a tale of two halves: kit kat patty whack's pizza preferences and cookie droppings

today is another glorious birthday day for a loved one: my younger sister, kathryn. i just call her kathryn for short. some people call her kate or kat, but that's just not who she is to the greater cooper family... and i speak for the greater cooper family. kathryn will do just fine for all you name shorteners out there - enough with the disrespect already.

anyhow, in the spirit of my newly instituted practice of embarrassing people on their birthdays, i must carry on with my dear lil' sister. kathryn is an interesting person. on the surface she may seem very quiet and reserved, but once you get past that facade you'll see that she is quite determined, dramatic and sometimes lacking in control and coordination... dare i say "spastic". of course i say these things with the utmost affection, but to understand kathryn is to see her not only in the role of erudite scholar and fervent churchgoer but also as kathryn the boom boom shake shake dancing queen at the nevada cancer institute concerts or the highly competitive and excessively animated charades/cranium participant. as her elder, i have had front row seats to all facets of kathryn for some thirty-one years... but who's counting?

for starters, k-jew, as i will now call her (jew is short for jewel, kathryn's middle name and k-jew kind of rhymes with bijou which is french for jewel and bijou was once a name k-jew wanted to give to one of her lucky offspring... fortunately she grew out of that one) was a valedictorian in high school and graduated summa cum laude in college, so she's no dummy. she had quite the academic career and her accolades are nothing short of spectacular. however, oft times, k-jew is caught saying or doing things that may lead one to question the accreditation of the academic institutions bestowing such honors upon her.

take for instance the simple act of ordering a pizza. it usually starts late one weekend night when the greater cooper clan is sitting around j and k's place with a hankering for some pie. some things in life are certain: death, taxes, and the coopers' love of pizza. the yearning and burning for late night pizza typically results in a phone call to whatever late night hole in the wall pizza joint would be willing to deliver some food way out to the nether regions of the vegas. on this particular night, somehow k-jew was charged with the phone call and the ordering and, as such, a call was placed. for some odd reason we all sat and listened to k-jew like fasting vultures ready to pounce on their rotting prey as she placed the order. as best as i can remember, the one side of the conversation we were able to hear went something like this...

k-jew: hi, i'd like to order a pizza... do you have any specials?

unheard response

k-jew: ok, can i get two larges then... how big are your larges and how many slices do they have?

unheard response

k-jew: ok, two larges then, can we get one with pepperoni and one that is half hawaiian and half pepperoni, please?

unheard response and question

k-jew: just put the hawaiian on the right side... oh wait, what do you mean???

unheard response

k-jew: embarrassing laugh oh, you meant "which sides would i like (not what side of the pizza do you want the toppings on with the split order?"?

laughter erupts from the rest of us.


ok, maybe you had to be there, but for those of you who didn't quite get it the first time around, allow me to explain. apparently, while k-jew was ordering, the pizza phone guy asked if we'd like any sides and, apparently, k-jew thought he was asking which side of the pizza we would like the half and half orders on not realizing that a pizza is a circle and can be rotated any which way so that each half can be on either side of the pizza, bottom or top, as well as pretty much any other possible section of the pizza by simply rotating the object clockwise or even counter clockwise. believe me, it was funny stuff.

since that was so short, and i am incapable of being short on the blog, i will share one other bijou from the family annals. this one occurred some time during k-jew and dr. lemone's early years of marriage. in fact, it is entirely possible that the two of them were not even married yet which makes this tale somewhat more enjoyable. disclaimer: my account of this story is strictly hearsay, so i apologize for any misrepresentations i may make. take it for what it's worth.

about this time of year some 8 to 11 years ago, k-jew and bryson the yankee frenchman decided to spread some Christmas cheer. at this point in their lives, the two were living in the sleepy little town of provo, utah attending school. being the little do-gooders they were, the the soon to be mr. and mrs. lemone decided to bake some decorative holiday light looking cookies and deliver them to some family members living nearby... although i would consider myself a family member living nearby at the time and have no recollection of having ever received any of these cookies. nonetheless, the cookies were made, frosted oh so artfully and then gently placed in a stylish box the presentation of which would make two wards' worth of enrichment attendees feel inadequate, incapable and utterly hopeless as modern latter day saint women.

once the boxes were ready to go, k-jew and bryson jumped in the mazda and headed north to the ever so pleasant town of pleasant grove. goodwill was in the air and snowflakes may have been falling, but it is unlikely that either of these two lovebirds even felt them as the mutual love they shared for one another was well warm within them and certainly melted all particles of iced that dared glaze their burning desire to not only be together, but to spread yultide cheer to others together. life was one giant snow globe and the soon-to-be, if not already, dr. and mrs. lemone were getting along just swimmingly.

that is right up until they got to main street pleasant grove, hooked a right at the purple turtle and headed toward the local mountain with initials on it. i'm not sure what type of lovers' quarrel took place at that moment and that's not really important, but take place it did... within the very walls of bryson's little red mazda on the way up to uncle jim and aunt jills' place. and unfortunately for jim and jill, at some point during the tiff, while bryson drove in silence, likely fixated on the road desperately trying to figure out just what it was he had done wrong, not more than two feet from him sat his counterpart: kathryn, fuming in the passenger's seat, knowing full well what the fool did wrong but deciding that this impasse could only be passed in one swift passive aggressive, yet melodramatic act.

it was under these circumstances that k-jew nonchalantly, and in complete silence, lifted her right hand, without taking her eyes off the road, to gently apply pressure to the automatic window lowerer and lower the window. following this cool act and without saying a word, she then picked up the box of cookies sitting in her lap, eyes still locked on the road, lifted them out the window until they were clear of the car and holding them there just long enough for bryson to catch one last glimpse of the goodies before releasing them and their sweetness to the cold hard ground below as the car sped along. it was then that with nay a word, nor a visual diversion from the icy road, k-jew pulled her hand back inside and with just as little emotion as she displayed in lowering the foggy window, she pressed back down on the button to raise it back up as the car continued to speed along main street pleasant grove.

bryson, my friend, welcome to the rest of your life.

i may have embellished some of the details there, but not too much. bryson has told me the story more than once, which he has a tendency to do (embellish and repeat), and i think i got it down pretty well. it's all good fun. however, the funniest part of the story is that we later learned that kathryn and bryson ended up circling back around, picking up the cookies and still delivering them to jim and jill. nothing says merry Christmas like Christmas light cookies decorated with little gravel-like sprinkles.

as they say, all's well that ends well, but kathryn and bryson's marriage hasn't ended yet, so according to that cliche it's technically not well just yet. besides, if kathryn has anything to do with it, it will be just fine. it will probably win some award at the great convocation of marriages and she'll be asked to speak to the graduating class of married couples where she can give some speech about bryson's dish pan dental hands. he could be a hand model, you know?

happy birthday, k-jew. i hope you had some pizza with the hawaiian toppings on the right side to celebrate tonight.