Abbie's Real Life Blog

Wow, our party for Thanksgiving tomorrow has changed radically in the past few days.  Unfortunately, it’s due to deaths in the distant extended family and hospital stays in the immediate family.  It’s exactly what you don’t want to have happen around the holidays.

So it may be the smallest Thanksgiving we’ve had in many years, actually, but apparently we’re not cutting down on the amount of food we’re bringing and eating, as far as I can tell.  My Chinese friends are still coming.  I think they will be stunned at the spread, especially if the extended family is whittled down to less than ten of us, in total.

Tracy leaves for DC tomorrow morning, early early.  It’s her parents’ last Thanksgiving in their house in Rockville because they’re moving to Orlando in December, after they retire from their government jobs.  They’re not selling their house, though; Tracy’s sister is moving into it with her partner.  I am happy Tracy will be home for this last Thanksgiving because things will change next year.

Tracy, for instance, will not be in Columbia.  After travelling extensively throughout the Eastern part of the United States in the last couple months (it could have been more, actually, because she was offered an interview in New Mexico as well, but we ran out of time to fit it in), she’s decided to do her geriatrics fellowship in Kansas City next year, at the University of Kansas Medical Center.  The University of Kansas is in Lawrence, but the Med Center is in midtown Kansas City, in a cute neighborhood.  KU also has a palliative care fellowship, which Tracy would like to do after she’s done with the geriatrics fellowship, so she’s looking at a probable two years in Kansas City.

This puts my family in quite a bind.  They like Tracy, but the idea of her attending KU?  Ugh!  KU is the rival of the University of Missouri, where nearly everybody on my dad’s side of the family has attended for at least one degree, sometimes more!  But since KU’s football team is about to lose to MU (in what will probably be a bloodbath, which will make MU the winners for the northern division of the Big Twelve Conference of the NCAA, Mizzou-rah! and knock on wood!) this coming Saturday (the annual Border Showdown game), the family seems to be pitying Tracy for her choice rather than shunning her for it.  (All in good fun, of course.)

So, in the New Year, after Tracy’s parents have moved to Florida and Tracy’s sister has moved to Rockville, Tracy will start to look for someplace to live in Kansas City.  She’s bound and determined to take the three cats with her, which I think will hamper her search somewhat, but I haven’t been able to talk her out of it.  (I’ve suggested leaving one cat behind, because two cats are easier to manage, but Tracy is positive it won’t be an issue.)  I’m glad that it will just be a short drive for the house search and moving, and then she has her last vacation at the beginning of June, so we should be able to do a good part of everything by that time.  She’ll only have a day or two between the end of her residency and the start of work for her fellowship, so the more that can get done, the better.

It’s fascinating; we’ve been receiving packages of information from hospitals around the country.  Tracy will be a full-fledged, board-certified family medicine doctor in July, fellowship or not, and I really didn’t realize how in-demand doctors are in the United States.  They are, and enough so that these hospitals have to resort to this kind of direct mailing to lure a doctor to their area.  When we got one of these packets at home, I was interested and surprised, but Tracy said she’s been receiving multiple packets a day for several weeks.  It’s really sad to me, because I hate to think of rural communities vying for the chance to get a doctor, when doctors should be commonplace.  But I know from experience with my own small hometowns: there just are less hospitals in these areas now than there used to be.  In fact, I would bet there are more rural Wal-Marts now than rural hospitals.  Is that weird?  It seems weird.  But also true.

Anyway, obviously from my wording of the above sentences, it should be clear that I am not moving to Kansas City.  We own the house in Columbia, which we bought at the top of the market and cannot sell without a big loss at this point, and it has a yard and a fence for our dog.  I have a good job that I like that is in my field.  My grandparents are getting older and I want to be in this area right now.  And I am not ready to move yet.  So that’s that: I’m staying here and Tracy is moving to Kansas City.

So, big year ahead.  But the decision-making part is done.

I am looking forward to my whirlwind trip to Chicago on Friday and return on Saturday.  I like car trips a lot.  I kind of miss the annual road trip home for Christmas every year when I lived in Maryland.  It was such a celebratory event, with the piling the car with wrapped presents and the Christmas music and the setting out through the holiday traffic.  It won’t be like that this weekend, though I’m sure I’ll see a lot of traffic on I-55, but still I will enjoy it.  I like to drive.

And then it’s my birthday.  I think I’m ready.  I’m ready!  I’m going to be thirty-one!  Thirty-one!  It’s like I’m a baby thirtysomething!  Woo!