Super Sarcastic Sister's Birthday

Today's subject is considerably lighter than that of recent posts- the annual celebration of the birthday of my super sarcastic sister.  On her fell the burden of bestowing disparaging nicknames to people in our family and social circles, nicknames which in certain cases stick to this day.  For instance, she dubbed my older brother 'Sweetums' while chastising my mother for thinking that he was perfect... the name stuck as an unironic moniker because, in reality, he was perfect, and still is.  She and I are 'Irish twins', and for the slightly more than two weeks that we share the same age, we were both impossible to be around.  Other family members were resigned to this annual odium-fest, knowing that would pass as soon as my birthday rolled around.  We've considerably mellowed in our adulthood.

My sister is a rocket scientist, married to a rocket scientist, and her oldest son is currently a rocket scientist working for the Space Force (he went to college under the Air Force ROTC).  Her sarcastic personality has been no barrier to brainy pursuits (is it ever?).  She's not a disembodied intellect, though, give her a bat and she's a terror on the softball field.

Happy birthday, sis!  I mean that non-sarcastically.

Snarky Sister's Birthday

As is my usual tradition, I post birthday greetings to my sister on June 1st. While I can be pretty snarky, my sister makes me look like a rank amateur in comparison. I've thrown around some weapons-grade snark at times, but she's can deploy snarktomic bombs which produce background levels of snark that have half-lives of decades. Hell, she snarkily dubbed my baby brother "Gomez" back in the 80's, and the nickname persists to this day. She's the one who nicknamed my older brother "Sweetums" in a fit of sarcastic exasperation ("Oh, he would never do anything wrong, because he's perfect! Sweetums would never do anything out of sorts"). The "Sweetums" thing backfired, because, to put it bluntly, my older brother really is perfect. We still call him Sweetums, but there isn't a hint of irony or snark when we use the 'nym. My brother Vincenzo and I escaped my sister's nickname mill, probably because we "bookend" my sister in birth order, so it was harder for her to come up with something that stuck. For the record, my sister and I are "Irish twins" (yeah, I'm aware that it originated as a derogatory term, but any sting it had has long been blunted), and we would be impossible to be around for the period of time during which our age overlapped. The whole family pretty much resigned itself to a couple of weeks of sarcasm and general snippy behavior before we'd snap out of it. Ah, good times...

Anyway, happy birthday, Sis!

In Keeping with our June Tradition

June 1st marks my sister's birthday. As is tradition, I always wish my sister a happy birthday on the first. My sister always played the "snark-merchant" role in our family- she was the one who nicknamed by older brother "Sweetums" and my baby brother "Gomez". On one memorable occasion, many years ago, she fielded a phone call for me and shouted, "One of your mutant friends is on the phone" without covering the phone mouthpiece. Good times... good times...

She's mellowed considerably over the years, but she can still sling a barb if she has to. Happy birthday, sis. Love, your mutant brother.

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Today marks my sister's birthday- she's not quite a year younger than I am (Irish twins), and we would both be impossible to be around for the period of time during which we were the same age. We've both mellowed considerably since then (plus, she lives a couple of hundred miles away), so we don't pull the "Itchy and Scratchy" nonsense that used to characterize early June in our house. I'll call her up to wish her a happy birthday, and she'll be civil, as will I. Funny how maturity works.

The Traditional June First Post

As is typical, I take time out on the first day of June to extend birthday greetings to my super snarky sister. As Irish twins, in our childhood we were impossible to be around for the days we were the same age, and the family basically resigned itself to constant bickering until my birthday rolled around and I 'lapped' her agewise, so to speak.

Things have mellowed considerably, and there is no bickering between us at this time of year. She's been particularly busy lately, having gone to Berkeley for her oldest son's graduation. She is now playing host to three of his college buddies who road-tripped east with the lad (two of them had never been to the east coast) and are now staying in the DC metro area for a few days. To make things even more hectic, my nephew's girlfriend is coming to DC for a summer internship, so the house will be pretty crowded for a while. We were raised in the tradition of hospitality, so she is continuing the family practice of amassing an extended family. It's what we do... we nerd out and we take in additional 'relatives'. I have no doubt that my sister's birthday party this year will last all weekend-long.

Happy Birthday, Strange Fortnight

June 1st is my sister's birthday, and the start of about two weeks of odium in our household as my sister and I, 'Irish Twins', engaged in a mutual nastiness campaign while we were officially the same age. It was always a weird period because, when my birthday finally rolled around, our usual comity returned. Everybody pretty much knew that we'd be impossible for this period of time and everybody pretty much just dealt with it.

My sister has mellowed out considerably in the intervening years, and her kids are just about the nicest boys you'd ever want to meet. Her husband, a rocket scientist like her, just retired from the USAF, and the family will be moving back east to the D.C. metro area. With their move, I'll be seeing a lot more of them... we don't have any awkward two weeks of mutual antagonism anymore.

This Being June 1st

June first is my sister's birthday, and when we were young, it signaled the beginning of that awkward period when my sister and I, Irish twins, were the same age... it was a time when we were impossible to be around, and all of the family pretty much resigned themselves to us being jerks. Once my birthday rolled around, this particular phase would pass, never to be spoken of until the next year.

We've both mellowed considerably since those days of being periodic pains-in-the-ass, and the family doesn't have to deal with this unpleasantness anymore. We both share the family penchant for nerdery, but she's snarkier than I could ever hope to be, so I guess I benefited more from this mellowing. At any rate, I'll be conveying my best wishes to her when things get quiet on the job, and I'll even keep a civil tongue when I'm doing so.

