The One Where Emzy Sliced the Mangoes

Today I hosted a Pampered Chef party. We had a fabulous time and ate a lot of delicious food. I spent last night and the majority of this morning prepping the food. Which I absolutely love doing. It's kind of my secret (not anymore) life dream to be a caterer. But one thing I'm not so good at is cutting up mangoes. They are just super tricky.

And since I don't eat a whole lot of mango, I'm not so skilled in them. Emzy, on the other hand, L-O-V-E-S mango. So she is quickly becoming a professional mango slicer. Knowing that she had to take an online test today for the anatomy class she is taking, I didn't want to ask her to do a whole lot. So the only food-related thing I asked her to do was slice mangoes.

She got out of the shower and was wandering around in her towel. I reminded her that I really needed her to slice the mangoes. She asked if she had to be dressed to do so and I responded with the sentiment that it didn't make a difference to me what she was wearing as long as she got them sliced so I could finish making the sweet lemon stuffed taquitos.

I guess she decided that it was a good idea to go ahead and slice them before getting dressed. She was moving along nicely and I decided to take a quick sit-down break until she was finished. As I was sitting in the living room with Garrett, we hear, "crap crap crap!" followed by, "don't come in the kitchen!" This made Garrett sneak a peek into the kitchen only to realize that her towel had fallen to the floor.

Awkward.

But it gets better. Because after the mango was sliced, she was still wandering around in her towel. Mostly because she was in the midst of telling a story. And then I hear Garrett say, "Emily, towel. TOWEL!" Yep, you guessed it. She was flashing her nether regions to the world. But luckily at that moment the world only consisted of me and Garrett. Needless to say she went and got dressed quick, fast, and in a hurry!

The One Where Emzy "Went Skiing"

Way back in the day, we lived in Alaska. Right near Fairbanks, to be exact. Beautiful summers and amazing winters. Perfect for skiing. Well, perfect for skiing for everyone EXCEPT dear old (emphasis on the old) Emzy.

See, I joined the cross country ski club in the fourth grade. Saved my money to buy my very own set of skis that I lugged on the school bus every Tuesday and Thursday. Started downhill skiing with Dad in the fifth grade. That ended badly in the spring of sixth grade with an incident that involved and idiot girl and a tree. But that's another story for my own blog, not for the one devoted solely to the ridiculosity of Emzy's life.

Somehow we managed to talk Emzy into giving cross country skiing the old college try. But since we only had one set of teenage sized skis, I waited at the lodge while she and Dad took off for a quick spin on the "warm up loop" of Birch Ski Hill. And, mind you, the warm up loop begins with a slight downhill followed by some pretty level ground. I would know. I skied it several times each week.

I watched as the two of them headed off to the opening of the warm up loop and then went inside the lodge to sit and wait. The place was deserted. I was the only one there. It wasn't your typical ski lodge with a coffee bar and pro shop. Just a log cabin with benches and a bar where the ski moms would serve cookies and home made hot chocolate. I distinctly remember the emptiness of the lodge because I had a chocolate power bar in the front pocket of my pullover pink and black speckled ski jacket. (Don't judge.) I pulled the power bar out of the pocket not long after they left for the loop and took a bite. Rather, I tried to take a bite. It was already frozen solid. And I remember being glad that there was nobody else around to see me being awkwardly hungry.

I wrapped the power bar back up, put it back in the pocket, and went to sit on the bench outside. And as I looked across the open field (do you call it a field when it's covered in snow?) I saw Emzy walking back, carrying the skis. When she made it back to me she said, "I knew I was going to fall! And you guys told me there were no hills. And that was steep at the very beginning!" She gave me the skis and sat down to wait while Dad and I went about our business on the hill.

When I caught back up to Dad, he proceeded to tell me what had actually transpired. As he tried to explain to her how to go slowly downhill by pointing the toes of the skis together, she started off and went about four feet before stopping and basically laying down in the snow. Or, falling, as she swore up and down that she did.

I realize that this is not one of the funniest stories of all time, but this was the beginning of the Epic Falls of Emzy. Even though she brought this one on herself. She had it so set in her mind that she was going to fall, she made sure she did. Oh, Emzy. She never skied again. And still swears to this day that this "fall" dented her shin. That's right. DENTED her SHIN.

The One Where Emzy Learned about Physics

We were moving from Fairbanks, Alaska to Fort Campbell, Kentucky in the summer of 1996. We had driven down into Canada and back into Alaska to catch a ferry to Bellingham, Washington (a pretty cool town, btw). Anyway, the details might be hazy on this one but I assure you the hilarity is not.

