scutmonkey dreams of rockstardom

i heart P.E.I.

2012-01-24T23:50:00.000-08:00

i recently read through the entire "anne of green gables" series by l.m. montgomery again, after discovering that the first few books were free on google books... luckily i got a chance to swing home recently, and was able to snag the few books that weren't available from our library. and though i do love google books on my phone and ipad, there's just something about the musty smell of my old paperbacks that is so... missed. evocative of earlier times, and an earlier, more innocent me with way fewer bags under my eyes.

reading the "anne" books was like having a reunion with old familiar friends. ms montgomery had this gift of creating these wonderfully fleshed out, awesomely REAL characters whose authenticity stands up even under the scrutiny of my now more-jaundiced psychiatrist's eye. she had a lovely way of describing humanity.

nice to know that some things do stand the test of time. nice to know that though many things have changed tremendously over these past 5 years of residency, 4 years of med school, and 4 years of college... some things haven't.

a letter to my 2011 self/2012 resolutions

2012-01-02T23:33:00.000-08:00

dear self...

first, accept that this exercise is purely and embarrassingly self-indulgent, and the irony is that after plunging into the world of social media and in-the-moment self-disclosure, you're even less able to piece together a cohesive narrative of what has happened this past year. but somehow, it does feel important to try to put together a history of sorts because 2012 already feels like we're at the cusp of... something big.

this year was, like every other year, full of notable "firsts". first visits (and hopefully not last!) to greece and paris. first time serving as a matron of honor. first "real" camera. you and the hubs started making the inexorable (inevitable?) transition to the mac universe. first baby strawberries to survive the neglected garden. first trips to random norcal attractions- sonoma, muir woods, food festivals.

you were ambivalent about most of the notable "lasts". last family medicine call. last mommy call. last chance for a continuity delivery as a resident. there's also the looming, currently all-consuming question about whether certain events will have been the last time ever.... e.g. last visit to the state fair. last trip to apple hill.

professionally, it's been really gratifying to finally feel the years of training sink in and settle fairly comfortably. i have faith that we might just turn out ok after graduation. and waddaya know, it turns out that you don't hate teaching! you just hate teaching when you're frazzled and time-crunched and stressed out... but actually even then, it's not the teaching that's painful, it's the consequences of our inefficiency that kill us.

personally, i found it very enlightening that without trying very hard at all (though *ahem* you WERE supposed to be trying quite hard), you were able to drop some pounds. apparently, having most weekends free and bathing in the light at the end of the tunnel seems to agree with your metabolism. i hope to keep up the healthy habits that you tried to implement... and to ride your shiny new bike around more frequently.

so, bravo on getting us through this past year. things to work on in the next year... faith, hope and love. keep the faith even though the decisions that loom large seem completely beyond the ability of two mere humans to make with some measure of wisdom. work on your faith, now that you've been able to peer through the fog of cynicism. hope for good things to come, but work so that they do. and love- you could do a much better job of being a loving wife, daughter, sister... and particularly if there should be a significant move or change in the next 6 months, a loving friend. we've been blessed with wonderful friends, and it's always important to nurture those relationships.

here's to the year of the dragon.

love,

the (early) 2012 me

te amo paris

2011-10-05T06:55:00.000-07:00

the hubs and i woke up at 5:30am the morning after we flew back to the states, jet-lagged and missing paris. so of course, i decided to go through our pictures from the trip and start to inarticulately record all that i loved so much. pictured above, two of my most favorite things about paris- walking along the seine at night, and berthillon ice cream/sorbet.

i would beg some consideration for the questionable coherence of this post however, given that along with some tasty souvenirs, i also picked up some kind of virus which is causing fevers and chills. but hey, remembering paris while in a feverish flopsweat is one of the more enjoyable things that i could be doing, all things considered.

we arrived at CDG airport early in the morning last thursday, and embarked on a whirlwind tour of the city of lights. we had 5 full days, but truly i think i would have liked to stay for another 5 weeks... months... years even! some scattered highlights/memory snapshots...

loved our little modern 1 bedroom apartment in the marais (3rd arrondissement) that we rented for the trip, decked out in IKEA-esque furniture and perfectly suited for our needs with laundry, kitchen, WiFi... we didn't plan on it being so warm (80s all week!) so ended up washing our "coolest" outfits over and over to reuse. cooked a few meals in our apartment, and got a small taste of what it would be like to be a local... which of course just fueled my city-living fantasies... for some reason, this dream of being a city-dweller dies hard.

we hit up the major touristy spots, criss-crossed the town on foot and have the blisters to prove it! next time, will be taking things a bit slower... and also will not be so delusional as to think that i could survive paris on heels of any kind. for some reason, in my head i saw all the women of paris walking around on 3 inch louboutins but i am here to say that about 90% of the women there wear FLATS. sensible women, them. anyhoo, on the hit list- eiffel tower, arc du triomphe, notre dame, place de la concorde, tuileries, luxembourg gardens, pantheon, opera garnier. on the museum list- the louvre, musee d'orsay, musee de l'orangerie, centre georges pompidou. we bought museum passes which were MONEY for bypassing long snaking lines of tourists, though there was no way to avoid the crush of humanity at the louvre for example- can't imagine what it's like to come in high season.

speaking of humanity, i really understood the term "unwashed masses" in paris. there are definitely looser standards of personal hygiene over there. and the bottom of the stairs at any metro station inevitably reeked of urine. no doggy poop around however, to the city's credit- that was one SJP/SATC moment that i did not need to relive ;)

oh the shopping. saw some of the chicest stores anywhere- colette and merci, but felt decidedly dowdy and old and uncool amidst the hipsters. i think i may need to undergo a makeover, post-residency... funded by my post-residency income. marveled at le bon marché, paris' version of neiman marcus and le grande epicerie which is paris' version of eataly. saw the original chanel store and the famous staircase (but was not allowed to take pictures). walked rue saint-honoré, and various other trendy streets for shopping in the marais. such motivation to lose enough weight to fit into couture!!

speaking of losing weight though... i now come to... the food. i'm truly finding myself inadequate to the task of documenting what was an amazing culinary experience. the hubs and i kept saying to each other that this or that was "the best thing we've ever had", and also remarked emphatically that "we can never go back" to "regular" food. as anyone who knows me might have guessed, our food options were the most researched aspect of our itinerary. i put my admittedly weak-sauce excuse for a diet on hold for the trip, and ate guilt-free. had the most amazing croissant, pain au chocolat, and madeleines at blé sucré. scored lunch reservations at chez l'ami jean for an inventive, rich, delicious introduction to basque-style cuisine- wonderfully complex soups, perfectly cooked duck and veal, unique and balanced desserts including a pumpkin concoction that i still think about. had lunch at spring restaurant, and made friends with the chef, a darling of the NYT- eating at the bar by the kitchen was such a cool experience. Chef Daniel Rose himself would describe each of our dishes, actually was very kind about our dietary restrictions, and was overall a perfectly gracious host. We were able to see the effortless ballet that his chefs performed while pumping out exquisitely cooked food... oh man, it really was a foodie's dream. even our unplanned meals turned out to be great experiences as well though- dinner was frequently some store-bought paté or foie gras with cheese and a fresh baguette, or stopping at a local bistro. one thing that i found fascinating though was how apparently most parisians finish their entire plate, because i got multiple worried comments from the waitstaff when i would leave any food on the plate... so apparently portion control when eating out is NOT one of the tools employed by famously slender parisian women.

my quest for the best macarons in paris deserves its own paragraph. i must say, i failed to visit all of the patisseries and bakeries that i intended to visit, for lack of time/planning so i consider my evaluation incomplete. however, i can say this much- i don't think there is such a thing as the BEST macaron, as i found that it is highly flavor dependent. pierre hermé had the best caramel macaron, while the overall best macaron that we had in paris was the orange-ginger at jean-paul hévin. ladurée offered solid, work-horse-like options for tasty macarons. angelina and michel cluizel both had good macarons as well... and i didn't get to try gerard mulot, which is also batted about when talking about the "best" in the city. all the more reason to continue my quest in the future when i come back (not if, WHEN)... also, i have many many flavors left to try from berthillon ice cream/sorbets...

