My sister is 40 wonderful things

Today my sister Carolyn turns/turned 40. She is a terrific person and a great sister, and here are 40 wonderful things you should know about her.

1. Yes, she once tried to convince me to jump off the 'fridge while sitting on a broomstick. But I maintain that she truly believed I was a witch; she did not have any evil intentions to cause me bodily harm.
2. She is kind of a messy pack-rat.
3. She used to collect gum on the headboard of her bed.
4. She had a bigger dresser than I did and got to have a whole drawer dedicated to JUNK. (Oh, the luxury!)
5. She used to perform with a string quartet in high school and make money, which was always lying around her messy room as if she was an incredibly wealthy person to whom $20 bills were like pennies. I used to volunteer to clean her room just to get to count all her money.
   
6. Well, yes. She did lose my mom's wedding ring and it was never recovered. But let's not dwell on that right now.
7. In elementary school she decided to read every book in the school library and gave it a good, solid effort for quite a while.
8. In high school, rather than being offended, she found the humor in the fact that when my friends and I needed to weird clothes (for a backwards prom-type dance) we turned to her closet to wear the clothes she wore on a regular basis. ;-)
9. Teachers liked me because they had liked her. (BONUS!) They expected me to be very smart because she was. (Not as big of a bonus!)
10. She never held against me the fact that when that man tried to commit suicide on our table at McDonald's, I took off running and left my family to fend for themselves.
11. When my parents finally broke down and got us a T.V., it was Carolyn who flagrantly violated the "no more than three hours a day" rule, which outraged me until I realized no one cared. So she singlehandedly paved the way for couchpotatoism.
12. When I made her sit through the "November Rain" video because it was "the most amazing video I had ever seen," she somehow mustered up the strength to find some positives in it while not laughing (outwardly) at me.
13. Growing up, her room had TWO closets. One small one for clothes and odds and ends. One big one housing our library of 900 books. You could go in and sit down. And when we accidentally got locked in it and no one was home to let us out, she reassured me that the huge slit at the bottom of the door meant we weren't going to suffocate to death.
14. She was a great companion in the back seat on those long trips to and from New Jersey each year. And by "great" I mean that she often just left me alone and didn't yell at me too much.
15. I was more PB&J. She was more bologna.
16. In her defense, she DID apologize (under duress) after "borrowing" my brand new jumper, wearing it on a picnic and getting grass stains on it!
17. She hates to shop for clothes. Absolutely hates it.
18. She has done stand-up comedy/performance art/improv. With rave reviews.
19. If you needed someone to sing the tragic song about Molly Malone ("but she died of the fever, and nothing could save her and that was the end of dear molly malone"), six-year-old Carolyn was your go-to girl.
20. She used to complain about going to the dentist in spite of the fact that *I* had to go to the orthodontist and she NEVER had to have molds done for braces, which is the greatest torture I have ever endured. And it's not even painful!
21. When she was a little girl, the garbage man mistook her for a boy. I'm not sure she ever got over the indignity of that event.
22. For a while, she played Aliens with all her theater friends in the theater building at the University of Iowa. Late at night. With all the lights off. Those are all the details I have.
23. She and I can still play one mean duet on the piano. Emphasis on ONE.
24. On Saturdays, when she got home from youth symphony practice, she and I would split a can of ravioli.
25. She had the ultimate in college experiences--a loft bed made by my dad.
26. I visited her at the end of one summer in college and thought, "When did she get so thin? How could she do that without telling me?" Still seems unfair.
27. She appreciates wacky. Like like the Voodoo T-shirt I brought back for her from New Orleans.
28. She lived in Philadelphia and London. Meaning I got to visit Philadelphia and London!
29. She rocked REALLY short hair for many years. The ultimate sign of confidence in my book.
30. She is a tremendously caring person and always thinks about how things will affect people and how they will feel and what she can do to make things better, fix things, make someone's day, etc. It's a rare and often thankless gift. And everyone around her benefits from it.
31. She is a fantastic mom. Pete is the luckiest of the lucky.
32. She claims to not be artistic - but I've seen some of her drawings for Pete, and I think her talent is simply unrefined, not non-existent.
33. She doesn't care about the unimportant stuff in life. She cares about the important stuff.
34. She shared my passion for Richie Rich and Archie comic books.
35. She's a Type A/first child/best-is-never-good-enough/over-achiever whose best is always way better than anyone would expect.
36. She's a worrier.
37. She expresses abundant joy that is infectious to those around her, even people like me who are too self-conscious to be so excitable on a regular basis.
38. She takes great joy in time spent with good family or good friends. She's a great hostess and a thoughtful guest.
39. I really do believe she didn't mean it when, on the night before her wedding, she introduced her friend Eileen as "the sister I never had."
40. She's 40 today. And she's amazing. And she's my sister. And though I barely ever tell her in so many words, I love her.