This is how we spent our recent Thanksgiving holiday. Separated by hundreds of miles.
Gil decided rather late in November to join his California cousins at a rented hacienda-style enclave in Palm Springs to help celebrate a favorite cousin's 60th birthday during the Thanksgiving weekend.
As it turned out, I would not be joining him because I had already invited my mom and brother to Michigan to celebrate Thanksgiving.
Over a dozen family members from Gil's side of the Senter family gathered to tell stories and catch up on current events and activities.
Since Gil would be in Palm Springs, our LA kids -- Adam, Laura and Evan -- decided to drive to Palm Springs and join all the cousins for a quick 48-hour visit during the time Gil would be there.
Back in the midwest, my mom and brother and Marika and I did our best to make our "intimate" Thanksgiving feast a memorable one.
Yes, indeed, this was the year that I got to carve the turkey!
We're lucky to be going to our timeshare in Princeville, Hawaii from December 24 through New Year's Day this year with our nuclear family -- Gil, myself, Adam, Laura, Evan and Marika. I don't know how many more years we will all have the time off at the same time -- this time the week between Christmas and New Year's. We're using two of our units during that one week to accommodate the six of us. Gil and I will have one unit since we are notoriously early-to-bed folks. The kids will have the adjacent unit since they are of the stay-up-all-night types. That way, everyone gets just the right amount of sleep during just the right hours of the day.
Gil is enjoying trying to stay safe in the volatility of the global stock market. Still loving his research work. Trying to get back into photography. Feeling absolutely well and healthy.
I am making slow but steady progress in my diagnostic workup of "probable" Cushing's syndrome and have been referred to a neuroendocrinologist at the University of Michigan by my current endocrinologist. (He says my case is complicated!) I'm also moving at turtle-speed doing artwork in my freshly-appointed and well-organized art studio space here at the house.
Adam is spending the next couple of months flying back and forth across the country for dermatology residency interviews. He's coming to University of Michigan for an interview in mid-December so we'll get to visit together then.
Laura will be leaving her research job at UCLA mid-December and taking a new job in the biotech industry in nearby Santa Monica starting in the first of the year. We are all very excited for her.
Evan is, like Adam, flying across the continent doing interviews for radiology residencies. He's going to use our home in Milford as his home base for the first two weeks of January since many of his interviews are east of the Mississippi. (No sense flying back to LA in between interviews.)
Marika is enjoying her research lab and involvement in several projects that require an advanced proficiency in operating a new high-powered microscope her lab has recently purchased. Can't quite tell if she is "over" her love-affair with California and all things "warm and sunny" but she is beginning to look for winter clothing during her shopping sprees. She's heading to Brooklyn mid-December to visit a high school friend.
Wishing you and yours a wonderful December and holiday season!
Haiku:
We're Hawaii-bound
A week of fun in the sun
Obama's birth place??
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