another thing i loved about paris.... people just LOUNGE there. we took the bateaux mouche boat ride on the seine at night, and saw scores of young people just chilling on the banks with their friends. ditto for any gardens- luxembourg, tuileries, in front of the louvre... people just sitting and talking, lovers canoodling, families spending time together. it was lovely, and i can't really think of an equivalent here in the states... but there should be, i think. like, the big plan for friday or saturday night is... just to hang out and talk, in a lovely outdoor environment. i like it.

so, i took a year of french in 3rd grade which has left me with the ability to count to 10, and parrot a memorized "conversation" consisting of questions and answers to "what is your name?" and "how are you?"- essentially, totally useless. the hubs took french in high school, but his retention of any such skills is self-admittedly abysmal. luckily most people in paris speak english, which is good because any attempts i made at making simple conversation invariably led to some spanish sneaking in there. for example, water "sans gas" became "sin gas". "ouí" became "sí". i was reminded of one of my high school spanish teachers who also taught french, and frequently had this problem... i don't know that my brain is able to retain working knowledge of more than 3 languages, but i'm eager to try... whenever i can afford that darn rosetta stone software.

suffice it to say, i'm hungry for more paris. i loved it, and i want to go back in a way that is wholly atypical of how i've felt about my other travels. i hope this is the start of a beautiful friendship...

a day in this life...

2011-08-22T23:33:00.001-07:00

i find that my memory fails me too often... certainly more often than i'd like for someone under 30. and i'm starting to realize that as my residency draws to a close, i really probably won't remember very much about what it was like apart from vague nostalgic fuzzy bittersweet feelings. so, i'm going to make an effort to document this year in mental snapshots. today, for example...

8:05am- walk in (late) to huddle in clinic where i catch the tail end of a discussion about a recent article documenting anemia due to blood draws in the hospital.

8:15am- am told by my MA that a mien interpreter is not available until noon (while my mien-speaking patient has just been roomed). luckily, i grab another MA to serve as my interpreter to avoid yet another appointment carried out largely with awkward gestures (e.g. how does one ask about hemorrhoids?) and slow, loud talking in an attempt to somehow make myself more understood (which reminds me of an appointment i had with a deaf patient and his sister, who claimed to be an interpreter and whose claims i gradually started to doubt as she basically used the same rudimentary/universal body language/signs that i might have used while again talking loudly and slowly)

9:00am- get an inbox message saying that my nursing home patient, whom i saw last week after she was discharged from the hospital, has been readmitted with a stroke. she's now nonverbal and on comfort care. i'm never going to have a conversation with this lady again.

9:10am- carry out extensive discussion about contraceptive options with a new patient, whom i'll follow for all of 10 months before passing her off to a colleague as i leave. she seems nice, i'm sad that we probably won't see each other very much before i graduate.

9:30am- go out to mollify a patient of mine in the waiting room because she's been waiting 30+ minutes while her insurance status gets sorted out, and at this point i need to reschedule her. she says, "I need meds!" and i oblige.

... and so on, and so forth- i use my breaks in between patients to check emails, send yet another reminder email to my combined residents to RSVP to some event, switch a call, drop off a triplicate, call patients back, write notes, etc... though before lunch one highlight was that i did get to freeze an actinic keratosis off an attending.

12:15pm- i rush out to the cafeteria to grab a sandwich and travel over to the county psych clinic where i'm finishing up a 2 month stint. along the way, i tweak my ankle while navigating a tricky patch of soggy grass in my wedge heels.

12:30pm- utter panic. my computer has been replaced with a shiny new one. which would be otherwise very good news as my old computer operated at the speed of dial-up, however this is NOT good news because i had not backed up my patient files that are sitting in a folder on the desktop of said old computer. a flurry of desperate phone calls to IT ensues. meanwhile, i listen to several messages on my phone from this morning- a typical example: "uh, dr park, i really need to talk to you about my depakote, ok? because i think i might have a seizure and i'm almost out of the medication and the pharmacist told me not to take the medication that you gave me, so i don't know what to do! call me back, ok? please call me back!!?" (note, i am not practicing neurology).

1pm- time to see a new patient!

2pm- new patient out the door, and i'm frantically limping as i haul (haulping?) computer towers that look like the one that was in my office back and forth from where they sit in anticipation of exile to my office. dangit, the new monitor doesn't work with the old towers! i bring back another monitor as well... dangit, it doesn't have the power cord attached! i bring back yet another monitor... and try a tower... and another one... and another one... [life lesson learned- BACK UP FILES]

2:45pm- sweaty, covered in dust, but triumphant. i think i might survive the last few days here in this clinic. next few hours until 5:30pm spent seeing a few patients, writing notes, printing notes, sticking patient labels on notes, fielding telephone calls, faxing refill requests, reviewing labs, punching holes in all papers to put into paper charts, checking my OTHER inbox to make sure it's clear, etc.

... and now, here i sit at midnight, unable to sleep because like an insane person, i never learn that caffeine post-5pm results in insomnia, and the aforementioned gimpy ankle is protesting with the slightest positional change. and that, is another day.

hello, goodbye

2011-06-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

who decided that may/june would be a time for graduations and weddings? and whoever decided on making the start date for residency around july 1st? it makes for a really busy, bittersweet season. hello to new interns, celebrations for new married lives together, but goodbye to friends who are moving on. above, a brief pictorial spread of the graduations from this season- so this year, we hit up our family medicine and psychiatry graduations, as well as the hub's old residency graduation, in addition to our "combined" graduation/BBQ. congrats to all the new grads!!!

all of this graduating makes me really antsy to do the same. *sigh* one more year to go.

γειά σας! (hello!)

2011-06-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

independently, and long before we met each other, the hubs and i put a trip to greece on our bucket lists. last week, as part of our efforts to "enjoy life before babies", we crossed that item off our lists. now, any vacation is in my book a GOOD vacation, but this... was really a GOOD vacation.

we spent the first few days in athens, trekking over the entire city on foot and using the metro. our hotel was in plaka, a fairly touristy neighborhood with souvenir shops and restaurants crowding the narrow streets... and, oh by the way, THE ACROPOLIS smack dab in the middle. we were struck by the juxtaposition of classical, ancient architecture and ruins amidst modern fixtures. every so often we'd turn a corner and find a little square with an impossibly old looking stone arch... i suppose that's how athenians know who's a tourist- the one taking pictures of that old heap of rocks. we also ran into a little class of maybe 2nd graders, having a field trip and learning about history while sitting in the shade of the parthenon. how cool is that??! we of course hiked the Acropolis, visited museums (New Acropolis Museum and the National Archeological Museum were must-sees), the National Gardens, sipped coffee in Syntagma square, watched the changing of the guards in front of Parliament, shopped along Ermou Street, and ate ridiculously well. Gelato nearly every day (it really does taste better in Europe! must be the cows), refined and rustic preparations of moussaka + souvlaki, gallons of olive oil with freshly baked bread, baklava and marzipan goodies... *sigh* i like to think that the hours of trekking made up for the way we ate, though the pounds that we both gained over the week would beg to differ.

then we flew to santorini. when we explore an island, we EXPLORE. we probably drove through all the major roads of the island in our little smart car convertible. we walked basically ALL of the streets of oia and thira (the major cities on santorini), most of them multiple times. we saw ancient thira, the ruins of akrotiri, ancient monasteries (one right next to an apparently radioactive military base), museums with artifacts from 17th century BC, and all sorts of beaches (red, white, black). but, lest one think that this family doesn't know how to relax, we also spent an entire afternoon lounging by the pool. we watched the sunset every single night, usually whilst lingering over a delicious dinner. and oh, the food. santorini is known for their cherry tomatoes, fava beans, white aubergine (eggplant), and we ate copious amounts of all of the above.

at the very end of our trip, we saw a brief glimpse of the rumblings that have been going through the country in the form of a very laid-back "demo" in front of a sleepy government building in thira. otherwise, we would hardly have known that the country was on the brink of insolvency, though the long periods of inaccessibility to shops/restaurants in the afternoon (from about 2pm-5 or sometimes 7pm) hinted at the "work ethic" which may have led to austerity measures. the country is primarily dependent on tourism for the economy, so i suspect we were mostly spared from whatever ugliness may be the reality for greek people... but selfishly, i was grateful. i got my greek adventure, and am having trouble adjusting to the fact that i'm not there anymore. *sigh* perhaps someday, when the as-of-yet theoretical "kids" are learning about greek mythology, we'll be able to go back... God willing.

