Posted by Loulou on Sep 22, 2014 | 10 comments

Mama’s packing to go see her brother. I hope she doesn’t take my new nap robe (her nightgown)!

Okay, now this is a doozy:

Mama and papa were invited to a drinks party by a neighbor and 1. they thought it was only drinks and 2. it was a huge gathering of lots of friends to celebrate the good health of one of the party-givers and so turned out to be a complete dinner after drinks that went on into the night.

But the funny thing is that the host was talking with mama about his MOTHER’S COUSIN who had fallen for an American soldier during the war and who married him and was taken to Texas to live. “Oh,” mama said, “where in Texas?” And this very French neighbor who had been to the States when he was 18 and actually visited his mother’s cousin, said, “Oh, they lived in Ingram, Texas.”

Well, mama about fainted, because when people ask her where she’s going to visit her brother, she says, “Oh, he lives in Hunt, Texas.” Silence.

“Hunt? Where on earth is that?”

“Well,” mama says, “it’s next to Ingram.” Silence.

“So where on earth is that?”

“Oh, it’s next to Kerrville,” mama says. Silence’

“Yeah? And where is KERRVILLE?”

At this point you get the picture. But to have someone in a tiny French town starting talking about a family member who ended up in INGRAM, TEXAS is a pretty unusual coincidence, in mama’s book.

So mama and papa will be off soon to see my “uncle” in Texas and you can bet your boots they’re going to Ingram and look up Roger and Blanchette, the French bride, who used to live there. Maybe in the cemetery they can find the names, because they are both gone now and maybe there is actual family still there in Ingram. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

But is the world small or what?  Mama did tell me that in Ingram there is a sort of fake Stonehenge, and that’s pretty cool. I don’t think it was there then, though.

And just the day after the party, papa met a new inhabitant of this tiny town, someone from South Carolina, and she said, “Oh, but I grew up in Missouri.”

Well, one guess where papa spent his young summers with his grandpere and grandmere?

Are we all going to end up in one place, all of us knowing everyone in the town and all the kitties on earth running around at our feet, all related to one another and frolicking in their shared heritage?

I’ll keep you posted if mama finds Roger and Blanchette. The sweet friend pronouned Roger, Ro-jay, and it was great fun for mama trying to imagine the young, sweet Blanchette in a Texas hill country (then) cow town. Mama told her French friend that there was now a popular food truck in Ingram, Texas run by an enterprising blond lady and her daughter and he said in French to mama, “Alors, si tu peut, ramener des côtes au barbecue barbeque!”

Which means “If possible, bring back some barbequed ribs!” Haha.

So you never know whom you will run into on this small planet. I think that cat the other night was a dude I used to know, but I certainly don’t want HIM around here, no way.

I’ll give him what for–(actually, I think I’m yawning here).