Leaving Town

Swiss Family Rat is going to be departing for the Hinterlands of North Dakota for six months in less than a week. WifeRat recently got tenure and in that fine academic tradition now gets to take a sabbatical.

All of WR's colleagues told her that it was imperative that she get out of town for her sabbatical; otherwise, people would constantly be calling her and saying, "Hey, your on sabbatical right now, could you do XYZ?"

Originally we talked about going overseas somewhere, but a couple of things held us back. The biggest thing (for me) was that even though I've lived overseas before, it was under the imperial banner of the US Army. Given the current state of the world, I'm not altogether sure I want to be living outside of the US. I dunno, maybe I'm being paranoid and silly but I just don't feel like the time is right. Also, BabyRat is only 3; I want her to have a good strong memory of life in another country, if we went now she would remember but it would be more of a vague impression.

Anyway, WifeRat is from NoDak and the bulk of her family still lives there so I hit upon the idea that we should head out that way for a while. BR would get to spend some time with her other Grandparents, WR gets out of town for her sabbatical, and HR, well there wasn't that much in it for me other than doing right by my family.

More on this later.