Happy birthday, super-sarcastic sis!

On My Sister's Birthday, an Appreciation for Geek Girls

As is customary on this blog, I devote June 1st to wishing my sister a happy birthday. For the record, my sister is a bona fide rocket scientist- she majored in chemical engineering as an undergrad on an Air Force ROTC scholarship, obtained her masters after her commissioning, and served as an officer to fulfill her commitment. She has spent her post-military career in the aero-astro field, with one notable job being for a company which worked on perfecting satellite power cells. Put succinctly, her 'geek credentials' are second-to-none.

As the only girl in a family with five children, my sister grew up as a tomboy... the very idea that she would be excluded from any of our activities would have been unthinkable to us. Along with the boys, she watched blockbuster movies about space-samurai-wizard heroes, played computer games, and chucked funny dice. She can handle a basketball or baseball bat credibly, and she participated in all sorts of camping trips, fishing expeditions, and hikes. I can't recall any time in our youth when she was treated differently from the boys. In a family of five kids, there was really no scope for treating anyone in an alternate manner. Our mom placed a premium on our education, having no tolerance for academic-slackerhood, and our sister excelled in all STEM fields.

Having gotten this background information out of the way, I have to express some amusement at the poutrage over women-only showings of the upcoming Wonder Woman film at several Alamo Drafthouse theater locations. For too long, self-identified nerds have derided women who enjoy gaming, speculative fiction, and comic books as fake geek girls. Things came to a head with a sustained campaign of harassment of women involved in the video game industry, complete with death threats against women who had the temerity to give pithy critiques of lazy, sexist and racist tropes in popular culture. Yes, claiming that boob-plate is silly can result in a slew of death-threats, necessitating a change of address to a safe, undisclosed location. Is it any wonder (heh) that women (heh) would like a time-and-place where they can enjoy a 'nerd movie' without having a bunch of angry boys acting as gatekeepers and belittlers?

As a kid, I would have caught hell from mom for trying to exclude my sister from any of our activities. They way I see it, the Alamo Drafthouse is giving the boys a 'time out' because they haven't learned to share the toys with their sisters.

Happy Birthday, Sister Mine!

Today's my sarcastic, brilliant sister's birthday. She's a bona-fide rocket scientist (her specialty is battery systems for satellites), married to another bona-fide rocket scientist and mother to two amazing sons.

My sister had the knack for dispensing nicknames... she saddled my baby brother with the moniker "Gomez" and my older brother with "Sweetums". Once time, a friend of mine called the house and she announced the call with, "Another one of your mutant friends is on the line!"

She's mellowed considerably since then, but life's still not dull when she's around.

Happy Birthday, Sister Mine!

As is usual, I take an opportunity on this day to wish a happy birthday to my Irish twin sister. When we were kids, we'd be impossible to be around for the period when we were the same age, but the acrimony would end instantly on my birthday. Thankfully, we outgrew this odious habit a couple of years ago.

My sister's husband is being transferred by the military to a post in California this summer, so I hope to be able to make a triumphant return to the West Coast (it's been a while since my two epic cross-country road trips). In the event I make a family visit, I'll get the word out... it'd be nice to have some "inside information" about the City of Angels.

Happy birthday, little sis!

Happy Belated Birthday, Sweetums

Yesterday was the birthday of my older brother, Sweetums. The origin of the Sweetums moniker dates back to the days when I had a glorious golden 'fro. My younger brother Vincenzo and one of my cousins (gotta dig up a pseudonym for him- I think he assumed the alias "Big Leo" in the course of the hilarious "Midnight Gardeners" prank) decided to skip a high school pep rally the day before Thanksgiving, which prompted my mother to say, "Well, your brother would never skip any school event!"

My sister's peanut gallery observation was, "Oh, yeah, he's so perfect, Sweetums would never do anything bad."

Not even a minute after my mother gave her little lecture, Sweetums showed up at the door, home for Thanksgiving break a day early. My mother asked, "What are you doing here? I thought you were coming home tomorrow."

The response, "Oh, I was offered a ride home, so I bagged a couple of classes so I wouldn't have to take the bus."

Timing is everything.

Happy birthday Sweetums, give my love to the wife and kids.

Lazy Vacation Day

A couple of years back, mom decided to sell the house she had bought twenty years ago, it being too big, with too big a yard, for her to maintain. She moved into a cute townhouse in a nice development, and has a postage-stamp sized lawn in the back. Unlike previous visits of mine, there's no grunt work for me to do. No tree stumps to dig out with a mattock, no bags of mulch to put down. It's a little weird not to have to break a sweat doing some task. Tomorrow, the only job I have is to start the lawnmower and make sure it is in good working order. Then it's off to my sister's house to hang out with the nephews and help out in the kitchen- basically a day of hanging out, three generations of the family goofing off.

We're also going to be celebrating the birthday of my nephew, Boy A, a day late. I spoke with him on the phone earlier today, interrupting him while he was watching the Boston Red Sox season opener- my sister is a diehard Yankees fan, so I think he roots for the Bosox just to needle her. His grandfather, a Framingham boy, would be proud of him. I bet the boy would drink Moxie if it were available in the DC metro area. He's planning to go to college somewhere in New England, so he might just cultivate a taste for the stuff.