the invasion of the cousins....!!!!

Me and the wife have a boatload of nice cousins, coast to coast!  Some of them are even REAL, as in, not imaginary or honorary (to become one of my imaginary cousins, use paypal and send me 50 dollars, to become honorary, come to my house and tell me I am awesome...and give me fifty dollars cash...:)

WELL, we have a real cousin in town!  One of our favorites too.  I have to be careful of people's privacy, for a change, but will tell you most of the story:
We live in Ithaca, NY, and the wife works at Cornell.  We HAD lived in New Hampshire nearly forever, but one day I traveled over to see my mother-in-law here in Ithaca, for her 50th reunion....she was class of 1952 or something, and I met her in Ithaca for my first visit to the city in years.  She was like "you should move from New Hampshire to Ithaca!"
And  a couple of years later we did move!
OK, so this family has deep roots in this town, and let me lay some of it out:
-the wife's aunt went to Cornell just after WW2, and then her younger sister, my mother-in-law, also came to Cornell.  The wife's aunt met and married a veteran airman and former POW who was attending Cornell after attending the skies over Germany and a prison camp, and he was the sort of person who was exuberantly grateful to be OUT of Europe with nobody shooting at him....and the camp he was imprisoned in was the same, believe it or not, as the true story where Steve McQueen and his friends tunnel out and Steve uses a motorcycle to drive all over ....
Anyway, so those 3 went to Cornell.
The son of the airman and the wife's aunt ALSO went to Cornell.  He recently had his 30th reunion, I b'lieve...and NOW
His daughter is applying and interviewing TODAY.  Her first ever solo trip....she is so utterly charming and sweet, and took us out to Agava last night...a favorite of mine!  There are spoiled teenagers, slacker teenagers, metalhead and punk teenagers...she is none of those.  She is like a successful 33 year old executive, so focused, intelligent, charming!  It is a shock, because I am well known as a perpetual teenager, and somebody so gracious and polite and grown up is impressive to me :)

Anyway, we are wandering around campus Sunday and she is like "Is that the big red barn? My grandfather parked illlegally in there and the dean had nowhere to park!"....

So, in sum, it would be fantastic if the young cousin was able to attend here, because, well, when you count it up she has a lot of family connections here behind her, which can help:  2 grandparents, one great-aunt and her father...plus her cousin works across the street from where she would take classes...

btw, if you were my cousin, I would probably bake awesome sh!t for YOU too....