The Sis and I were in the same sorority in college.  It happened to be the sorority The Mom was in thirty years ago at the same school.  (And by “happened to be,” I mean, “she would have been devastated if we chose another one.”  No pressure.)  At the end of each school year, the girls would all vote to give out awards to chapter members.  Mostly funny stuff, and rarely accurate (my senior year I was voted Most Likely to Get Married First–ha ha.  No really–ha), but my junior/her sophomore year, the nail was hit on the head when The Sis and I tied for Most Sarcastic.

Times haven’t changed much.  Sarcasm is still our chief operational mode and translates into a shared sense of humor and unintelligible-to-outsiders shorthand language.  But today, I’m finding little to be sarcastic about.  Other emotions are taking the helm, because today we know that my sister is incubating a healthy, 70%-likely little girl in her oven.

“Look at this,” a coworker said to me today, pointing to an article in the Post about an eighty-seven and eighty-four-year-old pair of sisters in Connecticut who haven’t spoken for five years. Apparently, several years ago they decided to begin splitting all their frequently-earned casino winnings down the middle.  Somewhere along the way they had a disagreement and reneged on the contract.  Then the older sister won $500,000 at Foxwoods and the little sister decided she wanted back in.  Five years later, they are sitting in a state court talking to each other through a judge.

Have I mentioned how thankful I am for my sister?  And for the fact that we know, without ever having to say it, that no amount of money would do that to us?

I’m working steadily on that other writing project I mentioned, and I’m in the middle of a section on love: what I used to think it looked like, how I was wrong, all the different types of it, how I ended up falling in it.  It’s impossible to cover all that in words that are worthy of the subject matter.  Then again, a few years ago running a mile was impossible for me, so what do I know?  I’m writing anyway, and today–here–I’m writing about how amazing it is to have a sister whose oven is occupied by yet another person for me to love.  Another person with whom I can share the dialect of sarcasm.  At the end of the day, every family is dysfunctional in its own special way.  But if you can learn to move beyond dollar signs and past mistakes, there’s always something to laugh about.  Unless you’d rather sit alone in front of a slot machine in a Connecticut casino when you’re eighty-seven.  Yeah, that sounds really fun.  (See what I did there?  TOTES SARC!)