Meet Karalyn

This is my sister. I will admit that I lovingly stole this picture from her Facebook page. It's a pretty accurate portrayal of her attitude, I swear.

What prompts me to write a blog about my little sister? Well, blog readers, you'll be seeing a lot of her in the coming weeks. My husband is sending Karalyn and I on a Mediterranean cruise this month. I offered to take him, but he's sending my sister instead so he doesn't have to take any time off work. :-) Actually, that's only partly true. He's also sending her because, like me, sometimes she just needs to escape.

To say my sister and I are alike would be an outright lie. She's outgoing, and I'm an introvert. She's a little tall, I'm a lot of short. She likes very different clothes and very different shoes. She likes to spend time on her hair and makeup, whereas I have a perm so I can shake and go, and my makeup lives in my purse so I can put it on only in the event of an emergency.

Then again, we're not opposites, either, which is not to say it's genetic. We spent a great deal of our childhood alone together, rebelling against the clean and beating the stuffing out of one another. She is 6 1/2 years younger than me, but grew much, much faster. We began arguing over clothes when I was in high school, my wardrobe slowly disappearing into her closet, piece by piece. Every month I had to make a pilgrimage into her room and bring all my shirts back to their home in my room. And the white shirts? Never survived a day if she wore them.

So now that we're grown, we have our own styles and our own lives, but we still come together to whine about our parents, men, friends, pets, and whatever randomly pops into our heads. We get online or on the phone and watch movies together, 1052 miles apart. I miss her. I know how much she loves where she lives, but I sincerely hope she makes her way down here someday.

That said, now that I've been given the gift of travel, I love dragging her with me. We do cruises together, and it's a riot. She never puts down her phone, but she also walks my drunk butt back to the cabin after I've had one too many blue cocktails. She gleefully dresses for dinner and goes with me to dance to dances we don't know the steps to. We get stuck at group tables on cruises, always the odd ones out, so I'm glad to have her. I've now seen enough of the world that I'm excited to share it.

My sister, like my husband, is a history buff. Which is another place she and I differ. I'm a science and math nerd, and she really blossoms when the talk turns to history, especially of the ancient sort. She can research and write fantastic papers without a whole lot of effort. So when I mentioned Greece and our upcoming itinerary, she was all over what we had to see and the stories behind each location. And, for once, I get to teach her something, because our cruise makes a day stop in Turkey. Not only have I been to Turkey, I've been where we're going. Plus, I can shop in Turkish. That's right. Turkish. I can't wait!

Basic facts about my sister:

1. She has had a part in ALL my weddings. She was in the first two. And she helped me with a dress emergency at the last minute with my dress for the third. "Kris, do you OWN a slip?"
2. She changes her major at least as often as she changes her hair. The current one is history, and I think she might just stick with it! Mostly because it was my idea.
3. She doesn't eat pork. She just doesn't like the taste.
4. She loves animals. She has a house full of them.
5. Speaking of which, Karalyn lives in my house. She's taken the little place I bought with so much hope and turned it into her home. I had a lot of sad endings there, so I'm glad the house has renewed purpose.
6. Her luck with cars is much like mine. They're either crashed or they break down.
7. Karalyn has a million friends. I mean it. A million. She'll out of the blue start talking about someone and I'm always like...."Who?" With a big, bubbly personality, she is a magnet for friends. Unfortunately, that means lots of enemies, too. Family tradition, I suppose.

8. She is not the most camera savvy. Which is why when we get back from our trip, you will see 300 pictures of her, and maybe 2 of me.

9. Her first plane ride was only two years ago to see me in DC. Shortly after, I surprised her by dragging her on another plane for a cruise to the Bahamas. And she can snorkel like a pro.
10. The kid commits more cell phone homicides than I'd have ever thought possible. I mean it. For as much as she loves being on the phone, you'd think she'd be kinder to the ones she owns. But not so much.


Today's lesson: Stolen from Mulan. "The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all." My sister and I didn't have the most idyllic childhood, or even the friendliest relationship during out younger years. But by standing together through the roughest of times, we get to enjoy each other with unconditional love. Even when I trip over her doing the electric slide, or she lands another phone in the electronics morgue.