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13 April 2004 - An Ode to Big Sisters As I made Baked Chicken (adapted from the 2004 Milk Calendar -- changing it from pork to chicken really being the only adaptation) for dinner on Sunday night, I smiled and thought of how I got the milk calendar last November. My older sister came home for a visit (she and her husband are sailing around the world...really...I swear -- they're just recently headed from Mexico to the French Polynesian Islands) last November to see us and get their affairs in order before another long haul. While she was here, the Milk Calendar happened to be published and put into the Saturday Toronto Star one weekend. Of course, her being a rather avid cook and the Milk calendar holding some sentimental value for both of us AND my mom, all three of us wanted a copy. My parents just happen to get the weekend Star through delivery (and my mom is a diligent reader, devouring it from cover to cover on Saturday afternoon), so my mom had no problem getting her own, much coveted copy. My sister and I were not so lucky...we both actually had to go to the store and purchase the Star in order to get our own copies. One problem: neither Victoria nor I actually like to read the Toronto Star. S. and I picked her up at my parents that Saturday morning to do a small grocery shop at Loblaws (her for such niceties as powdered wasabi and good quality curry powder, myself for the regular grocery-type-stuff). We were standing at the check-out line together and looked down at each others baskets...both of us toting our milk calendars, encased in a rather large wad of fire kindling, bird cage liner or packing paper...she smiled. I smiled back. She took my paper, slid the milk calendar out and slipped it inside of her newspaper and toted my newspaper back to the paper stand, leaving it on top of the pile. She returned, smiled again and shrugged. "Chances are the next person to pick up the star just wants the paper...and not the calendar...the gods are with us on this one. Trust me." She smiled. I smiled. What else are big sisters really for, anyway...?
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