A View Of The TEM's Idol - A Birthday Salute

A View Of The DEM, getting ready to raise hell back in the day...

This adorable picture is of my favorite person. Back in the day she was loud, funny, profane (but it was so cute to hear foul words come out of such an innocent looking mouth), adventurous, smart, clever, and had a personality that could fill up a stadium. She loved chewing the feet off Barbie dolls, sucking her two middle fingers, and singing her favorite song, "Play That Fuckin' Music, White Boy" at the top of her tiny, little lungs. Family legend has it that her pediatrician told our parents she exhibited "dwarf like tendencies." It wasn't true, but that's never stopped me from teasing her about it. (If you ever meet her, ask her if she liked the movie "Willow.") This was a girl destined to have a larger than life personality and be two inches shorter than yours truly, even with her beloved platform flip-flops.

Time marched on, and though she's grown up, she's still my kid sister. As I've watched her mature, she's confounded me, made me laugh so hard I've begun to wheeze, impressed me with her common sense and wisdom, frustrated me to the point of tears, and has made me proud to be her sister. She's easily my best friend.

Today is her birthday so, as a tribute, I present you with a list of the top 10 things that make the DEM my idol:

1) Her devotion to Mickey Mouse, balanced by her disdain of Minnie Mouse. According to her, Mickey is a mouse beyond compare (don't you dare call him a rat), and Minnie is "that big footed slut who's trying to ruin his reputation."

2) Her self-described mind like a lint trap, holding a lot of fuzz and nothing of value, often with hilarious results. Like the time she wrote a note to remind herself that her sunglasses were in her jacket pocket ("...if sunny put glasses on"), or the time she described someone as having a "freakishly large Dondi head," even though the Dondi strip hasn't been in circulation since the 80s.

3) Her eclectic musical taste. She's the only person I know who has a deep appreciation for ABBA, Mariah Carey, Biggie Smalls and Wu-Tang Clan. She's also the only person I know who has loved Andy Gibb, Brian McKnight, and Raekwon simultaneously.

4) Her soft heart. She loves animals, but rarely makes it through an episode of "Animal Cops" or "Meerkat Manor" without shedding a tear. I tease her about crying whenever we watch "Frosty the Snowman" and he melts in the greenhouse, but I admire her caring nature.

5) Her dark core. Every fuzzy critter she swears she'd give "tisses" to or sheds a tear for when they are hurt is balanced out by her inexplicable love for all things true crime. She's seen every episode of "American Justice" and "Law & Order" (she even liked Dennis Farina's character), will tape "Cops" and "America's Most Wanted" if she won't be home, and will buy any true crime story Borders will sell.

6) Her love of all things "Lifetime," or as she calls it the "talk back to the TV" channel. She watches the movies ("...ooh! This is the one where Jaclyn Smith is married to the mobster who killed her sister...."), knows the lyrics to theme song for "The Nanny" by heart, and went in to a brief depression when her satellite service dropped the station for about a month earlier in the year. I made the mistake of suggesting she start watching Oxygen instead. It was as though I'd told her I liked to kick puppies or something. "I love my trash," she said, "but it has to be good trash." I should've known - back in the day, she loved her Jackie Collins novels.

7) Her uncanny ability to identify a person's lookalike. She was the one who pointed out that the Geico caveman who doesn't have "much of an appetite" looks just like Val Kilmer. (Click on the links and compare. You may even save some money on your car insurance if you do.) She also swears that Ben Affleck looks like he'd hang out at the corner Dairy Queen with his buddies Goober and Pete, smoking a joint and making fun of fat chicks. She has a point if you think about it.

8) Her way with a lyric. See if you can figure out what song this line comes from: "With scooped up funk/trashed it on the floor." Give up? Click here for the answer.

9) Her love of monkeys, pigs, and Muppets. She's had a thing for monkeys ever since she terrorized me as a kid with a rubber King Kong doll. (I had a deep fear of rubber animals, like spiders and snakes.) I don't remember when the pig fixation began, but I think it has something to do with one of our relatives calling her "Pig" as a nickname. (That relative, by the way, is the only person who could call her that. Trust me.) And, yes, she cried watching both "Babe" (she bawled at the end and "That'll do pig," will still make her tear up a bit) and "Charlotte's Web." Her love of the Muppets is cuckoo crazy - she even knows the name of Miss Piggy's dog. I didn't even know she had a dog and I watched the show as much as she did. She adores the movies, has a special place in her heart for Johnny Fiama and Pepe the King Prawn, (yeah, she likes the obscure ones as much as the more well known ones) and swoons every time the "Muppet Show" house band sings. (She actually said, "Those Muppets threw down singing 'Crocodile Rock'," once with a completely straight face and without a trace of irony.) Don't even get her started talking about Emmet & Ma Otter. Don't get me started on the day she gave me that puppy kicking look when I asked, "What the hell was Gonzo, anyway?"

10) This face, still adorable and still raising hell after all these years:

Happy birthday kid, from your sister with the freakishly large Dondi head.

More to come later, after the birthday cake is gone.