A Brief History of where I've been the last 8 years, part one:

"Previously, on De Minimis..." Sick of unemployment and underemployment, I'd taken a job with a federal agency in my home state, and had to live apart from my wife for just over a year. I was fortunate to be able to rent a furnished house in a town about 30 miles from the health clinic where I'd be working. It was a college town, home to one of the major universities in my state. The house also had three cats--my landlady had adopted the cats and was trying [not very hard] to find homes for them. She had a family member come by every so often to change litter boxes and keep them supplied with food, but I often took care of a lot of the feeding. My wife joked that it was like I was renting from the cats.

I was an accountant. I worked with an older lady who was planning to retire in a few years. I was the succession plan. She had worked there a long time and had worked all over the country for different agencies over the years. Her husband was retired but had been a CEO of different clinics and hospitals in the Native healthcare system. He had started out as a Medical Assistant, working for the tribe that lives at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. She said the government paid for the helicopter to take them down into the canyon, but if they wanted to leave it was on their own dime. She cried and cried when they first got there due to the isolation, but when they left a few years later she said that she was very sad to leave.

The pace was very slow, which suited me fine. The people were friendly. Although the clinic was located on one tribe's land, there were 10-15 other tribes who were located in the area. It was an interesting mix of people. I had never lived or spent much time in that part of the state, so it was a new experience for me. I liked the college town I was in, but felt bored much of the time. I often got depressed on weekend and missed my wife, who was trying to disentangle us from our various obligations in Detroit of the West. It took longer than we thought.