Stolen from Stevie

• Harry Potter
  • I started the series in kindergarten, upon request of my sister. Had a lot of doubts about it, but ever since I started reading it, every July 31st we organized this huge party for Harry and Jo's birthday, we went to every midnight premiere in full costume, and every book release party at the bookstore.
• Lord of the Rings
  • I actually joined the fandom a bit late. My sister forced me to come to the Return of the King minight premiere with her, and unfortunately she (attempted) the dress me up as a hobbit: shoved a couch pillow up my shirt, and made me wear these horribly ugly brown cargo pants and a cape.I didn't object.
• We used to take our bikes and go to this park which we named "Hilly Park" because of the hills, you know? And we used to squeal like pigs whenever we rolled down a hill.
• Constant battle over ownership of the Beanie Babies
  • She was stronger by six years, so naturally when it came to hand-to-hand combat, she always won, leaving me with a bruise and a sour mood. But I was the stealthy, impish one, so I snuck into her room every night and stole them back. Of course, in the morning she found them missing, and took them back again. It never ended. I got night custody, she got day custody.
• We created two worlds--Meemland and Beepland when I was three and she was nine, and wrote a full book on each world's history. We each wrote half, and illustrated half.
• We--well mostly I--housed a dead (not to my knowledge) duck egg in our house.
  • (I got so impatient when it didn't hatch within the first two hours of our time together that I smashed it in the driveway.)
• We invented words. Mostly insults to throw at each other.
  • We literally sat down together with a pen and a per, and brainstormed different insults. My sister came up with "geesemonger". (Monger=a person who sells.) All day everyday she threw the word "geesemonger" at me and I threw back "filthy animal." I guess she called me a person who sells geese and I called her a dirty mammal or reptile or something.
• We used to knit and crochet together.
  • My mom used to teach my sister how to crochet and knit first, since she could obviously catch on quicker than a four year old, and then she told her to explain to me. It was pretty simple. Over, under, over under...
• We also sat down with my mom and this enormous stamping box, and we made cards for every season and holiday and occasion, and we handed them out.
  • My cards were usually folded colored card stock, mounted with white card stock on which I drew the actual design--which was usually a little doodle, or a brown thumbprint that I drew antlers and a red nose on for the Christmas cards. My mom and my sister helped me crimp the paper, which made them look a little more mature.
• We used to play this game that eventually taught me to memorize each country's name and the capital of most countries
  • My sister had an Atlas and a stopwatch in front of her, and she called out a letter of the alphabet. If I couldn't name at least two countries starting with that letter within three seconds, she got to pinch me--yes it sounds stupid but she had fingernails like a Harpy.
  • Later, the game changed. She would call out any of the 196 countries and I had to name the capital under ten seconds. I got a lot of bruises.
• When my parents were still together, we went to church because of my dad. I hated church. I was young, and it was boring. But one Sunday every month, they had free doughnuts. I was so little that time meant absolutely nothing to me, and every Sunday I was in a hurry to go to church because I thought a month had passed and we were getting doughnuts. It was a bummer whenever there were no doughnuts.
• Forts out of pillows and couch cushions
  • My sister, my cousin, and I were all very warlike when we were young. So we made forts and fortresses out of pillows and threw toys at each other from inside of them--this sort of hurt because most of the toys we threw were Beanie Babies, and they had beaded eyes that always made a tuk sound once it hit our skulls.
• Breakfast at Tiffany's
  • I think I've already explained this memory twice, but it goes along with my list so what the heck
  • I was about four. I was spending the day at my sister's friend's house, and luckily she had a younger sister that I could talk to. Late in the evening, we all piled into their minivan and went to a drive-through theater. They were playing Breakfast at Tiffany's. Now, I was four, so anything that wasn't animated basically bored me. A movie made in the 1960s was like torture for me. But I watched it, and immediately loved it. Since then, I've had a thing for Audrey Hepburn