First of all, I just want to say that you people are wonderful. Thank you. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I’ll cherish this Oscar reaction from the blogosphere forever. It’s lovely to find out that people like you want to sit at my lunch table. Want a cupcake? Some potato chips? A dill pickle? I’ll share anything I’ve got with any of you. Most people in this world are kind and loving and appreciative of each other. And funny. I thank you for being so.

Next, I must tell you that I will be gone most of the weekend. Mom and I are driving up to Indy to take care of my sister who had some fancy major surgery. This is my extremely cool baby sister, the one who occasionally drives down to Bloomington to meet me for supper. The one who does, with her husband, awesome Celtic stuff. The one who has a finger in the pie of every educational music program in the universe. The one you wish was in charge of the music program at YOUR child’s school. The one who had a tumor the size of a baby’s head removed from her body last Monday.

Knowing her, she’s probably got it in a bottle of formaldehyde. She SAID she was gonna. And the bottle is probably in her kitchen.

I can’t wait to see it. She was hoping it would have hair and teeth. She was thinking up names for it.

This nonsense was only partly ghoulish. Most of it was to cover up her nervousness and, yes, fright, at facing a serious operation. Part of it was because, let’s face it folks, it was funny. A baby’s head on the outside of an internal organ? The visuals are Mad Magazine circa 1970 at their best. And part of is was because, let’s face it folks, it wasn’t funny, it was scary. A baby’s head is big. All mothers would agree that a baby’s head is big, no matter where it is and no matter how it exits the body. A baby’s head is big. The aftermath is painful. (All math is painful to me.) She’s in pain and I’m going up there to make it better. And she has to mind me because I am the big sister. VERY big, in fact.

Don’t anyone get all up in my face because we’re comparing a tumor to a baby’s head. That’s the size and shape it was. I suppose my sister could have compared her tumor to a bowling ball, but the funk factor wouldn’t have been there. Besides, hoping a bowling ball had hair and teeth, and planning to display a bowling ball floating in formaldehyde just isn’t as funky. Plus, the visual of the three fingerholes wouldn’t go away. It did weigh about as much as a bowling ball, though.

No disrespect intended to real baby’s heads.

She was kinda hoping it would turn out to be an undeveloped twin, as in that cool Discovery Channel show, but no, it was just a big tumor. No hair, no teeth, no toes. Just a big mass of tumor, the size and shape of a baby’s head.

This weekend, we might draw a face on it, and glue a wig on it. I think the hair floating in the formaldehyde would be a good touch. It would give it that mafia-victim-at-the-bottom-of-the-bay-with-cement-shoes look.

We’ve had practice with jack-o-lanterns, after all.

Anyway, that’s where I’ll be after tomorrow noon. Tonight, I’m cookin’ up some things so she’ll have food and won’t have to worry about that.

And then I thought we’d spend a few hours lifting heavy things and doing backbends. And running some laps. I mean, she’s got to feel better than before, now that tumor’s gone. All those stitches? Eh, no sense acting like a big baby about them. STRETCH, girl.

You know, Baby Sis, there are better ways to lose five pounds. Or so I’ve heard. Obviously, I don’t take my own dieting advice, so why should you?

But fear not. I’m coming up there to take care of you. And I’m bringing fudge.

(My fudge? I use the recipe on the back of the marshmallow creme. Minus the chocolate, and increasing the peanut butter to a full cup.) (You know, to make it nutritious.)

I’m also bringing a case of diet Coke. Could you get it out of Mom’s trunk and carry it into the house for me there, Sis?