In an attempt to curtail my internet use, I have tried to make a list of the items I need to do online (emails, posting the blog, etc) hoping to stick to that list instead of playing yet another game of Tetris or perusing my friends’ pages on Facebook when I go online. Indeed, the internet is a time sucker and I suppose as a nod to my Protestant-Midwestern world view/work ethic (and yes, despite having lived most of life in the San Gabriel Valley, I consider myself to be Midwestern – a topic I might tackle in another entry sometime when I am desperate for material) or simply that subtle voice in the back of my head often sounding not dissimilar to my father that I ought to be making something of my life. Really, at the end of my life do I want my obituary to focus on my extraordinary ability to play Tetris? (Although, I wouldn’t mind if it was a side theme to be included with my crossword puzzling, parallel parking and failed attempt to get on Jeopardy – after all there has to be a bit of the agony of defeat in the story, right?)
To that effect, last night my carefully laid plan was immediately hijacked when I “ran” into three people on Facebook at the same time as me. The last was a dear friend who I recently reconnected with, the first was the husband of my cousin who is very fun and it was because of him I became friends with my other cousin – who I will call Ryan. Ryan is twenty-four years old and lives in rural Indiana along with all of my mother’s relatives. He is part of the subgroup of cousins I collective refer to as my little cousins in that they are the children of my first cousins the oldest of which is actually older than me. My mother has a nephew, my first cousin, who is only eight years younger than her and as I am the absolute youngest grandchild, my little cousins are in many ways more my peers than their parents.
But back to Ryan. Ryan’s grandparents (my aunt and uncles) hosted a big family reunion when I was twelve or thirteen years old. At the time, Ryan was toe headed toddler who I pushed around in a wagon to his delight. While pushing him around, I stepped on a bee and was subsequently stung ending the wagon ride and causing little Ryan to throw a bit of a fit. I shared the story with him a few years ago at my aunt’s funeral – of course he didn’t remember – but he seemed to like hearing a little bit about his life when he was too young to remember.
Last night, I was happy to fill in some of the gaps between the toe headed toddler and the young man he has become. I found out he owns and runs a candle store. He also is very into training and raising exotic animals hoping to take his experience with domestic animals (Ryan like most of my family grew up on a farm) and parlay it into a side career. I imagined exotic animals to be things like alligators and snakes, which I suppose is true, but they are also things like camels and zebras both of which he has. In fact, at another of my little cousins’ birthday parties over the summer he brought the camel for the kids to ride on and it was a big hit. Last night I discovered my little cousin has become a candle shop owner/exotic animal trainer and I couldn’t be more proud. He is hoping to visit sometime soon and wants me to set him up with one of my friends – any takers?
As a brief postscript and explanation for the photo, earlier in the day, I hung out at the Huntington Gardens where I took a bunch of pictures of bees pollinating flowers. I am amazed by all of our modern technology; we are still dependent on the bee. Double postscript – right now the Huntington Gardens has beautifully hung red Chinese lanterns in honor of Chinese New Year.
0 comments:
Post a Comment