Diaspora

My sister has returned to Quito from a trip to the Galapagos, and she says she has had an epiphany. I can't wait to hear about it.

My brother and his girlfriend just got accepted to the Forest Service Team in the Mt. Adams Wilderness area of Pinchot National Forest in WA for his year's service with Americorps. If you knew him, you'd know that this is like R. Kelly getting paid to pee on minors. This guy rarely comes indoors. I can't wait to go visit him.

My parents are planning a trip to France this summer. They're going to stay at the home of a French exchange student who they hosted here. My dad decided he'd try and look up his long lost French cousins- my grandma's cousin fell in love with a French serviceman during WWII and they lost touch sometime in the 50's. My dad's never met his second cousins because at one point my grandma's cousin moved and my grandma's letters were returned from their new address. So he showed the name & address to the French exchange student- it turns out it was just jumbled up... and that my dad's second cousin was the exchange student's professor back home. Heh. Here he is looking for a Frenchman in France, and the first French person he asks KNOWS the guy. And I bet the student was sick of being asked, "You're from France? Say, do you know Mssr. So-and-so?"