I’m a big believer in the principle that it is important to get at least one toy for your birthday every year. As we get older, birthdays lose the glow they possessed when we were kids. They turn into another day, without the excitement or anticipation that kept them thrilling throughout childhood. The birthday toy can take many forms, can be cheap or pricey, but there is something about getting a toy, a play thing, that helps keeps birthdays special.

Today was my cousin Dan’s birthday, and I had this rule in mind as I went flying into the AIA bookstore tonight, seven minutes before they closed. We were having a celebratory family dinner tonight, and I wanted to get a card and something fun. I scouted the store quickly, looking for something playful and frivolous. Even better if it fit into a card. During my final turn, I spotted it. A little bendy man, who was folded up into small metal case with a sliding lid. His hands and feet were magnetic, and his hair dread-like. He was fun, cool and fit into the card.

I made the purchase and rushed for home, to meet my cousins to head for the restaurant. When we got to Sagami (AMAZING sushi, by the way), Dan opened his presents after we had ordered, but before any food had arrived. He opened up the little tin, and started unfold and play with the little bendy man almost immediately. Dan is a lawyer, he’s married, he’s in his thirties, but the toy principle still seemed to apply. It’s just always fun to get a toy on your birthday. (Happy Birthday, Dan)!

At about 4 pm today I sent an email to my sister that I’ve never sent before. It said,

“What do you want to have for dinner tonight?”

My sister and I have never lived in the same city as adults. We’ve never stood around each other’s kitchens on a week night, or shared an impromptu Saturday morning breakfast. Joint thriftstore trips are a twice yearly experience. When we exchange clothes, it’s because I haven’t brought the right pants for rainy Portland, or because I’ve intentionally brought a suitcase of my castoffs on vacation with me.

Standing in my kitchen tonight, Raina at the counter by the sink cutting broccoli, peppers and mushrooms, me at the stove heating leftover potatoes and sauteeing onions, I suddenly turned and said, “you know, I don’t think that we’ve ever cooked dinner together.”

She paused and looked at me, the green bladed knife hovering in the air above the cutting board, “you’re right. That’s really strange.”

When I go home to Portland, my mom and I spend lots of time making shopping lists and cooking together. While she does officially live in my parents’ house, Raina’s life is frantically busy, she runs in to eat, and heads back out into the world. While I was in college, she lived in houses with groups of friends in NE or SE Portland, there was never the time or the place to hang out and bond over food.

The dinner we turned out tonight wasn’t special, or even approximating gourmet. We cooked up onions, red/green/yellow peppers, mushrooms, broccoli and spinach and ate it over some leftover reheated potatoes from my dinner party last weekend. There was a little chicken and melted cheese for protein. It was a take on the baked potato and stir fried veggie dinner that our mom started making about eight years ago. It was familiar, messy and absolutely wonderful. Just like my sister.

“Have you passed the sports complex yet?”

“Yeah, just now.”

“Okay, have you seen a sign for Target?

“We just passed it! How did you know?”

“Hey girlie, I know I-95 better than I should.”

“Do I have to be in the very far left lane?”

“Yeah, follow signs to 676 east into Center City and get off at the ‘Museum Area’.”

“Whoa, that was quite a curve. Oh, I see it!”

“Pull behind the building to unload, I’ll meet you down there.”

I hung up the phone, pulled on my coat and hopped the elevator downstairs. I ran out the back door of my building and there it was, the big white van I had last seen in front of my parents’ house in Oregon back in December. Out climbed my sister, who I also hadn’t seen since December. Her hair was pink, she was tired, dirty and just a little stinky, and she was still the very best thing I had seen all year. We hugged while crowing “yay,” pulled back and hugged some more. We pulled Amber and Lauren, her friends and “fan-agers” in the hug, until a passerby gave us a perplexed look.

It took two luggage carts to haul their gear up to the apartment, and instantly my entire living room was covered with clothes, instruments, computers, booking notecards, food boxes and other stuff. My sister wandered around the apartment, checking out all the things that had changed and the things that have stayed the same. She looked at me and said, “It still smells the same!”

We had dinner, went through old clothes and stayed up far too late talking. It is SO NICE to have her here (despite the fact that she just put an almond down my pants). I love my sister.

When I was eight years old, my mom signed me up for a hula class at the Rec Center at Eagle Rock Park. I liked the idea of the classes, the but the reality wasn’t nearly as good. I was terrible. I couldn’t move my hips or butt the way I was supposed to, my fingers splayed out most unattractively and I just didn’t have the coordinator or body comfort to find my center of grace. My instructor very kindly told my mother at the end of the eight-week session that she didn’t see a future in hula for me.

At the same time as my eight-year-old self was discovering that I couldn’t move my hips, my three-year-old cousin Pi’ilani (who is in fact part Hawaiian) was also taking her first hula steps. However, where I was awkward, she was elegant (even at the age of three). Her body took on the movements of the hula and as she grew, it became part of her bones, her skin, her muscles and her very presence in the world. She has danced in hundreds of competitions and all over the globe.

Three and a half years ago, my uncle brought his entire family out to Philadelphia from Hawaii, so that they could see the city in which he had grown up. We had a family brunch at Little Pete’s that included all the extended family, and Pi’ilani and her sister Pomai danced in the middle of the restaurant. It was certainly something that the staff and clientele at Little Pete’s had never seen before.

