Introducing....

I want to introduce you all to someone.  See this pretty lady? I pilfered this picture from her Facebook page :) She is one of my most favorite people in the whole wide world.  In fact, she's right up there with my Sainted Mother.  That's because she's my lovely sister Ni. Her real name is Tina, but she was named Ni by Number One Son.  When he was a little boy, just learning to talk, I think he got a little confused.  You see, he has an Aunt Gina and an Aunt Tina.  So in order to avoid confusion, he decided she would be Ni and she's been Ni ever since.

Ni lives in California and lives the glamorous life. When my life as wife and mother, and general grunt at work, gets a little monotonous, I just call Ni and live vicariously through her.  She's a make up artist.  She works on movies and televisions and she makes the beautiful people beautiful.  She's very talented. Here's proof......

That's me...a looooooooooong time ago.  As in I was 14 or 15 years old.  She did my makeup and, if I may say so, she did an amazing job...trust me, I've seen the before picture (that is locked in a vault only to be released at my death) and she does good work.  The picture was taken by an incredible photographer named Maurice.  I don't know if he is still doing photography, but he is a very talented individual as well.

Anyway, back to Ni.  She gets to do things like travel to exotic places and talk to famous people while she makes them look beautiful, sweaty, dirty or dead....OK.  So maybe it's not all glamor all the time, but it's still pretty cool.  It's not all sunshine and light though.  The hours are INCREDIBLY long and lack of sleep is not uncommon.  Lack of sleep leads to cranky people that leads to tempers.  Need I go any further?  But she gets to go to places like the Caribbean, Japan, New Zealand, Pittsburgh.....which means she doesn't get to come home that often. I guess you could say that I'm missing my sister.  I don't know why so much now, but I miss sitting up late with her and being silly, watching bad late night television, making copies, playing cribbage or spades...whatever we used to do. If there is a crisis here at home, she'll get here.  Doesn't matter what is going on in her life, she'll come home to help, even if it's just by being here.  But I want a visit that doesn't involve a family emergency or a crazy, busy holiday where she has to rush around to see EVERYBODY. I guess I want to be selfish so I'm going to have to start saving pennies because plane tickets aren't cheap and I'm thinking that it might be important.  Especially now.  I hear that work has been tough....that it's kind of been going to the dogs......

Hope this one isn't a prima donna. 

(This picture was pilfered from her Facebook profile as well.  I didn't take it and I don't know who did, so I don't know who to give photo credit to.  Probably the dog's agent.)