WashingTina

When I was a kid, I loved to write and receive letters.  I would find any excuse to write someone a letter, just in the hopes that I'd get one in return.  In third grade, my Brownie troop was matched up with another troop across the country in California and we got penpals.  This was in the early 80s, so there was no email or Skype . . . just good old fashioned paper and pen.  I couldn't have been more excited!  My penpal, Stephanie, lived in Long Beach -- a strange land that meant surfers and beaches and suntans.  What did I know, I'd never been to California.  Photo by Happy Batatinha via Flickr  For years we corresponded, through the ups and downs.  She was a couple years older than I, living with her mother and brother.  Years hence, my mother had a meeting in Anaheim, not to far from where Stephanie lived, and I got to tag along.  And we met for the first time in 10 years of having exchanged letters.  But our frien...

Every family's got one -- that one aunt who names her shoes; the eccentric uncle who talks about himself in the third person; or the granny who drinks a little too much and flashes back to her childhood in Kansas.  And we've got one in my family too.  A second cousin from the deep south is that "one" in our family.  So, what makes my Southern Cousin such a character?  Let's put it this way . . . shortly after I got engaged, SC informed me that he was not only a florist, but also a wedding planner.  He offered to "come up a week before the wedding" and plan everything for me.  In a week. During one of his previous visits, he had shared all about his nursing career.  He's had as many careers as there are letters in his name (maybe more), and some at the same time. He lives in a small town with his Momma, who he talks about incessantly, and takes care of (in between his shifts at the many jobs).   What got me thinking about this was the rec...