"Wait. You're first cousins?"

When I accepted this job, folks warned me that family and friends I haven't kept in much touch with would contact me seeing if they could visit me in Bella Napoli. I shrugged it off because, well let's face it- a single girl a million and 2 miles away from her California roots needs to have friends and family visit her. I already prepared for this by picking out my castle; my cat really doesn't need his own room!

At any rate, one of my cousins contacted me last year to let me know she was going to be spending a semester in Rome. Sweet! After lots of scheduling around trips, training, and availabiliy, Jenny headed down with a roommate. Turns out it was the same day the minions (and their mom) were headed over as well. Woohoo! Full house and for once, the feline to female ratio was tilted in favor of the females. (Seriously, with less than a cat per person you can't be called a cat lady.)

As we sat in my living room devouring hint of lime Tostitos (American food!) it became rather clear to both her roommate and my friend that we really didn't know eachother. How? Well, any conversation that includes us trying to figure out how many times we've seen eachother (2 times...she was a baby the first time and in elementary school the other), trying to list our common relatives, and then asking other small talk questions...I think Jess had it right when I came back up the stairs after shower saying she knew more about my cousin that I did.

Eek.

Over a fabulous dinner at Mariella's, Jenny's roommate finally realized the sad fact- that we are first cousins. Apparently you don't have to really know your second cousin? Once again we tried to explain that between the age difference, distance between CA and IN, and the fact that it was the side of the family that both our families didn't interact with as much it wasn't that big of a surprise.

As our wine glasses remained full and too many plates came and left our table the 4 of us had a fabulous time chatting about stupid things. In some cases, really stupid things. And besides feeling ridiculously full at the end of the night, we actually sort of knew eachother. Sort of.