Coincidental Reunions

When I was in London, I chatted with my uncle. He said that he thought that L, my cousin, might live somewhere in Los Angeles, but he would speak with his brother (that's my other uncle) and find out.

And, indeed she does. Let's have a bit of background. My father's brother, which would be my Uncle David moved to Canada, ooh, a long time ago, and had three children (they would be my cousins). I have only ever (in my memory) met one of these three cousins, at that was (I think) in about 1975 (or maybe 1976), when she was in England at our grandparents house. Other than that, I knew pretty much nothing about them - we're not the best of extended families at keeping in touch.

Anyway, it turns out that not only does she live in Los Angeles, but she lives about 8 miles away (less, if you didn't have to drive around the airport), and used to live closer than that - she would buy lunch from our local Indian restaurant.

I mentioned this to someone at work, and they explained that it wasn't really a coincidence, after all, LA is a big place, and it's very common for people to move here (very few people are from around here), especially people from other countries, and I have a number of cousins, and started to do calculations on my whiteboard.

Today she, and her 18 month old offspring (who is, according to my mother, D and A's second cousin - but I've never understood that) came to visit, and she turned out to be not unpleasant at all. We gossiped about various family mysteries - I had hoped she might have answers to questions that have been family hearsay and gossip for as long as I can remember, but she knew even less than I did.

We had lunch, and then she was going to have to leave to go to a barbecue, but it started to rain (!) so she stayed a bit longer and generally hung out. A and D were extremely grumpy - partly because they were a bit tired, but also I think because they were not used to having a younger child around, who garnered more attention than they did. (When their cousin came to visit, there was the opposite effect - she got grumpy because they were younger and got more attention).