Brunch and planning

Today was such a fun brunch with my friends.  I'm never quite sure what to say so I always half-jokingly refer to my lady-friends/girl friends/totally AWESOME people!  I'm not sure why I need descriptive qualifiers but in any case, I love my San Diego friends.  We've been getting together for the past 2-3 years now and today we had brunch at Cat and Gary's new place.  It's in Hillcrest and Cat made a killer chorizo/kale/egg strata and breakfast potato hash.  She also made French Toast, but I've been trying to keep my carb intake down due to the upcoming wedding with the tight bridesmaid dress.  I mean, I know strata has bread but at least it's a component rather than the main feature as it is in French Toast.

Gary was out-of-town so it was still just ladies.  It was so much fun with good food and great conversation although it was probably one of our weirder and deeper brunch conversation strings.  In no particular order, we covered cancer at a young age, rectal foreign bodies, horribly needy patients, combative autistic children and various relationship updates.  It was pretty medical but since we are all in the field in some form, I guess it makes sense.

Last night, Shelby, Zen, Mechen and I went to Wine Vault.  The food and wine was delicious.  The portions were extremely moderate and high-quality which was great on one hand and on the other...I arrived too hungry!  But we had so much fun and got along so well.  I'm a little sad because one of the main topics of conversation was how Mechen was leaving at the end of September for about 8-9 months.  He'll be back in SD next July or August but by that point, I'll be gone.  It's such a huge batch of mixed emotions because it's a GREAT job and promotion for him and I get to focus more on work and ending my residency on a strong note but it's really sad on a personal level because I never wanted to do long-distance again outside of deployments and now, here we are.  In addition, it's weird being in such a long-term relationship without being married, especially in the Navy where you don't get to stay together duty-station-wise unless you're married and even then, no guarantees.  Marriage has never been my biggest priority but it's becoming more important and there's just so much change in the next year that it's hard to process.  So, one day at a time and a little healthy compartmentalization should get me through.  Stressing about upcoming decisions isn't helpful, especially with such limited information. Things should shape up a little better when I talk to my specialty leader at the meeting in September.  In a change from what I thought prior, I now really do NOT want to go back to Japan so hopefully, that'll work out.  I hope I get Washington or Great Lakes but that remains to be seen.  It's definitely a stress I'm trying to tamp down for now.

Tomorrow is church, Book Club brunch and maybe beach?  I also rented The Dictator and Friends with Kids from Red Box so hopefully we'll watch at least one of them!