REAL Hospitality

A sister is someone who invites you to her house after a Roller Ball for pizza, and when you walk in, she hands you three things; a perfectly mixed cocktail, a pair of soft old fleece pajamas to change into, and a Ziploc baggie for the rhinestones that are glued onto your face.

Hungry For Power

My sister lives in a mobile home park in West Chester, Pa, and she lost power for 4 hours during the blizzard yesterday. She called me at 1:15pm, when the power had been out for 2 hours and 45 minutes, about to lose her mind.

Amy: I'm dying over here! I had such a great blizzard day planned, and this power outage is ruining everything!! How am I supposed to enjoy this blizzard without electricity?!?! I've got no internet, no TV, no hot water...The worst part of it is that I'm missing out on a great snow day. Relaxing on the couch, watching TV, surfing the internet; that's what's SUPPOSED to be happening today. This blizzard is not turning out to be like I wanted it to be, can I get my money back??! I mean really, I'd rather be at work now. If I can't enjoy this blizzard the proper way, I might as well be making money.

Amy: Ugh, I just need to get out. Ed (her boyfriend) is shoveling his car out so we can at least get out of the house. (now mind you, our entire area was in the middle of a blizzard at that point, and the blizzard conditions were only supposed to worsen as evening approached.)

Me: You do realize that even if you get out right now, and are able to make it to a location, the chances of being able to drive back home later tonight are slim to none.

Amy: There's got to be a restaurant open or something...I just want to take my laptop and go sit somewhere that has wi-fi. Google some restaurants in West Chester, see what's open. And don't complain about having to Google for me, just be happy you CAN Google!! And check to see if any movie theaters are open, even that would be okay.

Amy: I'd go drive to someone's house to spend the night, but that REALLY spoils my snow day. I just want to be in MY house relaxing. If I go somewhere else, I'm guaranteeing that my snow day is officially over. And if I found out that my electricity had come back on while I was gone, it would kill me. I don't care about how cold I am, I just need my entertainment! I can pile on blankets, or eat dry cereal, but I can't take the stillness!

Me: Yeah, you'd make a great homeless woman, as long as you had your internet and your cell phone...

Amy: What I really want to do is go to a hotel, but the Holiday Inn is charging $140/night!! This is where my frugality kicks in...if it were $80, I'd be there in a minute. That's the only other place I'd feel like I could enjoy the blizzard. I just can't enjoy it when I'm in someone else's house.

Me: Eric just said to check with your homeowner's insurance company, maybe they'll cover a night at a hotel.

Amy: Um.....I guess that means I have to actually find that paperwork to get their phone number? And does he not remember that I live in a trailer? How good can my homeowner's insurance possibly be?? The total value of my house might be less than a night at the Holiday Inn Express.

Me: Yeah, it's true. You always see on the news that when natural disasters occur, the trailer park people are the ones who die first and last. Nobody cares about them, or their wretched little houses...

She hung up at that point, as Ed was coming in from shoveling and trying to back the car up. She was afraid he was going to tell her that there was no way they could drive anywhere.

After I hung up, I called PECO. Knowing Amy uses her cell phone for everything, I was able to report her outage using her cell phone number, and when they verified that I was Amy, the automated message told me that they were working on that specific problem, and expected to have it fixed by 2:30pm.

I called her back to tell her the news. I heard Ed yelling to me in the background, "Do you have some Ritalin for your sister??". After I told her the ETA for getting her power back, she let out a huge shriek. The power had come back on. "I'm hanging up now, I don't need to talk to you when I can IM you!"

Five minutes later I get an IM from her.....

Amy: I am now in my home instead of a house.

Amy's Anecdotes, Part 3

This Amy moment came from my niece Brooke after she heard about the field trip my oldest niece Bonnie and I are taking today. (We are taking our combined 7 kids on the historic walking tour of Philadelphia.)

Both my sister Amy and my sister-in-law Sue homeschooled their gaggle of kids for a length of time. During this period they would do group field trips. Between the two of them they have 11 kids, so we're not talking a simple "let's take our 2.5 kids to the zoo today" field trip. We're talking "everybody squeeze in, 3 kids per seat belt/one half of a PBJ per kid and split the juice box with a buddy/Yes, walking through a random free church cemetery counts as history" sort of field trip.

So Brooke shared a field trip memory from those days:

Brooke: OMG, the Philly trip reminds me of my childhood, when Amy took us all to the NBC Studio for a field trip.

Me: That's a cool field trip, Bonnie and I should look that one up.

Brooke: I was mad at her for the entire day, because she stopped at the McD's in Newtown Square, backed her grey van into a lightpost and I spilled milk all over my pants and she wouldn't let me change. She didn't have time to go home.

Brooke: I'm over it now, but I was really mad at her back then. LOL!

Brooke: It was a fun field trip, though...


Classic Amy. What you have to know though, is that Amy would have done the same thing had she spilled milk all over her pants. She'd just brush it off and keep on truckin'....

Amy's Anecdotes, Part 2

Amy was always so tenderhearted.

We shared a bedroom for a short period of time when I was maybe 4 or 5 years old, upstairs in the attic room of our Laurel Drive house. I remember one night being very sick, and I asked her if I could get into bed with her. She said yes. While laying there, I threw up on my side of her bed. She continued to let me sleep with her, she just told me to scoot over a little closer to her so I wouldn't be laying on the vomit.

Now that's love.

Amy's Anecdotes, Part 1

I've decided to start writing down memorable moments shared with my siblings. Today we'll start with an Amy story.

Amy is very fun to go shopping with. She shops with speed and purpose, and with total disregard for any effect she may have on people around her. Which, of course, is a quality that bonds us.

I remember one Christmas, I must have been pre to early teen aged, I went with her to a store that no longer exists. I think it was called Best. It was one of those stores that sold a random assortment of items, and when you saw something you wanted to buy, you took a piece of paper from the pocket hanging from that item. The paper had the SKU number, item description, and price on it. You would then take all your little pieces of paper to the cash register to pay for the items.

You'd then take your receipt back to this big conveyor belt area, and you would stand in line until your items came up the belt, and the belt worker dude called your number.

Because it was so close to Christmas, the store was packed. Amy found what she wanted and paid for it. I can't remember what she bought, but I remember that it came in a big box. When we walked over to the conveyor belt area, it was packed with people. Irritated people. No one was in a line, it was just a sea of bodies.

When they called Amy's number, we had to push through the sea of people to get to the conveyor belt. The box that held the item was huge. No one offered to help her carry it out, it wasn't that kind of store. We're not talking Neiman Marcus here...So Amy lifted the box and tried to turn around to walk back through the crowd. But no one was moving, they didn't want to lose their spot in the non-line.

She started talking loudly and sarcastically to herself, "No, I'm fine! Don't worry about me! It's all good, I've got it under control!". Still no one stepped aside to let her turn around with this giant box. By this point we were both rolling with laughter. We were saying out loud to no one in particular, "Ho ho ho! 'Tis the Christmas season! Love that Christmas spirit!!".

Then, in a bold and genius move, without trying to be nice anymore, Amy decided to just start backing up. Backing up quickly and decidedly, without looking behind her. So if you didn't move, you were going to get run over. And as she backed up, she started making that backing-up-truck beep, really loudly. "BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!". Every few beeps she'd also yell out "Merry Christmas!". We finally backed our way out of the throng. We were laughing so hard at her truck beeps, and couldn't understand why no one else thought it was funny. The stony looks on everyone's faces around us had no effect on our act, but I did have to throw a "Yeah, ho ho ho to you too!" over my shoulder as we walked out of the store.