2011-05-15T14:48:00.001-07:00

This is our 2011 team for the CAFP Battle of the Residents.. and for two years running we have come in second. Third time's the charm?
We drowned our disappointment in Asian fusion food at Betelnut as arranged by Serena, so at least we got a pleasant evening in the city (and a travel mug) for our efforts.

(tim, me, char)

spring has sprung!

2011-04-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

so after the hibernation of night float, I've been happily adjusting to a regular schedule and the ability to enjoy gorgeous spring days... though my nose/sinuses object to the blooming greenery that so delights my eyes. the hubs and i have kept busy, finding hidden tennis courts in the pocket (very secret garden-esque), hiking, planting, exploring napa/st helena/sonoma, all of which i will be very glad to demonstrate through our new and improved pictures (from our new and improved camera) as soon as i find a way to edit down the size of these monstrous files...

june 2012 doesn't seem so far away now that i'm able to enjoy our family's half-attending status and mostly-free weekends. and now i can say that i am DONE with inpatient rotations, forever. so fitting that easter is around the corner- i feel renewed! :)

snippets from the ED

2011-03-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

thank you, oh ER schedulers, for scheduling me for 4 full weekends in a row. really appreciated that. especially for making me come in on sunday morning, after spring forward. that was a treat.

....

to the lady complaining loudly about me after i leave the room... just because i close the curtain on your narcotic-seeking, symptom-faking self doesn't mean i can't hear you. it's a CURTAIN. and moreover, what you're saying doesn't make me any more likely to give you what you want. might wanna take that into consideration next time you call 911 claiming to have fallen. oh and by the way, the paramedics actually remember that they took to you another ER last week, for the same exact complaint. the psych side of me acknowledges that this is why it's called a personality/substance-use DISORDER, the human side of me is still ridiculously frustrated and disgusted.

....

i am more determined now than ever to discuss end of life care with my family and patients. coded an 86 year old Asian grandma yesterday who collapsed in the hallway before even being roomed in the ER. as i stood on a stool over her, pounding her chest as her horrified family sobbed in the hallway, i thought... why? and, this is really not the way life should end.

....

on a happier note, i think that the ER folks are kinda like brothers/sisters from another mother to FP folks. but also like siblings who wonder how they could have come from the same parents sometimes.

....

as happy as i will be to be done with calls and night shifts FOREVER, i must say that my absence has inspired the hubs to great culinary heights. there really is nothing like coming back after a 12+ hour shift to a home-cooked meal.

....

i've been very impressed by the ER staff's growing familiarity and expertise with dealing with psychiatric emergencies. am the opposite of impressed by what this says about the state of mental health care in our county.

....

2 weeks of jeopardy, and 2 weeks of night float then i'm done with inpatient rotations foreva. BRING IT ON!

you mean money doesn't grow on trees?

2011-02-22T18:07:00.000-08:00

the hubs is working hard for his attending salary... i'm a kaiser widow tonight. here's hoping that this doesn't become a habit. i think i'd much rather be a golf widow.

night and day

2011-02-22T04:25:00.001-08:00

after three 7pm-7am shifts in a row, i suppose it is too much to ask to adjust back normally in one day to a regular work-hour circadian rhythm. sigh.

this ER rotation has catalyzed a transient role reversal between me and the hubs, however... one that i am not minding in the least! cooking is usually my responsibility, but given that i am essentially useless and unable (or unwilling) to do anything but stuff my face and sleep when i'm at home in between shifts, my intrepid hubby has taken up that mantle- at least over the weekend. i've been so happy to come home to hearty home-cooked breakfasts, and waking up to eat a healthy dinner before my shift... all prepared by the hubs himself. notable differences in our cooking styles- he's a lot more conscious/parsimonious with salt and fat. his menu choices tend to be driven by whatever was on sale at the market. he tends towards simple, clean presentation. all excellent contrasts to what he calls my "taste-driven" style (i.e. whatever tastes good, and damn the cost/calories). oh, i am so grateful... and making a point of showering him with lots of positive reinforcement ;)

a cure for cynicism

2011-02-13T22:16:00.000-08:00

multiple nights of good rest, sunshine, tasty eats and plenty of quality time with the hubby make for a much less cynical/jaded me. this year might not be so bad after all! so far, my 2011 has been marked by my tentative entry into social networking (which is actually a sign of a triumph over SCMHTC-induced paranoia about stalker-ish psych patients), a renewed commitment to de-jabba-fying myself (i.e. reducing my resemblance to jabba the hut), and a dawning realization that my time as an indentured servant (i.e. residency) is indeed growing shorter. and after all, what are my minor upsets in the face of tectonic shifts in the world, where revolution is a reality and freedom is a struggle?

the big picture. so hard to see sometimes... but always worth the effort.

sleep-deprived cynical musings (take with grain of salt)

2011-01-26T22:43:00.000-08:00

"Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?"- Count Axel Oxenstierna

after a year of NOT being sleep deprived, i suppose it's natural to expect a little... adjustment in both body and soul when stepping back into the life of late-night calls and long clinic days... but somehow i feel that irrespective of my current rotation or sleep debt, i would still feel the same way. and that is, that it kinda sucks to be a grown-up. one realizes that the other grown-ups don't know what they're doing. maybe it's because i'm on a peds rotation now, but i'm really getting nostalgic for the days of blissful childhood ignorance. hell, i'd settle for blissful early 20s ignorance even if it meant taking on all of that collegiate/med school frenetic angst. anything to distract from what is looking increasingly like a bleak reality.

sweet december

2010-12-27T09:18:00.000-08:00

i do so love the holidays... not least because they always involve good eats.

this year for my bday, the hubs made a reservation at the OTHER dinner experience restaurant in sacto- the supper club.

was a lovely experience after all, and now we are looking forward to exploring the yumminess that awaits us in napa and the bay area. we're planning on working our way through our "bucket list" of norcal restaurants before our lives take us elsewhere...

but before we leave, there are still 1.5 more years of residency to go! i'm so fortunate to have these awesome folks to spend that time with- my family/psych co-residents! some pics from our recent retreat-

... and christmas at home, who can beat that?

this year for christmas dinner, we decided to bust out a "family favorites" menu... seeing as we did the whole turkey/stuffing/kit&caboodle meal for thanksgiving. twas a delicious hodge podge of goodness- kalbijjim, salmon, lasagna, french onion soup...

we ended our meal with lovely desserts from porto's, courtesy of our guests- angela, eunice and john... mmm, cheese rolls.

and finally, i couldn't leave without seeing my newest little niece-

olivia! so tiny, so precious... my mom had to pry her from my arms, which are still protesting with little cramps at the insult.

family, friends, food... what more could i ask for? now, to work on those new year's resolutions...

dinner IS the show

2010-11-15T19:24:00.000-08:00

this year, for the hub's bday, we decided to go all out and have dinner at the one restaurant in sacramento we've been saving up to try...

the kitchen!

we weren't disappointed.

