Here are Ethel's brother Bill, Ethel herself, and Bill's daughter Megan -


                         

(N.B. - the good-looking one in the middle is whatsername)

Looked at like this, the similarity between Ethel and her brother Bill (actually half-brother) is a little scary; if Ethel had a beard and a receeding hairline her head was three inches wider and if she weighed an extra fifty pounds, then I'd be one miserable guy - excuse me; I mean that they'd look like twins. I wouldn't see that unless they do what they did in this photo - i.e. assuming symmetrical poses - because I'm not good at seeing resemblances; I'm much better at seeing differences than seeing similarites.

Bill's family decided that Megan looks more like Ethel than she looks like any other aunt; I don't see that (but then I don't think that I look like Jackson, either, but Ethel assures me that that is, indeed, the case) - I can see how Bill and Ethel both have their eyes almost closed, as though they were hatching a scheme or taking a nap, whereas Megan is greeting the world with her eyes wide open.

You'll notice that Bill is wearing a "Public Radio" T-shirt. Bill is from Wisconsin - as far as I can tell, the only radio or TV that they have in Wisconsin is PBS. Of course, in keeping things fair-minded,  they have two kinds of PBS - "Really Liberal" and "Pagan Commie-Atheist". I would expect that Bill would be more in the "Really Liberal" camp, except that it's sort of difficult to imagine Bill being, well, moderate about anything - because I happen to know half of his chromosomes intimately, and Ethel's only moderate when it comes to practicing moderation. Of course, since Bill is Ethels half brother, then it's possible to believe that that other half might have some "moderation" genes, until one realizes that the half that Ethel doesn't have is the half that comes from the man that married Ethel's bio-mom, which leaves one shaking one's head and saying - nope, nope, no moderation on that side, either.

Bill's wife Jean (not pictured here, but you can assume that Megan's good looks had to come from somewhere) does, indeed, seem to be the sort of moderate, gentle soul that winds up married to folks like (say) Ethel's half brother - sort of a "sensible, pratical  bodhisattva" type ("sensible and practical" becuase that's what she brings to the table; "bodhisattva" because you'd have to be an advanced soul in order to live with Bill and stay level-headed : ) I got to spend a little time talking with Jean while she was here, and she's the sort of person that I'd like to be when I grow up; gentle without being wimpy, cheerful without being slap-happy, enthused without that I-gotta-do-it-NOW attitude that seems to infect so many of my own activities.

They've come to visit, spent a week in Arizona, and returned to the Great White North; there's an open invitation for us to come visit them during their summer vacation, during which they go to a nearby lake (in Wisconsin, bodies of water form, even if there's no dam) for a week of canoeing and such. I have to admit that I like the idea, but I'm also terrified, because - as I understand it - these "lakes" are populated by fish that mostly eat mosquitoes, which implies that there are enough mosquitoes in the area that walleye and pike can grow to the size of atomic submarines, just by eating the mosquitoes that happen to fall out of the sky and drown. That would imply a huge concentration of mosquitoes - either that, or the mosquitoes get so full of blood from canoers that they can no longer stay afloat, and they fall, bloated with blood, onto the surface of the water, to await their demise in the belly of a fish.

Of course, it's possible that the mosquitoes actually get that big by siphoning off plasma from cows, that being Wisconsin's dominant life form; I prefer that idea, because otherwise the people are eating the fish who are eating the mosquitoes who are eating the people, which strikes me as not only unhealthy, but just two levels away from completely taboo.

Of course, my concerns over cannibalism won't really decide whether or not we'll wind up in Wisconsin for a week of donating blood; Ethel is the one who makes all such decisions in our house, and she really enjoyed spending time with her brother (as you can tell in the above photograph - she hasn't smiled that big for ME since I upped my life insurance).