie game she played with Auntie M. & Auntie S. I know it sounds like a big deal, the title role, but it really just meant she had to carry things around in her mouth.

There are plenty of Auntie K. stories. There was the time when she was about 7 that we (Auntie L. & I) told her that the "B" word meant very nice person, so she went and called our mom that - much to our delight. There was the time when she was even younger, we (again, I think Auntie L. & I) told her that before she was born we had a dog but our family had a "5 thing rule" and so when she was born we had to give away the family pet. There was the time we all had to go to the emergency room with her during a typhoon because she swallowed a pachinko ball (or was that the time she stuck the popcorn kernel so far up her nose that it had to be retrieved by a special tool at the hospital? Who knew the hospital had a special "popcorn kernel removing device"?) We were mad at her about the hospital because at the time we lived on Okinawa, where US TV was only on a few hours per day but during typhoons they had it on 24 hours per day and they put on really cool movies, like The Wizard of Oz. By the time we got home from the hospital, the typhoon warning was over and we missed the movie. Stupid, stupid weak tropical storm system. More recently, the time she picked me up from the train station with my young children in the car who exclaimed "Mommy, Auntie drove in the dirt!!". She still denies that to this day!!

It is surprising that she didn't turn to drugs or petty thievery after being subject to all that. She is the only one of my sisters that lived near me in Northern California so I have relied on her more times than I can actually count. Emergency babysitting jobs, making an extra dessert or salad for a BBQ, FHB (family hold back) at a party when I wasn't quite sure I had made enough food for the guests, picking us up when our car broke down from the middle of California in a place where you only get country western music (in spanish) or religious programing on the radio, breaking all speed limits and several driving laws on September 11 to be with me that morning. Now she is helping us while we live here by taking care of our house for us. A house which chose to have several major malfunctions lately starting with the week we left up to the recent swimming pool leak. It is really hard making decisions about other people's houses, it is quite a bit of pressure and she handles it all. We really appreciate it more than I think she can imagine.

So Happy Birthday, Auntie K. We all love you, miss you and hope you have a great day. And no this isn't your present, I will bring that home this summer!