the chef showed us all of the fresh product he used in the courses, described where he sourced these products, and in exquisitely gratifying detail, talked about how he and his chefs created our lovely menu. was a foodie's dream- at least, this foodie's dream come true.

though they had many wines, including one with the awesome label above to the right ("I was about to draw you a pretty picture when it dawned on me that pretty pictures annoy me."), we indulged in a nonalcoholic treat- french apple cider!

and to end our evening, a "white glove" tea service where we got personalized brews of tea in our own little kettles. though i think the best part of our dinner was their wonderful accommodative spirit- for example, i asked for some soy milk for my coffee (given my lactose intolerance). turns out they didn't have any... but instead, they MADE some rice "milk" on the spot- FYI it involves a blender. they were also able to make substitutions on all the courses that had non-SDA-approved meats, which were mostly successful. twas an extravagantly expensive (though not as outrageous as french laundry- that must wait til next year, hehe) meal, but truly worth it in my opinion for the experience. turns out i benefited quite handsomely as well from the hub's bday... just the way it should be ;)

late summer/early autumn snippets

2010-10-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

just some random events from the last few months...

our first charity date- for the XP Family Support Group at the Carvalho winery in Clarksburg.

best part of the night? fresh (FREEEEE) mini donuts.

mary and erik are expecting! some pics from the baby shower... now 40 1/7wks and counting!

our annual trip to apple hill- we were fortunate enough to be joined by the laws and the kunkels. pictured below, the cutie pie kiddos and their families. mmm... nothing like celebrating fall with apple cider and fresh sugary apple cider doughnuts. oh, and of course the good company ;)

and finally, just last weekend, a CME trip to Houston... our family's first visit to Texas!

despite a rocky start (red-eye flight + sudden onset food poisoning for the hubs = bad news bears), we rallied to explore houston a bit. below, discovery green, this large park in downtown houston, was lovely- only slightly humid, temps in the high 80s, fledgling farmers' market, marketing for the volt, lily pads... very nice.

and what trip to texas would be complete without bbq?

sign of authenticity- stacks of wood outside your local bbq joint.

i can't believe it's autumn aka boot season. our warm indian summer gave way to crispy, shivery cool days... and it's only ONE MONTH TIL THANKSGIVING!!! one interesting aspect of this year-long rotation is the change in how i mark the passing of time nowadays, vs. before when all i cared about was finishing up any given rotation (e.g. just 4 more weeks! just 2 more calls!). now i'm all about the holidays. and atrocious sentence structure. . . . i think it's about time for me to switch back to FP :P

concrete jungle dreams

2010-09-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

ah, new york. this past week, the hubs and i indulged in a laid-back jaunt through the big apple... eating good food, doing whatever we wanted to do, sleeping in - all in all, a grand vacation. i know being on vacation in a city is far from the reality of living in a city, but my experience this time (and in prior visits) makes it hard to think logically about the differences- when i fantasize about living in a city, i think of manhattan.

without further ado, organized roughly by themes, a pictorial mash-up of our Summer 2010 NYC tour.

museums: we hit up the king tut exhibit that we had missed in SF, the museum of natural history, the new museum (pics yoinked from the web below), and walked museum mile past the guggenheim, whitney and the met. particularly enjoyed watching Hubble on IMAX at the museum of natural history, and rivane neuenschwander's exhibit at the new museum- her piece Rain Rains pictured below.

Broadway: spent an evening watching sean hayes and kristin chenoweth in promises, promises. we had pretty awesome orchestra seats- so close that i was driven to distraction by something that resembled a bindi on kristin chenoweth's forehead... googling after the show revealed that it was a microphone, which wouldn't have been noticeable from further away.

the sweets: there was so much in the way of good eats that i have to split up the desserts from the rest of the food pics. pictured below, two little red hens- a cute little bakery on the upper east side, with really great red velvet and brooklyn blackout cupcakes. also pictured (with pic stolen from the web), sugar sweet sunshine bakery which offered up an ok red velvet, but an outstanding strawberry cream cheese cupcake which andy proclaimed "the best cupcake i've ever eaten". the cupcakes looked so unassuming i didn't even taken pictures of them... also hit up some candy stores, including economy candy (my pic) and dylan's candy bar (web's pic). we also visited gramercy tavern for desserts, though i really wish we could have stopped by again for dinner. i had great aspirations for tracking down various dessert trucks, including the wafel truck, the cupcake stop truck, the big gay ice cream truck (not making this up)... but ended up incidentally having ice cream from the van leeuwen artisan ice cream truck in the village, and the lone remaining cupcake (s'mores) from chikalicious dessert club. at some point, even i had to admit that i had to stop trying cupcakes everywhere, because EVERYONE made cupcakes... including convenience stores on every corner.

the food: pictured below- shake shack with daniel & mike, rickshaw dumpling bar, le cirque (pre fixe lunch for restaurant week), rare, katz's deli (best pastrami ever), alice's tea cup chapter II (tastiest scones ever), and babbo (best. pasta. ever.). not pictured- mad for chicken (deliciously fried chicken wings of the bonchon/kyochon-esque variety), lunch at le bernadin with kay & steve, falafel at taim, pizza at motorino with molly, thai delivery food to our hotel (i just might be most jealous of the delivery service in nyc), random street cart fare. i could wax rhapsodic about most of our eats, but the most memorable dish was part of our pasta tasting menu at babbo (i have to thank my college roomie jenny for recommending this!)... we had the pasta bolognese replaced with the beef cheek ravioli, which is according to our waiter, the signature pasta dish of babbo. o. m. g. this dish would definitely be one of my picks for my "last supper"... rich, decadent, ridiculously good. and that's all i have to say about that.

random happy thing: so it just so happened that we were walking on fifth avenue one afternoon... and waddaya know, we found eataly. it had been open for about an hour, and it was packed. we could hear italian spoken everywhere, and the store was enormous, and then all of a sudden we see people whipping out their cell phones and taking pictures... yes, mario batali in the flesh.

but perhaps the happiest thing we experienced there was the gelato. andy proclaimed his pistachio gelato to be BETTER than the gelato he'd had in italy, and my pear and vanilla gelato was delicious. their desserts were also pretty tasty- pricey, but tasty. the standout was the monte bianco- a concoction of chestnuts and meringue.

yay for sporting events! the timing was wonderful... we planned our trip without thinking about the US Open, but a few weeks ago realized that we'd be there during the 1st-2nd rounds. so one lovely evening, we headed out on the 7 train to flushing and watched some good tennis. we had tickets for arthur ashe stadium, and we were in the middle of the djokovic vs. petzschner match when a fight broke out amongst the fans a few sections over. we couldn't really see anything because everyone was standing up, so we saw the fight on youtube after the match. ridiculousness! we're hoping to visit wimbledon someday as well, and i just can't imagine something like this happening there- at least, let's hope not. in any case, it was an awesome experience and i'd love to attend again if given the chance.

other random moments: trekking all the way out to the colbert report studios only to find that the show was on hiatus for the whole week :( , shopping in soho for a jacket (restaurants apparently have dress codes that they actually stick to out there... what a concept), shopping desperately along our walk on the UES for more suitable footwear and finding some $7 sandals at H&M (not all shoes, no matter how comfy they may seem, are NYC-worthy), washington square at night, and strolling in central park. oh, and finding out that the hubs is now BOARD CERTIFIED. :)

*sigh*

i heart NYC

it was a much-needed break, and has helped tremendously with providing some perspective. i DO feel refreshed (even if i did catch a little cold over the past few days). i've been able to realize, yet again, that there will be a life after residency which will start in less than 2 years... a life that is full of possibilities.

that being said, i still really don't wanna go back to work. don't suppose there's any solution for that.

summer escapes

2010-09-05T22:37:00.000-07:00

this year, the summer weather in sacto has been... ok. temperate, even. ironic, then, that we've spent a lot of time traveling this summer... to even HOTTER climes.