Pi’ilani has been touring with a Hawaiian band called Hapa for the last month, and today they did two performances at the Ram’s Head Tavern in Annapolis, MD. I drove the two and half hours down from Philly to see the show. I’ve never actually seen Pi’ilani perform professionally (living five or ten hours away by plane has gotten in the way), so I was really looking forward to today’s show. It was even better than I anticipated. Knowing nothing about Hapa before I went, I wasn’t prepared for such an incredible sound (or such a devoted fan base). And Pi’ilani was incredible.

After the show, I went backstage to hang out for a bit before I had to hit the road, and before the second show started. Pi’ilani and I are first cousins, her dad and my mom are siblings, and yet the amount of time we’ve spent together in the last fifteen years can be counted in hours. But it didn’t matter. There is something about being in the company of someone with whom you share blood and people that cuts through distance. We talked about our families, relationships and frustrations with finding our paths through life. We both said how nice it was to see the other (and really meant it). As I got up to leave, we took a picture together, hugged and said goodbye. I am so glad that this was how I spent today.

It’s Friday again, and the day is slipping away from me. It’s already after 1 pm and I’m just now getting my Random Ten up, for your reading pleasure.

You know the rules, set your pod/digital music player to shuffle/random, and report back the first ten songs it spits out. No omitting, skipping, hedging, justifying or obfuscating allowed. So onto the list…

1. Stupidity Tires, Elliott Smith (Figure 8)
2. Funkytown, Lipps Inc. (Pure Disco)
3. Bye, Elliott Smith (Figure 8)
4. Philosophy, Neil Innes (Mississippi Studios Live)
5. Simple Twist of Fate, Joan Baez (Greatest Hits)
6. Daydream Car, Amy Correia (Carnival Love)
7. Gold Watch and Chain, New Lost City Ramblers (Vanguard Newport Folk Festival)
8. You’ll Never Be the Sun, Harris, Parton, Ronstadt (Trio II)
9. Disappearing Man, Dave Carter and Tracy Grammar (Drum Hat Buddha)
10. There’s Gotta be a Change, Johnny Lang (Lie To Me)

Favorite Song: Funkytown. How can you listen to this song and not feel just a little bit energized?

Least Favorite: Daydream Car. I really want to like Amy Correia, but everytime I listen to her, I start feeling antsy and change the music. For some reason, she just doesn’t do it for me.

Favorite Album: Mississippi Studios Live. This is the recording studio/performance space that my sister works and records at. It’s a great space in N. Portland and this album is interesting and eclectic. The only thing that could make it better would be if they had included a track from Raina on it.

Seen live: Elliott Smith and Dave Carter and Tracy Grammar. Follow the links to read about the other times these artists popped in the Random Ten, and the stories I told then.

If you are looking for more Random Friday Tens, check out these folks:
Dodi
Luna
Howard
Sherri
Ben
Brian
Mac
Andrea
Mark

Did I miss anyone? Let me know.

While my sister and I were growing up, our bed time rituals were similar to other kids. We had to brush our teeth, lay out clothes for the next day and kiss our parents goodnight. There were storybooks and snuggles which evolved into conversations and snuggles. Some nights we would get both parents making rounds of goodnight, while others just one would stop in, to hasten the movement to bed for everyone.

One hard and fast evening ritual was the kicking of the firepath. My mother had a rule, which my father also enforced, that there had to be a clear path from bed to door, in case of nocturnal emergencies, such as fires, earthquakes or stomach viruses. I don’t remember how it started, but I remember my mom ensuring that a twin pronged alley was cleared from the right angle bunk beds that Raina and I slept in during our years in Eagle Rock. When we moved up to Portland, we got our own rooms, but the mandatory firepath was still cleared.

This is not to say that our rooms were always such pits, that there was always kicking involved in creating a walkable path. But it’s amazing how one or two forgotten pairs of shoes can really trip you up when the glass of water you drank while brushing your teeth demands to be released at 4 am.

The first summer I came home after college, my mom (having traded in the long flannel nightgown of my childhood in for sweatpants and tee-shirt) came in to say good night, happy to have both her children in one house again. She couldn’t help but start to nudge things aside to clear the path. I reminded her sharply that I was an adult and I didn’t need a path, I could see just fine. She gave me a kiss and left the chaos on the floor alone. A painfully stubbed toe on the edge of my suitcase (which was laying in the firepath zone) changed my tune.

I’m heading to bed as soon as I finish writing this, and I can promise you that I will look at the floor space between my bed and the door, to evaluate the possible middle-of-the-night hazards. It is a bedtime habit that is as ingrained in me as bringing a glass of water to my nightstand. A couple of days ago, I asked my mom where she got the idea for the firepath. She paused for a second and replied that she didn’t really remember, but that it just makes good sense. And so it does.

Tonight a carload of us ventured down to Delaware to attend a friend’s birthday celebration. It was a seven course Moroccan dinner at a restaurant off the highway that looks like it should be a truck stop. You walk in and aren’t at a truck stop and you sure aren’t in Delaware any longer.

I took lots of pictures, and will get a full set up tomorrow. Right now I’ve got to put myself to bed.