We had checked in and were waiting to board the ship. They had a pretty spacious terminal with televisions all tuned to the same channel. This was during the beginning of the GameBoy craze so Emzy and I were not so interested in what was on TV. We were sitting towards the back of the terminal and almost everyone else in the place was mesmerized by the flashing colors on the tube.

But more to the point. Both Emzy and I were sitting on a bench. One of those where there are four or five chairs but all attached to a single base. I was sitting normally on a chair on one end and Emzy was sitting sideways on the other end with her feet up across several chairs. After a while I guess I got bored with sitting in the chair so I stretched out on the floor. Everything was A-okay for a few minutes until Emzy shifted her weight a little bit.

And I wish I had words to describe what happened next. Basically, it was like how if you have a bunch of people sitting at a picnic table and everyone on one side gets up. Especially if on even a bit of a hill, the whole thing tips up and everyone falls off the back. That's exactly what happened. Except it was just Emzy on a bench. And I swear that thing must have gone five feet in the air. It slammed back down and she was on the floor.

My parents and I cracked up laughing but seeing as though Emzy had just turned 15 and was at that stage where she would rather be invisible, she was absolutely mortified. There was a group of hippy hikers sitting near us and said that that kind of stuff happens to them all the time. Really? And to this day, whenever I have to sit on one of those benches, I laugh inside and quietly choose a middle seat.

The One Where Emzy the Pirate Fell with her Chair

I feel that I really must explain the picture I chose to be the heading block for this blog. This whole incident was kind of a turning point in my realization that nothing that happens while Emzy is around is even close to normal. First of all, she's a bit of a klutz and she falls and/or randomly injures herself a lot. But Emzy falls are anything but quick incidents. They usually turn into several-minutes-long situations that leave everyone in fits of hysterical laughter so bad they occasionally lose control of bodily functions.

So let me give the back story on the photo. One year at camp (camp is Emzy's full time job, and was my summer job for six years), there was a pirate-themed banquet at the end of one of the sessions. We got seriously into the theme.

As you can see by this photo of Emzy with Darren, the Sports & Games guy, everybody kind of went to extremes with drawn-on tattoos, mascara-painted facial hair, and ripping of their clothes. It was pretty sweet!

Anyway, while the festivities were winding down, I was in my office with one of my assistants and his fiance writing refund checks to all the campers for their unused spending money. We heard the front door of the office open and a few seconds later we heard this loud crash followed by Emzy saying, "Guys?.......Guys?.......Can I get a little help here?"

So we go in to her office and see exactly what you see in the photo at the top of the page. So of course we crack up and grab a camera before helping her up. But the helping her up was the funniest part. See, if anyone else had tipped over in his or her chair, it would have been no problem just to stand up.

But remember, we're talking about Emzy here. And she is the exception to every rule. Not only did she fall with her chair, she managed to get the chair stuck between the mini fridge where we stashed cokes and chocolate and the desk's tabletop. It took us about five minutes just to figure out how to get her unstuck and we still to this day have no idea how she actually got stuck in the first place.

But hopefully now you see what I mean when I say normal things don't happen when Emzy is involved.

The One Where Emzy Got a Baby Sister

For a little over three years, Emily Jane went happily about her daily life. She lived in Newmarket, England - just outside Cambridge. She was the product of two doting parents and, as far as the lives of toddlers go, she was pretty much set.

When she found out she was getting a baby brother or sister, it really didn't phase her that much. Her only request was to have a black baby boy like the black next door neighbors just brought home. She didn't understand that it wasn't exactly possible since neither her mother or father were black. Her grandparents from the USA sent her a black baby doll to help with the situation. See? She really was set...she got whatever she wanted.

And then I was born. Eight pounds, fourteen ounces of squishy pink baby girl and a head full of dark brown hair. Not exactly what she wanted, but I would just have to do.

[circa 1985...can't you see the disappointment with my girly whiteness in her face?]

And so began the past 26 years of being a big sister.

During this time we have been best friends and bitter enemies. We've laughed more than we've cried. We've been each other's cheerleader and we've cut each other so deep, the way only sisters can. But we've managed to survive growing up together and our lives remain intertwined. So much so that rarely does an hour pass by when we aren't communicating in some way.

I know I'm not the baby sister she wanted. But I'm the one she got. And if I've learned one thing from our years together, it's that nobody is safe when she's around. You see, no matter how remotely involved she is in a situation, something absolutely ridiculously random, awkward, funny, or outrageous is bound to happen. So I feel it is only fair that I repay her for all the "dirt and dandelion soup" she fed me as a kid by sharing those situations with the world.

I hope you enjoy reading about my Life with Emzy.