before we spent time wandering about the country, however, we did hit up the california fair for the 4th year running! one more year to go...

i've also been "escaping" various things, including the tedium of clinic by eating lots of yummy lunches with my partner-in-crime, betza... occasionally her hubby and adorable kiddo join us, then it's REALLY hard to go back to work.

i was fortunate enough to represent our FM/psych program at the aafp conference in kansas city this year-

pictured- the convention center, kelvin (fellow FP resident) at our booth, and some combined folks. it was hot and humid, but it was actually really nice to meet other combined residents, hang out with some of the UCD network residents, and wander about kansas city. twas SUPER nice to be away from work for a bit too, i can't lie. in between all the schmoozing and trolling for swag, we ate some awesome bbq at jack stack's, and one of the best steaks i've ever had at the capital grille. i gotta hand it to kansas city... they know meat.

as far as our other travels- the hubs went back to michigan, and also got to spend some time in haiti on a medical mission trip... and we just got back from a glorious visit to NYC. more pics to come!

busy june

2010-06-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

it's the end of the academic year, which at this point doesn't excite me the way it did before when it meant several months of vacation time, but this year we did have cause for celebration. this year, i said goodbye to my family medicine classmates and our two FP/Psych graduates. this year, my hubs graduated. i almost can't believe it.

below, alvin and joby get their graduation certificates, then pose with some of the FP/Psych posse.

one last tower cafe brunch for alvin before he goes up to seattle for a PSM fellowship.

the summer heat has been creeping up on us, but one night we got to celebrate andy's co-chief's birthday out on the patio of aioli bodega espanola... so beautiful!

andy's graduation was great, but bittersweet. they put together an amazing presentation/slideshow, which was put together in the wee hours of that very morning. it was sad though to say goodbye to all the staff and faculty and residents who had become like his extended family... made me think about how hard it will be (though i claim to be counting down the days) when i end up leaving after 5 long years of residency.

life up here is going by a lot more quickly than i imagined. i think this month of graduations has reminded me to savor this experience of residency while i can, because who knows what the next two years have in store? i can't wait to find out...

i heart CA

2010-05-31T18:44:00.001-07:00

from norcal to the central coast to southern california... i love it all. got a chance to remind myself why with our last vacation week. i do so, so love my state. and vacation.

we started out in SF, for the CAFP battle of the residents. we thought we had a pretty good shot, seeing as we had a team of 3rd years- one categorical, one FP/OB and one FP/psych... we came in tied for second, having been wiped out in final jeopardy. boo. i don't take well to losing. but it did make for an evening in SF with the FP folks, with whom i don't get to spend much time. here's us in chinatown (below). we ate dinner at jeanne d'arc, which was walking distance from the battle.

then, the next day we headed further south to big sur for our first camping adventure in our married lives. just us, a tent, and the wilderness. oh and running water/toilets... that was one of my stipulations because, after all, it is ME we're talking about.

it was beautiful. but unexpectedly dangerous. see the falls above? the picture to the right shows about a 10 foot drop down from the viewing area, which my hubs fell/leaped down in pursuit of our camera. he also scared two fellow hikers, who actually saw him go over the edge and then subsequently were telling themselves, "that was the craziest thing I've ever seen!" luckily a few scrapes were the extent of the damage... or else i would have REALLY had to injure him. ;)

some views from the coast, a grassy spot where we cooked ourselves lunch on the way down to the central coast, and a view from the car when we were driving.

next stop on our vacation- hearst castle and cambria! unfortunately, the drizzle that cut our camping trip short followed us on our tour, but it was still worthwhile. ken burns was right, national parks ARE america's best idea.

cambria itself was also so cute. we spent some time wandering by this seaside trail, watching otters gamboling in the surf and sea lions sunning themselves on the rocks. it was cloudy for the first part of the afternoon, then literally in 30 minutes the wind came and swept the clouds away. i caught a bit of otter reality TV on video- the last part of an otter clapping, then grabbing a quick smooch from his partner.

cambria also happened to have some great food! had a few nice dinners at the black cat bistro, and robin's. also tried the famous ollalieberry pie at linn's. so tasty...

speaking of food, which i tend to do quite a bit on this blog and in life, we made a few tasty stops on the way back down to yorba linda. ate some cajun goodies at the palace grill in santa barbara, and stopped by the brown butter cookie company in cayucos. i've decided that i looooove anything with brown butter. my personal favorites were the honey and original brown butter cookies- not so much a fan of the cocoa or coffee.

so for the 2nd year in a row, we were able to spend our 3rd anniversary with my family, including my parents who were celebrating their birthday as well. dinner was again french, tradition by pascal in newport beach.

then, on our last weekend, a beach vespers trip to laguna beach with yorba linda church. the boys have grown up so much... every time i see them, it's a reminder of how much time is passing up here and how OLD i'm getting ;)

2 more years... just 2 more years...

the dangers of car sleeping

2010-05-24T01:04:00.001-07:00

just finished a glorious week of vacation, and now paying the price for indulgently napping on the drive up here. can't sleep! must work tomorrow! gah...

i'm probably the worst driving companion ever, what with my penchants for throwing my feet up on the dashboard and frequent dozing off for hours at a time. i think it stems from my increasingly virulent carsickness- i often used to sleep on buses when going on school trips or tours to fend off the nausea. i think the gentle motion of a running automobile is as soporific to me now as it probably was when i was a baby. it makes matters worse that the hubs claims to be unable to sleep while i'm driving... something about me not being a "defensive driver", or some such nonsense. anyway it makes it so i never contribute to our long driving trips, unless it's through some windy mountain roads and i'm unable to fall asleep. which is probably for the best, because actually, i've been able to admit to myself that i'm really NOT a good driver. in fact, i'm kind of a bad one. which has been difficult to swallow, what with 10+ years of denial behind me. call it a female version of machismo (feminisma?). i really really didn't want to be that stereotype- asian female [BAD] driver. but after multiple incidents of hopping the curbs, lopsided parking, amnestic stretches of distance, and a ticket or two for the "california roll" thru stops, i have to admit... dood, i suck. so i happily pass along the responsibility to the steady, capable hands of my partner, and nap luxuriously. which works out well on most counts, not so much at 1am on a work night.

tis the season!

2010-05-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

the hubs and i have been able to travel west a few times in the past few weekends... something that i hope will be happening more frequently now that he's done with inpatient rotations FOREVER. and EVER. maybe.

we started off the wedding season by going back to stanford to witness a traditional Catholic wedding- my friend julie, from my college days of korean drumming, married sam. it was also my first Catholic service ever, and i was fascinated by the ritualistic nature of it all- standing, sitting, chanting. but in the end, twas the same as every other wedding ceremony... it resulted in a happy married couple. ah, tis spring, the time of twitterpated-ness.

julie & sam's wedding @ mem chu

wedding favors- only julie would rummage through countless stores to find hundreds of cute teacups and saucers to give away...

hwimie ladies!

the lovely bride had 3 outfits for the reception- chinese (in honor of her newly minted husband), korean, and the lovely pink dress that her own mother wore at her reception.
so cute.

another trip was to the Cartier exhibit at the legion of honor museum in SF. we picked a gorgeous day to visit, and saw some STUNNING pieces that belonged to the likes of the Vanderbilts, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, and various other very very wealthy people.
ah, to have been born a princess/heiress/actress. below, some pics of the jewels courtesy of nytimes, as they didn't allow photography in the museum.

though i suppose a princess/heiress/actress would not have made a little trip down to burma superstar, a hole-in-the-wall yelp and foodtv phenomenon for their touted dishes- rainbow salad, tea leaf salad and samusa soup. we came, we ate, we were satisfied.
who needs diamonds and fancy things when you've got a full belly? ;)

it's not such a psych-ation anymore...

