Happy Birdday, Mary!

My sister Mary turns 43 today, so I thought I'd embarrass her by publishing this photo again:

That's her on the right, pointing to her dolly. This was probably a newly opened Christmas present, I'm guessing.

Mary had a series of dollies as a kid (surprisingly, I was not the dolly type). I'd give anything right now to have a scan of this one photo of all my siblings and me on an Easter day, waaaay back when. Mary and were probably 5 and 6, respectively. In a bunch of photos, Mary had her "naked baby" dolly, whom she held by the head in all the pics taken that day. In this one photo, however, you can see that someone has taken away Naked Baby and Mary's crying her little eyes out, holding out her hands to someone off-camera -- probably my mom.

Actually, Mary cried in almost all her baby and young tot pics -- it's sort-of a family joke. The rest of us were always smiling and laughing, even in the photo that was taken when I had German measles.

Mary, however, was always wailin'. She sings now, a benefit of all that lung exercise, no doubt.

Back to this photo--she had that blue sweater for YEARS. (We were both a size 6X for years too, saving my parents a lot on clothing, I'd bet.) I remember borrowing the blue sweater one day because I had to go outside to feet the kitty. I tipped the box of dry catfood to pour some out, and a little baby roach crawled out of the box and up my arm, into the sweater sleeve! I ran around screaming and flailing the box (catfood flying), trying to tear that sweater off. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. *shudder*

Anyway, happy birdday, Mary, aka Hairy Mary, aka Wolf Hand, aka Mareeeeeeeeeeeeeea!