mini-Dems

Sunday, August 28, 2005

The Players: Little Sister


If one were playing the game 'Twenty Questions' the answer 'yes, bigger than a bread box' would be the most fitting response to questions about Little Sister. All other questions about her would be met with puzzeled looks and downcast eyes. How else could one illustrate the personal stylings of someone who has completed so many things both on people's 'cool stuff to do before I keel over' and 'uumm...no' to-do lists? A dangerously free spirit with a disconcerting laisez-faire disposition Little Sister makes Jack Kerouac (circa On the Road) look like a hermit. Examples of her wanderings include meeting the late Pope John Paul II (whom she swore whispered to her 'tell them kids they can use rubbers'), joy-riding in a stolen yellow cab ('hey can I take your cab for a spin? No? Ok - I'll be right back), and following Che Guevara's infamous motorcycle trip through South America. Little Sister is as comfortable engaging in discussions of Latin American politics, mass consumerism, and post-modern art as she is hitch-hiking, tree-planting and telling strangers to 'eff off'. Both the former and latter being done with more reckless abandon when (a) imbibing copious amounts of French beer and (b) socializing with siblings and younger cousins.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

The Players: Willy


Willy the Whippet can best be described as a true gentleman's companion; upright and obliging - he is the quintessential gad-about-town. His days of napping on the couch and cushion-chewing are frequently punctuated by frenzies of jumping on reluctant guests, assaulting unsuspecting canines and shedding hair at an impossible rate. His nemesis, my father, has often commented that I collect enough 'Willy hair' in my dustpan to create a small pack of similiar whippets. Indeed, I have arranged a paper-mache 'faux Willy' using common chicken wire and lumps of coal (as his beady little eyes).