2010-04-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

i've been doing outpatient psychiatry exclusively for the past 3 months now, which is a surprisingly refreshing change from switching rotations every month. i have my own office, that i decked out in ikea-esque decor in shades of blue and gray. i have a regular 8-5pm schedule. i'm able to dash out for a leisurely lunch on the town from time to time, with friends/co-residents who AREN'T EVEN ON THE SAME ROTATION. which is, as you may infer from the caps, shocking... in that somehow we can coordinate the same amount of time to go out and eat lunch together, despite the fact that we are technically still slave laborers aka residents. perhaps most shockingly, i know what my schedule will be > 1 month in advance. though i thought this year might be unbearably boring and humdrum, given my supposed 3 week attention span for any given rotation, i'm finding that to my surprise... i really like it. turns out, i am a creature of habit and the slower pace of outpatient psych suits me quite well. i like being able to flat-iron my hair in the morning, and maybe try on an outfit or two prior to picking one for the day. i like coming home and sometimes (though still not always) having the energy and ambition to cook something for dinner. i even like the camaraderie of sorts that i find in driving during rush hour- at least i'm not driving the deserted freeways found late at night or way too unbearably early in the morning. i get to go to work, and go home when most everyone else does. there's a lot to like. typically when we switch over to psych, it's like a vacation- thus, psych-ation.

however... it's also in some ways the hardest rotation i've ever had. i'm learning how to do therapy, and therapy is... interesting, challenging, exhausting, humbling, enlightening, infuriating... all of those things and more. along the way, i'm learning much more about myself... which in itself is proving to be occasionally painful. not to mention the burden of all that psychic pain that sits in my office every day. it's funny... i didn't know this is what it would be like when i chose this field, so i guess i'm lucky that i'm enjoying it overall... but i'm definitely also feeling the strain of having to think so hard all the time. ;)

my mom was afraid that i'd get weird(er) by going into psychiatry. i do wonder sometimes if this part of the training is testing the bounds of my mental wellness and personality. i'm quite grateful for a partner who, among other things, is there to anchor me while at work i explore very strange, new lands.

wishes

2010-04-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

i wish i could do therapy... or do... anything, the way these dancers dance.

i wish my hubs had more time with his dad.

i wish i could find a way to avoid eating my feelings. or to stop avoiding the gym.

i wish our health care system wasn't rationed based on income/employment status.

oh, and i also wish for world peace.

in loving memory

2010-04-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

in memoriam

11/17/46 - 3/6/10

life goes on

2010-02-20T15:41:00.000-08:00

a brief pictorial mash-up of the past few months... like the christmas decorations lingering about our house, which i'm only now starting to slowly pack away again, there were a bunch of pics i needed to post- so, let's take it back to... the holidays :)

thanksgiving and christmas dinners were made for two at home. roasted my first turkey, ate our first turducken (from nugget). good times, even if we couldn't spend it with the rest of our families.

new year's was the one holiday spent with family. we wiled away the last few hours of 2009 with my folks at home, accompanied by alice & her significant other. we were also able to meet up with some friends, erica and jennyfur pictured below.

is it really that time already? the 3rd annual combined resident rank-list meeting, potluck-style, as pictured below.

now that i'm in outpatient psych clinic for the year, with "regular" office hours, i'm much more likely to actually get three day weekends. we were lucky enough to have MLK Jr weekend off, so headed off to SF and Napa. ate at fabulous places, like Vitrine at the St Regis, Chez Papa Resto, and Bouchon. also ate some street food, awesome cheese, and many... many yummy Bouchon bakery goodies. wandered through SFMOMA, found (appropriately enough) the MLK Jr. memorial waterfall, and generally lolled around like well-kept yuppies.

we had a vacation week earlier this month, which was spent in michigan with andy's family. we were around for andy's dad's first chemo treatment, and i'm happy to report that he's doing well. also reaffirmed andy's belief that i couldn't survive in harsh weather conditions when i tried to help shovel/snow-blow out the driveway and got exhausted after moving the snow around ineffectually for a few minutes. how do people live like this?!

needless to say, very grateful to be living in norcal and humbled into NOT complaining about our drizzly weather. not, however, as happy to be going back to work. who says you have to retire in your old age... wouldn't it make much more sense to retire earlier on, say in your 20s, when you can enjoy the time? then maybe go back to work when you're bored of not working?? *sigh*

what goes up...

2010-01-07T23:19:00.000-08:00

so it's not a little ironic that the next post after one entitled "happy times" should be about not-so-happy times. but such is life.

the end of 2009 was hard. i'm hoping that 2010 is better.

here's a brief summary of my travails, with a disclaimer that in the grand scheme of things, things could definitely be a lot worse... so please bear with my self-indulgent ranting for a bit.

after 2 straight months of inpatient medicine, plus 2 weeks of jeopardy over the holidays, i was/am about ready to call it a day and find a new calling. i had the worst personnel issues of my life, ran my first and hopefully only code blue ever (i'm still haunted by every single decision i made- he survived, only to be put on comfort care), jeopardized someone for the first time in my life, got jeopardized back to the VA for an overnight call which just cemented my self-diagnosis of PTSD, and decided that one of my academic departments seems to hate any possibility of change and therefore is doomed to mediocrity. i'm a little bitter. just a little. having free weekends and adequate sleep are helping with my recovery, but it's slow going.

but while my work life was imploding, something much more insidious was going on... there was a mass growing in my father-in-law's colon, and it finally decided to burst in the beginning of december. we flew out to michigan in haste, after being informed by my father-in-law's surgeon that he needed emergency surgery for a large colonic mass which has apparently perforated his bowel, such that he now had a large walled-off intraperitoneal abscess. in addition, there was evidence of multiple metastatic appearing lesions in his liver and lung. i think it is truly a miracle that he survived the perforation, given the stoicism/stubbornness that led to him waiting the several days it must have taken to wall that abscess off. we arrived perioperatively, and were able to stay a few days before flying back. i'm happy to say he's now recovering quite well and looking to start chemo in a few weeks. still, we'd appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

the new year has been a great occasion to appreciate all of my many blessings, so i feel very grateful for all that i have and the loved ones in my life... perhaps all the more because it becomes more and more clear that life is very short. my new year's resolution? living life day by day.

happy times

2009-11-10T15:10:00.000-08:00

secrets capri riviera cancun
unlimited spa package. book it now, people. book it now.

so we spent a blissful week here in cancun, mostly at the spa. it was muggy and hot, so we made good use of the unlimited virgin pina coladas (see below). i was a little suspicious of the all-inclusive stuff, since the quality of food tends to suffer... but really, how can you argue with unlimited food and ROOM SERVICE 24/7??? more than anything else, it was so relaxing not to worry about planning anything- no reservations needed, no research on restaurants, etc... and the unlimited spa part was ... awesome. so it's not really unlimited, but you can book 4 treatments a day and choose from massages, wraps, facials, hydrotherapy, etc... i think the best part was after our treatments, we'd wander out in our robes and be greeted by attendants with warm neck wraps and blankets, who subsequently tucked us into these chaise lounges by a little waterfall. ahh, i feel more relaxed just thinking about it...

twas lovely, despite the killer mosquitoes that definitely left their marks on my tender extremities. man do i love vacation.
*************************
november is full of birthdays!
alvin had a bday celebration at cattlemen's, and won himself a celebratory picture that will live on in infamy at the restaurant after polishing off a ginormous amount of meat. before and after pics below.

the hubs celebrated the big 3-0 this past week. fittingly, we had 3 bday dinners. below, one of them- a romantic date night out at mulvaney's b&l.

and our bday present to ourselves?

there's just nothing like a musical...

the ecstasy... then the agony

2009-10-12T18:46:00.000-07:00

i'm on vacaciones... and boy do i love my time off. the hubs and i spent the first week in cancun- pics and rave reviews of the spa to come... then this weekend flew back to socal, with big plans for meeting up with friends, eating good food, all that jazz. that was before i got a cold, which is kicking my butt right now.

