In which I discuss finances and how things got to be the way they are. I can't explain why, but I can tell how, so I will.
I don't remember the details of the brief exchange that preceded the comment, but I caught my son's eye and said, "You know, Aunt Pacific Princess* got much better grades than I did. I do, however, remember the way he stopped in his tracks and did a double take. I honestly didn't expect that strong of a reaction. I must have been telling him that doing well in school doesn't necessarily seal your fate. I would think it would. Today I told my kids that great grades are wonderful, but you have to have some ambition beyond high school. My sister had it all, all throughout school. She had better looks than I did. She was very popular and her teachers loved her. She actually opened many doors for me just by having the last name as mine. Although I finally figured out how to get great grades by the end of high school, I wasn't in the National Honor Society. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure how much math/science my sister took beyond the requirements, but still, she always did great.

I've been waiting for her to throw this back at me. I got to go to nursing school, but she did not get to go to college. Nursing school is very practical;one can always find a job and everybody knows that. My sister wanted to study acting and my parents said, "no way". She was going to go to a secretarial school, but she took a test at my mother's old employer, the old Amoco Oil. She was one of the very few who passed the test right out of high school, so she skipped secretarial school (Robert Morris). You know that back then, secretaries could advance to some pretty good  positions and that she did. She was unhappy there, although she did have some really good friends. Boy oh boy could she sneak out of there like nobody's business. She waited until she was vested at ten years and then quit. It's probably a good thing because everybody knows that oil companies in the u.s. are practically bankrupt. HaHa.

During her time working in downtown Chicago, she was very generous to me. She would often bring me a box of Godiva chocolate. The thing is, that Godiva chocolates are incredibly, incredibly expensive. Sometimes if I would no do or feel the way she wanted me to, she would hold it over my head that she gave me things. Later on, when she had kids, she got a job as a teaching assistant at their school. Then because she hung around a gym and is fitness obsessed, someone told her that she should study to become a personal trainer. She is still doing that. Awhile ago, my mother, who was coherent at the time, told me that she had quit because she got into a fight with her boss. Don't know if this is the same place or not. When she got married, the trips continued. Her husband is a type of cameraman who worked for a small firm before the owner pulled the plug. Now I think he works freelance. She was always going with him to a shoot somewhere. When she was pregnant, she asked to borrow some of my clothes for a trip to Florida because she was gaining so much weight. I was 5'2", 107 lbs for goodness sakes. Her kids were on planes  before they could walk. I went to California when I was inbetween jobs in 1988. My company sent me to San Antonio and Denver, and St. Louis. We honeymooned in Arizona. The next year we went to Disney World because Joe had a convention there. We went to Galena, IL (same state) and stayed in a cabin for a week two years in a row. I've gone to a neighboring state with my son to attend a bell-ringing ceremony for the last two years. That is it for my whole adult life.  She also traveled to Boston more than once to run the marathon, and Las Vegas because it's an easy qualifier for Boston.

Speaking of Boston, her daughter developed a heart arrhythmia several years ago. She says she owes in the double digits of medical bills. All those cruises? If she is so tight with her church, why didn't they have a benefit dinner? Also, Children's Memorial, the University of Chicago, etc. were not good enough for her. She had to take her to Boston. Even now, she said they had to go back for a re-check. For conduction disturbances, can't she at least follow-up with someone here or transport a tracing electronically? They have remote checks for rural people all the time. Also, even when the girl was allegedly (remember my sister exaggerates) so critical, it seemed like she was still playing softball, etc. Why would you take a chance of  her getting hit? Also, to give you a better view of my sister's personality, she insists on calling doctors by their first names. I, on the other hand, have trouble calling doctors by their first name even if they are friends/colleagues. Sure, there are plenty of quacks, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for most of them.

*I'll call her Pacific Princess because she simply  had to go on that thing all the time because she liked watching The Love Boat, don't you know.