Our Aunt Fran

We have an Aunt Fran. We didn't know about her until a year ago. She's 57, Jewish, with hair dyed so black that in sunlight it reflects purple. She's small and boney, with green eyes. She lives in New Jersey, has her whole life and has the accent and manners to prove it, and was married to Murray. He owned a dry cleaning business, called "Murray's". She is a certified manicurist. She was a war bride; they were married for thirty years until the prostate cancer took him, which Fran swears came from years working around dry cleaning chemicals.

She sends us tacky postcards from places she travels with the Jewish Sisters of Jersey Tour Group, or the JSJ, ("I never travel alone - you never know if you'll be mugged, or lost, or worse!"). Recently she sent us a postcard from Paris, featuring a cartoonist's rendering of the Eiffel Tour leaning way over to lick melting ice cream from a tourist's chubby fingers. She complained about the long flight, and swore her bladder was burning from the altitude ("Burning, I tell you, burning! Thank goodness the stewardess had Lysol."), and didn't believe that French manicures were what she defines as 'manicures.' From Atlanta she sent us a fuzzy peach post card, and from Texas the postcard featured a cut-out longhorn.

She doesn't only complain about her physical ailments in postcards, but whenever she calls, visits or e-mails. And loudly. She never cares who is listening. In grocery stores, with company, without company, in the mall, in the dressing room, in the bathroom. The bigger the audience, the better! Everything from her aching head to her hemorrhoids. She is loud, brassy, opinionated and unfiltered ("Obama sounds too much like a terrorist for me.").

She loves Barbara Streisand, Oprah ("Oprah knows."), and Willard Scott. She doesn't like modern art ("Who get paid for this anyway?!"), public toilets ("You never know who's sat there before."), pizza ("It gives me painful gas."), waiting in line at the pharmacy ("I only order online nowadays."). Her favorite pastimes are collecting commemorative teacups from places she has visited, playing Bridge with her weekly group, and playing canasta online. She loves inviting her single rabbi, Rabbi Goldstein, to dinner on Sabbath, when she cooks strictly kosher *wink wink*.

She buys her clothes at Steinmart, but rarely buys new clothes ("Styles now are so garish." Which is ironic because she only wears bright, colorful patterns reminiscent of Liberace.).

She loves her canaries. She likes growing fussy plants, like African orchids. She avoids the subway and the bus, and prefers driving her Caddy, which she parks where it will fit ("At my age, I should have diplomatic immunity.").

Her son Stanley lives too far away. He is a dentist, specializing in gum diseases. He is married to Marissa, ("A nice girl, but emotionally unavailable. I heard about it on Dr. Phil.") They do not have any children, but raise bull terriers. Fran's apartment has never been large enough to have one herself.

We look forward to her Christmas presents every year. Last year she sent us a Jack LaLanne S LPB Juice Maker ("Retail value $500)! What a steal!".

Today is Aunt Fran's birthday, she already called to remind us.

If you have any questions you'd like to ask Aunt Fran (advice on physical ailments, relationships, places to see in Jersey, how best to keep from getting a serious disease on an airplane, canary training tips, manicuring, fungal diseases, and what household appliances and chemicals cause cancer) write me. I will forward them to her, and she is always prompt.

We love Aunt Fran.