i was talking to a co-resident about this after i heard he was sick during his vacation- he said it was like his immune system would go on vacation as well. i'd love to do a study on this... i wonder if people whose work is subjectively very stressful or tiring, or who can't afford to miss days of work because of whatever reason, get more SICK when they have time off. don't ask how this would be physiologically possible, i'm drugged up with cold and allergy meds. and probably couldn't give you a good answer anyway.

anyhoo, i can't even really complain because i'm at HOME. which means home-cooked meals, and a life of leisure including lounging in a feverish state on the couch all day watching a marathon of "the rachel zoe project". yes i know, hours of my life that i will never, ever get back... but the sheer WASTE of time is like a luxury. i'm luxuriating in brain-numbing Bravo reality tv shows. did i mention that i'm feverish?

i do feel horrible about how this illness is affecting the hubby's vacation as well. makes me realize that "in sickness and in health" was quite a serious vow. though i guess i shoulda known that any vow that ends with "til death do us part" is pretty darn serious. ;)

Victor's Tacos

2009-09-29T05:45:00.001-07:00

these are Victor's tacos. he only makes them on the night shift at my hospital cafeteria, and only on special nights. he does this with no discernable predictability, which elevates these very tasty carne asada tacos to a near-mythological status. these tacos have a cult following- any time there's a line of 8+ people at the grill, you can bet that Victor's making the tacos. seriously, people page each other about this in the middle of the night.

while i do love me my tacos, they remind me in many ways of night float... both cause heartburn, both are generally bad for my health, both can hold unexpected bits of piquancy/spicyness... oh what am i saying, night float is nothing like tacos. tacos make me happy, at least transiently, whereas night float certainly does NOT. i have 3 more nights left, and counting down the hours. last night i had an unexpected treat- tara came in to keep my company while her patient was being induced, so i didn't spend too much time bumming around the call room in a lonely funk. not that i've spent much time bumming around anywhere this past week... it's been busy.

blurgh. can't wait to be done. i feel like a big lumbering bear in hibernation mode- when i go home, i'm either eating, sleeping, or slumped on my couch trying to catch up on my recorded shows. at work, i'm a big lumbering bear in survival mode- half-panicked and desperately hoping to go back to my cave and sleep. some people just aren't meant to work at night. i'm one of them.

late summer festivities

2009-09-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

so i feel like i've been on OB forever, which is my excuse for not updating more often... or rather, for not going out and having a life, which would prompt more frequent and exciting updates. however, as the summer draws to a close (though you'd think someone would have told the sacramento weather system that it should be getting COOLER), i've definitely been able to spend some time on Park Family Traditions. now that we've lived here for 2+ years, there are at least 2 things we MUST do in August/September-
#1 - go to the fair!! which was dehydrating and artery-clogging as usual, though at least this year they decided to pull the fried White Castle burgers from the menu... i know because the hubby went looking for them. *sigh*

#2 - visit apple hill!

this year we were fortunate enough to have alice, my sister-in-law, around for the trip. we've essentially given up all pretenses of actually picking fruit by this point, and simply drive up to taste the baked goods and fresh apple cider. there's really nothing like fresh apple pie a la mode, or moist apple cider doughnuts hot from the fryer. pleasant discovery of the year- chocolate apple cookies... surprisingly tasty!

-------------------------------

i'm about to start 2 weeks of night float, which is a teensy bit terrifying as i generally dislike not having the comfort of a team around me. it's also the most overwhelming feeling in the world when the pagers start going off like crazy with admissions and triage and laboring patients, and there's just little ole me to take care of it all- i had a call night recently which very nearly provoked me into shedding tears at work, which i just do not do. i save them for the drive home. i had 3 laboring patients (who require q2 notes), 2 of which had crappy looking strips (fetal monitoring), several OB triage pts sprinkled in, phone triages every other hour, and 3 medicine admissions (one of which i blocked by going down and essentially taking a H&P) over a 12 hour call. i really hope i don't have too many nights like that... the upside? andy's on night float these next 2 weeks as well, so i have a chance of actually seeing my husband during the week... also, the light at the end of the tunnel- an all inclusive SPA vacation to cancun after night float concludes... only 14 more days...

random bit

2009-09-11T08:42:00.001-07:00

Here's my 15 seconds of fame in Sacramento. A surprising number of people still read the newspaper, y'all.

Overhauling Health Care: Med school grads spurn family practice September 07, 2009 Bobby Caina Calvan
"You can make a lot more money with less pain, suffering and sleep deprivation,'' said Park, a third-year resident in family practice and psychiatry at UC Davis Medical Center...

o happy day

2009-07-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

gloria & matt's wedding @ terranea resort, rancho palos verdes

despite a 2 hour wait for our car at the end of the evening (WORST VALET EXPERIENCE EVER), twas a beautiful day and a beautiful wedding... we think the bride was enjoying herself, judging from these glowing photos :)

independence (from work/Sacramento!) day

2009-07-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

the hubs and i decided to make a getaway to the bay on july 4th weekend. so we booked a room at hotel palomar, bought some tickets, and drove west. we watched transformers on IMAX, shopped a bit, and ate a fabulous dinner at fifth floor.

what's more American than baseball, i ask you?? so apropos for july 4th. astros vs giants, at AT&T stadium- such a GORGEOUS day for a ball game. shannon and alvin joined us to enjoy the blowout- 9-0.

we spent a lovely afternoon wandering through pac heights/japantown, enjoying the remnants of the fillmore jazz festival. was so happy to meet up with pavithra, who was savoring the end of her vacation week. tried some tasty (and not so tasty) chocolate treats at bittersweet cafe. then, decided to wander down the pier for our fireworks cruise. simple enough, right?

so there are THRONGS and THRONGS of people here, though it's hard to appreciate on this picture. we were about to miss our boat when alvin and shannon suggested that they take our car and park it while we RAN to the dock. so, we hustled, and made it on the boat.

the cruise was great... and the fireworks, spectacular.

then, after the boat docked, we were horrified to find out that our friends had been driving around the ENTIRE TIME, because they couldn't find any parking. this was HOURS. somehow we met up, and then it took another 2 hours to drive about 2 miles away from the pier and back to alvin's home. seriously people, do NOT bring your cars into SF on holidays, it's RIDICULOUS.

despite the ignominious ending to independence day, it was totally great to get away from the sacramento heat and explore the city a bit more. here's to new holiday traditions!!

eep :P

2009-07-19T23:22:00.000-07:00

finished my first family wards call tonight. i already hate phone triage (clinic patients calling with random questions) and am obsessively checking over the patients i admitted... though of course one decided to leave against medical advice, which was in itself a trial. it's lonely being on call by myself- there's noone to tell me i'm being stupid, or for that matter that i'm right. where's my senior?? o yah.. i AM the senior- holy crapola.
not that i needed any more confirmation that i shouldn't be an inpatient doctor... but i got it today. man am i gonna be glad when i'm done with all of my calls.

boston getaway

2009-06-28T22:45:00.000-07:00

i usually can't stand red-eye flights. i can never sleep on the plane, and just feel grumpy about standing in security lines at the crack of dawn- "waddaya MEAN i have to stand here barefoot as you scan my bags??!!". but i braved TWO red-eyes in the past 4 days (not to mention time away from the hubs), just so i could spend some time in bean town with good friends. this post is going to read like a food journal, but what can i say- my friends share my love for good eats :)
i rolled into boston around noonish on thursday, and was met by jen- one of my best friends from high school. she met me at the airport and eased me into the use of public transportation- which FASCINATES me, btw. i commented on this repeatedly throughout my trip, because i feel so sheltered in sacramento. being thrust into the milieu of humanity on the T was so... invigorating. and occasionally smelly, loud and uncomfortable. all so exciting for a country mouse like me.

