A mi prima Mónica: Llámame

These people are some more of my relatives in Perú -- specifically (from right to left) my cousins Cynthia and Mónica and Mónica's daughter Luciana. Mónica and Cynthia and I make up the last three cousins in our generation and I think we are the closest, despite the fact that I grew up in the US for the most part. Mónica and I were particularly amused when she got pregnant right around the time that Angela did, meaning that our kids were likely to have eerily similar birthdays. As misfortune would have it, a sudden onset of preeclampsia rushed Mónica into the hospital and Luciana was born a little early. This naturally means that Luciana can firmly lord it over Xan as to how much older she really is than he is and why he should do everything she tells him.

The title of this posting is asking my cousin to call me because it dawns on me that I haven't heard about her in a while and I would like to keep abreast of what is going on down south. I could of course do that over e-mail or by calling her myself, but that would defeat the second purpose in her talking to me.

You see, I don't think that the federal government is sufficiently aware of Xan and Luciana and I think they need to know more about them.

If I understand this correctly, the NSA is only monitoring phone numbers that receive calls from (not necessarily those that make them to) a sufficiently suspicious foreign country. Well, Peru has been a breeding ground for terrorism since at least the early 1980s, so my guess is that if my cousin starts calling us, then our phone will suddenly start being monitored. (I suppose this will be particularly true if she calls our land line, because we have moved to using our cell phones as primary means of anyone else reaching us.) Once that happens, some lackey in the NSA will then eventually have to transcribe our discussions on walking, diapers, cute baby outfits, sleeping patterns and the latest words spoken to see if we are perhaps talking in code. At which point the US government would be properly informed about my wonderful, amazing child (and his equally splendiferous cousin Luciana).

So Mónica, call me. The National Security Agency needs to know about our children.