Sis

Like I said before, my Aunt Sis lived across the road from us.  I have surprisingly few photos of her, but here she is, on the right, with my cousin Janet.

I loved her with my whole heart.  I loved going over to her house, and here are a few reasons why other than the chick nursery in her garage.

We made chocolate pudding together.  I mean real pudding.  The stuff you make on the stove.

She kept a "slushy cup" in her freezer, just for me.  You could put any liquid in it and it would freeze from the sides.  My favorite was a 7-up slushy.

When I slept over - and I did that a lot - she would set up a card table and throw a quilt over it so I could have my own "house" in her living room.  Of course this was set up right in front of the TV, and she seemed to get better reception of the 3 channels that were available at the time (4 channels on a really good day).

She would let me stay up late on Friday nights and attempt to watch Sammy Terry.  Here's a photo of Sammy.  Creepy, huh?

I say attempt to watch, because Sammy was on channel 4 that broadcast from Indianapolis.  It was that 4th TV station that was semi-clear every now and then.  The weather, the moon phase and probably whatever NASA was doing at the time had to all be in sync for us to get channel 4.  Sammy Terry had the best horror movies -  everything from Dracula and Frankenstein to The Blob and The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.  The one I remember coming in the clearest was the original Little Shop of Horrors.  Made in 1960, billed as a comedy and the cast included a very young, very skinny Jack Nicholson.  It's true.  Look it up.  But I digress...  That movie freaked me out.  When the plant's flowers opened up at the end, showing all the victim's faces, I fell apart.  I jumped in Sis' bed, snuggled up next to her and it took her an hour to talk me down.

She had a wash stand with a door, and that's where she kept all my art supplies.  She got wallpaper sample books from somewhere, and I used to cut them into all kinds of stuff (probably leaving a huge mess on her living room carpet because all my artistic inspiration came from inside that card table house).  She would pronounce my artwork lovely and put it on the refrigerator.  It would mysteriously disappear by my next visit.

We played Trouble a lot.  I loved that game.  I think it was because of the pop-o-matic dice thingy in the middle.

In the spring, we went mushroom hunting.  I never ate them, but that's beside the point.

I don't know if it was her German heritage or what, but Sis always had cabbage in her fridge.  And she always had that bright, orange, French salad dressing that I could never talk Mom into buying at the grocery store.  I would sit in my card table house, watch Fat Albert on Saturday mornings and eat cabbage wedges with French dressing.  Weird, I know.

She had one of those washer/dryer combos.  The dryer was on top of the washer.  That fascinated me.

She made rosettes.  Deep fried batter with powered sugar.  They were YUM-MY.

Sis looked after Aunt Amelia.  I don't remember exactly how she was related to our family, but she was really old.  At some point, probably after Amelia passed away, Sis adopted her blue parakeet.  A bright blue bird.  That was cool.

She taught me how to play 500 Rum and Solitaire.

You get the picture.  I am extremely blessed to have had Sis in my life.  She's been gone a long time now, but I hope she knows how special she was and still is to me.