Can You Teach a Cat to Roller Skate?

Me (the taller one) and Sis. Don't I look like a future Anne Hathaway? Don't answer that...

Love my sis.  She texted me the other day that I needed to watch Anne Hathaway rapping on Conan.  Then she said that she and my niece think I look like Anne Hathaway.

Since my sis recently had a mishap as a result of wrestling with a car my niece backed into a ditch, I figured she might have double-dosed on her pain meds.  But I accepted the compliment graciously anyway.  I mean, what 42 year old woman in her somewhat right mind wouldn’t want to be compared to the elegant and beautiful Anne Hathaway?

Then I watched the rap.  Hmm… Is Crash (sis’ nickname ever since the car wrestling incident) comparing me to rappin’, obscenity spewing Anne or demure, eloquent Anne?

Not that I don’t like both of them.  The rap was hysterical and quite clever, and just a little off-color.  Well, the off-color part works…

Anyway, so I feel like I should offer a tribute to Crash for all of the ego boosts she has offered me through the years.  Here are the top 10 Great Things about My Sis:

1.  She doesn’t take herself too seriously (hence her self-applied moniker, Crash)
2.  She always places her kids ahead of herself (which is why she took on a two-ton Jeep at night in a rainstorm)
3.  Her childhood dream was to grow up and teach cats how to roller skate.
4.   She abandoned her childhood dream in order to become a full-time mother and part-time medical assistant, both of which are a whole lot harder than teaching cats to roller skate.
5.  She tells me that I write better than the author of her current favorite book.
6.  She makes the whole family pose for group pictures whenever we’re together.  In every possible permutation. “Now all of the kids,” “now the married couples,” “okay, let’s do the boyfriends and girlfriends.”
7.  She ignores the family’s insults as we grudgingly get into position for the photos.
8.  She magically inspires our autistic nephew to grin for a photo in the middle of a potential nuclear meltdown.
9.  She’s forty, but she looks like she is in her twenties. (Actually, I really don’t like that about her, since that genetic abnormality seems to have skipped right over me.)
10. She thrives on a diet of potato chips and cookies because she loves animals too much to eat them.  Plus, she thinks raw meat looks gross.

There are a lot more great things I could say about my sis, but that would, of course, no longer be a Top 10 List.  So, that’s my tribute to one of the kindest, funniest people I know – the one person who I am completely confident could teach a cat to roller skate once she set her mind to it.

Advertisement