WAIT! Back up the train! I missed something!

Ok, i know i said that i would tell you about the peas and the milk, but that story's going to have to wait a bit.

Here's why. My mother's memory is distinctly better than my own, and i had forgotten when i had first met my aunts and uncle and grandma in Michigan.

We went to Michigan for vacation a year -ish- before we moved there. And that's when i met my cousin, Robin. Robin is one year older than me, and we were like best friends the moment we met.

For part of our trip, Mom, and Dad, and i, and Robin -- i can't remember if Robin's family stayed there or nearby-- stayed at Aunt Clara's house. This Aunt Clara is actually Great Aunt Clara. The distinction is important because there's my Aunt Clara who is my dad's sister, and then there's the Aunt Clara who is my dad's aunt and my grandmother's sister. Both of them are great, but only the older one gets to actually have it in her title of who she is.

So anyway, Great Aunt Clara and Great Uncle Elam had a house in a little town in Michigan called Pompeii, not to be confused with the long-ago-extinguished Roman city of Pompeii (pronounced pahm pay). The city i speak of is pronounced pahm pee eye. It's different.

Aunt Clara's house was great! She had rabbits in the back yard - and rhubarb - and all kinds of canned food that she fed us - and big feather beds on the guest beds upstairs - and a beautiful and treasured collie dog named Rusty.

And this is the house where i remember getting to know my cousin, Robin. As i recall, we were both big fans of Grizzly Adams. Now, if you don't know about Grizzly Adams since your too young, or you were just deprived as a child, you can learn a little bit by going to the website http://www.grizzlyadams.net/. Well, anyway, at some point, Robin and i had learned from Grizzly Adams about how he became blood brothers with an Indian (known in modern times as a Native American). And Robin and i decided that we would do the same.

Robin was older and smarter than me, and she had a plan. She knew that her mother had a very good pocket knife in her purse that would suit our purpose just fine. So she went and got the knife out of Aunt Ruthie's purse and we found a place near the stairway to do our business. We talked about how to do the cutting, and Robin got ready to cut a good line across the palm of her hand when Aunt Ruthie started getting curious, and we got caught. So Aunt Ruthie took the knife, and we had to think of something else. Apparently, neither of us were resourceful enough to go to the kitchen, but we did find some sort of button with a sharp pin on the back of it (you know the kind of button that says "vote for Bob" or something. So, we went to work with the pin. I think we probably both were able to draw about a drop of blood or something, and then we held our hands together really tight for the prescribed amount of time. When we were satisfied that our blood and mingled, we let go and pronounced ourselves "Blood Sisters."

I think i will need my mother's help again for this part because i don't remember how they found out, but everybody in the family seems to know about when Robin and Beth became blood sisters. We must've made an announcement. That wouldn't surprise me. =)