Category Archives: Family

iTunes Games

Because this is what iTunes looks like when I sign in. The iPod Touch I gave her for Christmas still uses my account, so I can keep an eye on her. This isn’t even all of them. Who knew that so many games had cupcake icons?

You know, it’s kind of crazy how much my sister and I seem to have in common despite the fact that I’ve lived away from her for most of her life. People comment on this, on how easy it is tell that she’s my sister. I’m sure much of this is now because I’ve been home for two years, and have spent a lot of time with her. She’s always looked up to me, but now she doesn’t have to do it from quite so far.

The list of things we have in common is sometimes startling, other times amusing and always telling:

• When I cut my hair, she cuts her hair
• Her favorite color is pink because mine was
• She likes Scooby Doo because I did
• She plays MapleStory because I did
• We share the same favorite type of pasta
• We’re both  sensitive
• She also likes playing online
• She loves video games
• She will be far more technologically-savvy than I, if she continues in this fashion

A plethora of other similarities, including expressions and gestures are shared between us. I’m sure some of this is her mimicking me and other things stem from having the same mother, but I don’t even realize many of these things until others point them out.

Around the time that my sister was in the hospital, my grandma started making people T-shirts. I guess she acquired a printer that allowed her to print on fabric so she would give us all t-shirts as presents. Although these specific gifts were a fad, Grandma cross-stitches these days and gives us all table runners and towels and pillowcases like it’s going out of style. Anyway, she gave me The Cat Shirt. The Cat Shirt featured a fuzzy grey kitty surrounded by pink and purple flowers and I fuckin’ loved it. But it was bad. It was like the Tween version of the 3 wolf shirt. And the shirt itself was a white tee, which is almost never flattering, but was too big on me anyway.

But that didn’t stop me for wearing it on a weekly basis for, like, 3 years. It was bad guys. I wore it all the time until when, one day in sixth grade, I was working on a video project with a group of girls. We were doing a skit about bullying and our group of four split up into pairs and I, of course, wound up being one of the uncool kids and.. it was, in part, because of The Cat Shirt.

I stopped wearing The Cat Shirt after that and I forgot all about it, until, the other night, I opened an email from my aunt. In that email was a collage of family photos and there I was, standing next to Grandma, in my cat shirt. I was covering my face in an effort to escape having my picture taken or perhaps having my picture taken in The Cat Shirt. Nevertheless, photographic evidence exists.

I don’t know if I am embarrassed more by the fact that I liked The Cat Shirt as much as I did or because I still would have, had I not realized how uncool it was.

Things have been happening.. around me, not to me, just around me.

I enjoyed a drama-free Christmas. It wasn’t quite like when I was younger but it was nice. No fighting, no big problems. I was pleasantly surprised. We exchanged presents and enjoyed food and played games. I stayed at my uncle’s well after everyone else had left, chatting with him and his wife. There was some definite low-key awesomesauce going on.

On Christmas Eve, my sister’s grandmother was admitted to the hospital. This isn’t out of the normal as her health has been failing because of her diabetes for some time. She’s in and out of the hospital all of the time. Things weren’t looking good but I didn’t think it was any worse. Last night, my sister called me in tears about how sick her grandma was and Mom said her husband had gone to the hospital. Samantha quickly cheered up, as kids do, and I hung up.

I texted Mom a little bit later to ask her something unrelated. Her reply said her mother in law seemed to be doing better but, apparently, she died a short time later. I woke up to several texts from Samantha about her grandma dying but, by the time I woke up, they were already at the hospital with my mom who underwent a hysterectomy today. That went well, as we had reassured her and she’s spending the night.

I went up to the hospital today to see Mom and Samantha and Mom was incredibly funny because of her drugs. She was enjoying her alone time and being able to sleep, however. I took some time to talk to Samantha who seems to be doing incredibly well with this all. I don’t know how.

So, as you can see, I’m surrounded by activity that doesn’t directly affect me. I’m just trying my best to be there for everyone right now and hopefully I’m not failing.