Happy Bday Jonah.

I've noticed that a lot of people seem to post about their loved ones' birthdays on their blogs, so this seems a good time to do that. Today is my cousin Jonah's 33rd birthday. I don't think anyone will be offended (well, or anyone who reads this anyway) if I say that Jonah is my favorite cousin, up there in favorite relatives of all time (now people are getting offended....). I've known him since I was four and our grandparents got married. My earliest memory of him is at their wedding reception. There was candy on the bar, and we joined forces (being much shorter than the bar) to try to get that candy. Don't know how I remember this or know that it was him, but I do.


Me and Jonah in Cairo this January (I wish I had some earlier ones of us to put here, but my scanner died).


Jonah, our cousin Raechl, and Jessica at their wedding in Putney, VT, August 2002.

Being an only child, I guess my cousins have always been extra important to me, and there are a few other ones who I really like a lot and maybe don't know as well. Jonah and I haven't always been as close as we are now, but he's pretty much always been around on the periphary, at least. We took a cruise down the Rhine River in 1987 with our grandparents (he was 13, I was 11). We spent some time running around in the woods in Guilford, Vermont. He spent some time seducing my friends in high school (I was only a little jealous - that I wasn't seducing them, that is). But maybe in the last 5 years (?) or so we've been a lot closer. Maybe it helped, too, that he hooked up with one of the coolest women in the world (who emailed me to introduce herself when they first started dating because she heard that I was important to him and thought we might have a few things in common). I think I've seen them every summer since they've moved to Egypt, and been lucky enough to go visit there last winter for 6 weeks. And of course they were here in August, you can find that post if you haven't seen it.

Anyway, being someone short on close family, I'm pretty grateful for Jonah and his amazing little family. Its been pretty cool to see him become a husband and a dad (and have the cutest daughter in the world). We've talked about how great it would be to live in the same place and start a business together or do other crazy things, just to hang out, grow old maybe. I hope that happens someday (and for the record, I'm not moving to Egypt). In the meantime, I hope we continue to get to see each other once or twice a year, and have long instant messenger conversations in the meantime. And even real conversations sometimes, too.