Family

I was just on the phone with my sister, who I haven't spoken to in a few weeks. At some point during the conversation I got this feeling in my got that I couldn't describe until I realized what it was; it was that feeling of having a family. Maybe it's being busy with so many other things, or maybe it's that my family is spread out (literally) across the country in Tucson, San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia, but I had forgotten what it felt like.

We are a product of our families, and so many recent events in other people's lives have reminded me of that. I'm proud to be a product of mine, but hardly anyone has had a chance to meet them since my parents have moved, and my sisters haven't lived at home since I was abroad.

Here they are.

Mom & Dad (Left). My mom was the daughter of Swedish and German immigrants, a pastor and a homemaker. She put herself through just about as much shit as I have, but pulled through, went back to school and got a masters in clinical psychology to do counseling, primarily with adolescents and couples. Dad's from a large Catholic family (two sisters and two brothers); he grew up in Ohio and Indiana, got a degree in English literature from Vassar and ended up getting an MBA and buying out the international arm of a marketing consulting company and moving his family abroad. Go figure. If I get my sensitivity and capacity for poor early life choices from my mom, I get my stubbornness and "knowing I'm right"-ness from my dad. We butt heads a lot.

Kim (right) is the oldest of my two sisters, both of whom are older than I am. She was a wild child in high school like I was, but did a better job of staying on top of school while she did it. She played rugby in high school, likes to cook as much as I do, and she's a fun drunk. She took full advantage of her high school education in Singapore and went to Washington University in St. Louis, waitressed for a year, and then went to med school at University of Pennsylvania. She's doing her residency at the hospital there now.

Erika is like me in other ways, and more interesting ways. Neither of us like asking restaurant staff for anything, ever. Neither of us like complaining to anyone who has just sold us something, even if we were just grossly ripped off. On the other hand, both of us find it incredibly easy to complain about minute things in life, constantly. We're both pretty much only happy when we're with someone, romantically (though this has worked out better for her, being married and all). Neither of us know what we want to do with our lives (though this has worked out better for me, being younger). We can laugh hysterically about almost anything, even nothing (and that's happened quite a few times, there's a video on Facebook). Erika went to Calvin, but the boyfriends she's gone through have always been more of a focal point, each one more likely than the last to be "the one". Oh, we also both think we're fat and unattractive, I'm just more receptive of complements then she is.

This is Zack, our second dog. I wish I could find a picture of our first, Bailey (black lab/german shepherd mix), but there are none, at least that I have. He's seven and he's small for his breed. We got him in China when I turned fifteen at a sketchy pet store near where we lived. He's full of energy for his age and most people assume he's still a puppy, but he's adapted nicely to almost-retired life with my parents, and gladly curls up to bed at 9PM under my dad's desk. He's a fan of chocolate, despite the fact that it will kill him in large enough quantities, and of anything left on the counter within his reach. He likes having his belly rubbed, and he's more than happy to cuddle with you and give you kisses when he finds you crying in your room.

He also knows exactly when it's dinner time.