i received a rather interesting email the other day from a girl i haven't talked to in over 12 years. we went to high school together back in the day. i was shocked that she found this email address because it's not one that i use quite frequently. i responded to her email to discover that she found me because she works for southwest airlines and saw my name was among a list of passengers ...so she thought she'd see if this Susan V was actually me.

it was a shot in the dark...i say that because my name has got to be THE MOST common name among malus. For crying outloud...my sister-in-law has the same exact name as me...which makes for some complicated situations at times. I know a trillion Susan's...unfortunately, half of them are in my own family. Growing up, it was confusing spending summers with the cousins when there was 2 of us around. Therefore, we were dubbed SusanTee and SusanVee...and the names have stuck with us ever since. After my bro married a Susan, I took on the name Sue...and now, when people call me Susan, it almost sounds strange.

Varghese...there's another common last name. I always get the question, "Are you related to so and so?" i usually answer this by saying that Varghese is comparable to Smith in America. And if that's true, Susan Varghese is the equivalent of Jennifer Smith. My favorite person at work, who I call Apachen (grandpa) went to Ireland last month. Unfortunately, he had a heart attack while he was there. He was able to come back home last weekend...and for the first time in several weeks, he called and i was able to talk to him today. He said..."I met your cousin last week." I laughed because I knew exactly where the conversation was headed. He said her name was Mary Varghese...and she was his nurse in Ireland. I assured him that we Vargheses' are EVERYWHERE!!