Sister love

This post of Susan Hinckleys made me laugh.  She talks about her own abilities compared to her sisters.

My sister is younger and a few years ago she told me a funny story.  At least I thought it was funny.

Now you have to understand my sister is talented.  She can put funky things together in a way that I cannot.  She loves slightly off-beat funky combos of clothes.  I wear mostly streamlined tailored clothes.  She owns a little boutique in a funky town in No. Cal that caters to teens/young adults.  Once she sent me a pair of soft cotton cammy pants trimmed in beige crocheted lace.  She wears them on the street, I wear them as pajama pants.  

So a few years ago she asked me if I remember the snowman sculpture I made when I was in Mrs. Armstrongs 2nd grade class.  *As a point of interest that has nothing to do with this story Mrs. Armstrong had a full-length wooden leg*  I did remember the snowman, I loved that snowman.  

It was made of clay, glazed with a white glaze and it had black glaze for eyes, nose and mouth.  It stood with it's wife and baby snowman on a round disk of clay with the edges turned up.  It was beautiful to my 2nd grade eyes.

Apparently it was beautiful to my little sister as well.  When she got into 2nd grade she finally got to play with clay.  She decided to make a little snowman just like mine.

She worked hard on it, she just knew it was going to surpass my perfect snowman.

It came out of the kiln and it was horrible, it was ugly, fugly ugly.  The black glaze had dripped out of the eye sockets, the nose melted into an unrecognizable lump and the mouth got turned down with black glaze dripping down onto the snowmans body.  All the way down it's body.  And it's poor body was all misshappen, lumpy and melty.

She cried.  Her snowman was a monster.  It didn't matter that it stood next to my snowman all those years.  She hated her snowman.

I never knew she hated her snowman, I didn't even know she loved my snowman.  I loved her snowman, he was like the Charlie Brown christmas tree, all forlorn and droopy.  I liked that about him.  

So all these years she was all jealous of my perfect (so he's not perfect but evidently to a 2nd grader he is) snowman.  And here I was thinking hers was much cuter than mine in essence.

Even now 43 years later, I wish I had that abandon that she has and I don't in my creating.  Funny how that works eh?  She still loves my exactitude.

We're a good pair together.