Empire building

Last Tuesday, there was an unusual email awaiting me in my inbox when I got in to work. My cousin Sal, who is normally to be found immersed in his medical residency in Chicago, dropped me a single line:

Am going to be in NYC this evening. Want to meet up? Call me.

Did I want to meet up with my cousin whom I only get to see once a year?! Of course! So we made some quick plans; and that evening found Rohinton, Delta and me heading off to meet Sal on the Upper West Side.

As we gorged ourselves on Peruvian food, he filled us in on what he was doing in the city. He'd come for an interview for a specialised fellowship at Columbia.
"I really hope I get it," he confided, "this is a great program."
"When will you move here, assuming you get in?" I asked, ever-hungry to have more family in the area.
"This autumn."
Sal's brother and his wife were due to move to New York sometime this year too. "When's that happening?" I was curious.
"Oh, they'll be here by this autumn too," he clarified.
Brilliant! I thought.

"Yeah, I think we're going to stay on in this city for another couple of years too," Rohinton added. I'd been dreading Rohinton and Jeet's upcoming plans to move to Chicago for a while now, so my heart surged when I heard this news.

Did you catch that? Suddenly there's going to be brothers and sisters in law and cousins and all sorts in this city with me. A whole bamboozled family.

Watch out, the Jones's, for here come the McPipes!