I Will Kick The World's Ass (If It Kills My Sister)

So my sister, Kathleen, as most of you know, is about to go on a daunting trek. She and her husband, Jeremy, are going to be traveling across the globe (the plane hopping itself being a three day ordeal) to spend fifteen days hiking around the base of Mount Everest.

Yes, this is the same girl who was flitting around with a gold braided belt on her head just this past weekend. And while she is very, oh... active, she's not exactly a rugged, athletic, adventurer type. I mean, except for her past dalliances in roller derby, rock climbing, sky diving and... er, wait, I guess she is sort of the rugged, athletic, adventurer type. Huh. Go figure.

A lot of people have started asking me lately if I'm scared about her going.

I mean, when I think about all the things that can kill her there:

1.) the most probable being the most dangerous airstrip in the world where she will be landing; to

2.) the most far fetched being death by trying to wipe her freezing poopy bottom for the fiftieth time in one day (apparently frequent diarrhea during this whole Everest thing is just a given) and falling off a snowy cliff where she will be discovered days later, frozen solid with her bum having been chewed off by ice yaks...

.... I'm really not scared.

But, of course, that sort of goes hand-in-hand with our family's collective sense of hubris that nothing bad will ever really happen to us. (My dad does not share this trait, by the way, thinking everything will kill him, especially left turns.)

All in all, to me it just sounds monumentally exhausting.

Ironically I will be in Disney World at the exact same time. To many a soul-sucking, exhausting place of it's own. But I like it. Whatever. You know you do, too.

So when I ride the Everest/Yeti rollercoaster in the Animal Kingdom I'll be thinking of Kathleen. It actually happens to be Kathleen's favorite Disney attraction. I think the meticulously-detailed theming of that ride alone, from little Tibetan prayer flags to vintage climbing gear displayed museum style all along the waiting line (combined with her Netflix addiction to Everest documentaries) is what actually inspired her to take this trip in the first place.

Or, let me clarify. I think this year Kathleen decided to be a citizen of the world. I had my first sneaking suspicion after I saw the film version of Eat, Pray, Love (which a year ago Kathleen read the book of, but told me I would hate because I'm just a big ol' cynic that way) that it was probably the secret inspiration for this particular life need. And then the Disney-Yeti-Ride-Plus-Netflix-Everest-Documentary-Addiction just helped her pick a point on the map to make this fantasy a reality.

So when ice yaks are gnawing on her ass, maybe she can find consolation in her frozen delirium by imagining Julia Roberts playing her in the movie, and It's A Small World playing sweetly and endlessly in the distance.