My supervisor and some woman were waiting for me when I walked in the front door today. That in itself would have been unusual enough to warrant a post, but as it turns out, the woman’s name is Iris (also incredibly odd, and only the second time I’ve met another Iris), and she and her husband were living in Japan at the same time as my parents, and her husband and my dad were roommates in the same Tokyo high school for a year. Crazy!
So now I’ve met both of them and their three sons (the oldest of whom is considering coming here for school).
I don’t know what it is about this town. My dad’s best friend from grade school is living here, too, and teaches at the College Across The River. It’s far too small a town, in far too remote a location to make all of this sound plausible.
When I got my first job (granted, in my home city of 250,000), I knew I was working at the college where my grandfather had taught. I did not expect that the various faculty would remember my father from when he was a student there, or that the Philosophy prof would be married to my high-school boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend and thus remember me from 10 years earlier, or that the Tech Services clerk would have gone to the same folk music club as my parents when they were all in their 20’s. The real kicker, though? That same clerk used to rent an apartment in the same house I was living in. And had lived in my bedroom.
I moved 1000 miles away as fast as I could.
Heh. Yeah, that’d be a little freaky. :-)
So far I’ve enjoyed the idea of being in a place with so many connections to my parents. I have very little contact with their friends, but it’s kind of fun to know they’re here.