Paul’s sister’s 50th birthday is coming up. On one hand, I would like to do something special for her—or really anything at all, special or no. On the other hand:

1. I resent that that seems to be EXCLUSIVELY MY DOMAIN, even though she is PAUL’S sister. I asked Paul for ideas TWICE, and both times he was unhelpful. And in case you think I mean he didn’t come up with ideas that I liked or whatever, let me clarify that he came up with zero ideas of any kind. He also had not remembered that this was her 50th, and in fact had to do the math out loud to validate my claim.

2. I mean, I’ll also note she did nothing for her brother’s 50th, literally nothing. But increasingly, based on his approach toward her over the decades, that seems fully fair.

So maybe I should do nothing? Maybe I should leave the two of them to the relationship they seem to have chosen?

But I feel a weight on our side of the balance scales. We have a better life in most measurable ways. She has SIGNIFICANTLY fewer people than I do; she has SIGNIFICANTLY less money than we do. And although I have made her sound indifferent here, she gets in touch with me every Christmas to confer about gifts for the kids, and sends thoughtful gift boxes with presents and baked/canned things. I hate that these tasks fall almost exclusively to women; her mom, too, contacted only ME about gifts. But…if she got in touch with Paul, she’d get zero ideas of any kind. And so the cycle goes.

The main issue is that I feel like I don’t know her well enough to figure it out for myself. Flowers are a classic choice—but she is a gardener, the kind who cans her own produce, so maybe she would think of cut flowers as dead things. Chocolates are another classic choice, but she’s mentioned in the past that she likes salty more than sweet, and white chocolate more than milk/dark. Perhaps a fancy assortment of nuts and white-chocolate-covered things?

Maybe just a card. Maybe a card with a gift card. Maybe just do the flowers, since I don’t have any specific knowledge that she objects to them—and even if she did object to them, she’d know I didn’t know that, and would presumably take the thought behind the gesture. No—I think my favorite is the assortment of nuts and white-chocolate-covered things. It’s treats, but also it is FOOD.

[Follow-up: I ordered a BUNCH of things from Nuts.com: anything white-chocolate-covered, plus a bunch of interesting salty snackies, plus some fall-flavored pecans and so forth.]