It is summer, and despite the fact that airlines are charging passengers now for the oxygen they breathe and for the right to sit squished into a seat, thank goodness people are still getting on planes and flying around the country.

Two weeks ago, Bloglily, whom I only know from reading her very delightful blog, came to the Northeast on vacation, and we spent a day sitting in Atticus Bookstore near Yale, eating lunch and talking as though we had known each other all our lives. It was a little bit like a blind date–going off to meet after only knowing each other through our written words, but within exactly five seconds of meeting her, I knew we were BFFs. We told each other our life stories…and then we told the stories in the books we’re writing, and then she effortlessly solved at least 13 plot problems I’m having with the novel I’m trying to finish, and then we walked around the town and talked some more. (The hardest part was learning to think of her name as Lily, when to me, she’s always going to be Bloglily.)

Then this week my cousin Jennifer popped in, having gone away to California some four years ago and not managing to get back until now. (Well, okay, she did come back for her grandfather’s funeral that one time, but it was a sad occasion, not conducive to the kind of shenanigans that Jennifer and I used to partake in on a regular basis when she lived in Boston and would come down to visit us for weekends and then forget to go back home.) I could describe all the shenanigans for you, but most of them don’t translate well because they involve laughing so hard that tea would come out of our noses. But suffice it to say that Jennifer, who is the daughter of my late uncle, who was a fabulous hippie rock star back in the 60s–did what a lot of flower children’s children did when they grew up: tried to find sanity in her life by becoming part of Corporate America. She used to dress in suits and pantyhose and go to work for uptight law firms in Boston, where they made her miserable and sad.

Those were the days when she would come to our house, where the standards are decidedly low. We cooked tons of food, listened to the rock star’s old music (except for the times it made us too sad, since he had died by then), and played Double and Triple and even Octuple Solitaire on the living room floor, dragging in whoever we could to make them play with us. We sat up late talking and dancing and singing and trying to figure out her life…and then one day she came for a visit and said she was ready to quit her job and take her chances moving across country, where some friends had suggested she come and join them.

It was the right thing to do, even though it made us crazy to say goodbye. So she left four years ago, and now she has a fun job and tons of friends, and a great place to live, with hiking trails nearby, and a GUY. I don’t think she even owns a pair of pantyhose anymore.  She doesn’t think that playing Double Solitaire with me is the pinnacle of happiness anymore, which is probaby a good thing over all.

Here we are together on the morning that she was ready to leave, when we finally realized we needed to somehow commemorate our visit by taking an actual photograph.  To see us together, you would never know that we are related, but the truth is that we share the same grandmother, and Jennifer has our grandmother’s laugh and her great boobs, and I’ve got her hair color but that came out of a bottle. And maybe a little bit, we both have her smile.

Next month, the airlines are going to bring my friend Diane and her daughter Maisie…and I have about 150 pages of novel to write by then so that I can play without guilt.