my first day involved a verrry relaxing mani-pedi, lunch (omg, best chicken salad sandwich of my life) at sel de la terre, wandering through copley place, rediscovering richart chocolates, and a quick snack (almond pear tart) at l'aroma cafe on newbury st. trekked over to youn's neck of the woods for dinner at redbones bbq in davis square/somerville, yummy ice cream from jp licks, then candle pin bowling.

second day, lunch at chacarero (yummmmmy chilean sandwiches), eaten on the common with jen and youn. went to ICA, then an exceptional "1/2 birthday" dinner at no 9 park, and eventually ended up at clery's.

third and final day- lunch with sonya at cambridge one for "yuppy pizza", finished off with fauxberry yogurt at berry line. afternoon was spent wandering through jfk library- which i highly recommend. and yet another solidly tasty dinner: 4-course tasting menu for $45 at ten tables in cambridge. then, food inc at kendall square theater with the girls & ravi. i'm sure a lot of people will say this after watching this movie, but seriously- it has changed the way i look at all food, and hopefully will seriously change the way i eat.

many, many thanks to my fabulous hostesses- youn and jen, for a very much appreciated whirlwind stay in boston. can't wait to visit again!

j&j wedding

2009-06-28T21:56:00.001-07:00

our very good friend jonk decided to get married, and (foolishly) asked me to be their wedding coordinator. thus, the emergency bridal kit above (which btw, included the not pictured suitcase containing a hair dryer and portable steam iron). OCPD much? just a tad.
and despite all of my failings, they did indeed get married sometime last month, and it was beautiful. i just didn't get much of a chance to take pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it. or check out their photographer's blog- jean kim photography. not too bad for her first wedding, if i do say so myself. below, clearly not HER work, but the 3 pictures of the wedding that the hubby and i managed to take.

i am inordinately proud of one tiny contribution to their wedding, though. i decided to get them a little topper cake from michelle's bakery in redlands for their actual cake-cutting ceremony, while the ladies from sweet tooth cupcake supplied all of these other gorgeous treats. i didn't realize at the time i ordered the cake that this would mean i had to decorate the cake myself. figured it out real quick when i picked up the cake, day before the wedding, and the top of the cake was covered with sharp, cruel-looking shards of white chocolate. didn't quite seem apropos for a celebration of love.
a few costco bouquets and a few frantic google searches to avoid poisonous wedding cake flowers later, i had... something. the cake on the left was converted to the one on the right, wisely, after input from the truly professional renaissance woman, sharon lee- who was the reception coordinator.

clearly, cake decoration is not a career option for my future but i had the most fun doing this.

congrats to the happy couple!!

time to breathe

2009-06-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

i always have the same internal debate, at some point during our vacations. i start to think... i like vacation. i would even go so far as to say i LOVE vacation. so... do i really have to go back?? why can't i do this all the time?? oh wait, i guess i need MONEY to support this leisurely lifestyle. bummer. and, i guess i'd feel pretty unfulfilled, given that i have this life calling to be a doctor and help people. hmm...
i guess i don't have to tell you how the debate ends. but with each vacation, the arguments AGAINST coming back seem to become more and more vociferous in my head. particularly when one is in maui. or the central coast of california. or at cham-sut-gol, eating tons of beef. ahhh vacay, i love it.

a brief pictorial spread, in no particular order, of our spring vacation '09.

our 2nd anniversary fell smack dab in the middle of our vacation. we were fortunate enough to celebrate with my family- once again, a birthday and a wedding celebration :)
maison akira didn't let us down.

and just like 2 years ago, we had 2 cakes. only fitting.

the season begins...

2009-06-28T21:25:00.000-07:00

the wedding celebration of rich & jenny

i'll let the pics speak for themselves
of note, andy was one of the best men- to return the favor :)

twas beautiful, the way weddings should be....
congratulations!

sundries

2009-06-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

there's a kitty cat that likes to greet me when i come home from work. he is always sitting on our doormat out front when i pull into the driveway, then scampers off when i close the garage door. he doesn't wear a collar, so i don't think he belongs to anyone... and i can't adopt him for fear that my husband would issue all sorts of ultimatums. not to mention my unfortunate and increasingly sensitive cat allergy. but all of this is besides the point. i can't have a real pet, but for a few seconds i can pretend.

4 more days of internship left. i thought i'd be happier about this... i'm glad to be done with 2 years of residency, but absolutely terrified of resident responsibilities. to ward off the panic, i'll be taking a quick trip to boston... where i plan to be thoroughly diverted, and to celebrate a hard-won break.

in the doldrums of summer tv programming, i have found a few refreshing shows. my favorite thus far though has to be TOP CHEF MASTERS. i mean, wow. the caliber of the chefs, their ingenuity, the entertainment value- awesome.

photo spreads to come... when i can overcome the inertia.

introducing... baby rafa

2009-06-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

only fitting, after a long hiatus in blogging, to follow-up my last post on baby anticipation with a celebration of baby rafael kunkel.
here's the not-so-little (9lb+!!) kiddo while still in-house, with the proud and sleep-deprived parents :)

then, about a week later, i got to see him in his natural habitat- home with the still very proud, sleep-deprived, but deliriously happy parents.

welcome to the world, baby rafa!! :)

babies, babies everywhere

2009-05-08T18:34:00.000-07:00

i'm on peds wards... lots of cute kiddos around. makes a woman think about her ovaries... but no, no baby fever for moi. i'm stuck on gadget fever- my latest acquisitions:

and even with these, i have trouble keeping them charged and functional. yeeeah, i have a couple steps to go before jumping to living things.

i must say though, it seems like a lot of our friends have succumbed. we've had a couple of baby showers recently-

first, a triple shower for betza & tom, jeremy & noelle, anika & oliver:

aren't the ladies just GLOWING??? since the shower, noelle and jeremy have welcomed baby kasey to their family... still waiting on two...

then, because one shower is just not enough, we recently went for afternoon tea for betza-

we can't wait to meet the newest kunkel- rafael, hurry up and get here! :)

is it vacation yet?

2009-04-27T23:14:00.001-07:00

blurgh. insomnia. a familiar friend on any inpatient service. i guess peds is no different.

this swine flu thing is nuts- we're swabbing all sorts of kiddos on the ward who have any hint of upper respiratory infection. is it bad to wish i had a suspected case of swine flu to get a few days off?

clearly, it's about time for a vacation. only 13 more days to go.

we've had a few visitors over the past few weekends- alice came up with our doggy-niece lucy; below, a pic of the park siblings in mckinley park.

and jermo spent a few days in town, mulling over his decision to come here for med school and attending a "second look". puahaha... slowly but surely, my subliminal subconscious hocus-pocus ESP skills will lure all of my friends to sacto...

night shift musings

2009-04-08T06:39:00.000-07:00

why does fried food taste soo good in the middle of the night? why do people bring their healthy kids to the ER? the world may never know...

i'm sick. twas inevitable, i suppose, despite developing severely chapped hands in response to obsessive hand-washing and decontaminating with alcohol gel/foam. darned kids and their darned viral URIs!!!!! blurgpghtfttt.

i imagine if purgatory existed, it would look a lot like the waiting room of an ED.

overheard them calling "code blue- CCU" 5 times over the course of 2 hours. that's gotta be someone's worst call ever.

can't...stay...awake...any...longer.

a lovely weekend

2009-04-01T15:09:00.000-07:00

so i'm finally done with my month of intern OB... and what a way to end. i started my last day on L&D, went to clinic in the afternoon, then came back for the night shift! friday morning (cesar chavez day!), i drove home and quickly got ready for a weekend of fun & sun! i was working with about 4 hours of sleep, so i spent most of that day in a state of pleasant sleep-deprived delirium.
i slept in the car, and woke up in this pleasant little town- los gatos! margaret, my generous chauffeur, also chose an excellent place for lunch- Trevese. they have a michelin star. i didn't want to leave...

but alas, we had responsibilities to fulfill. margaret, shannon and i had prepared a talk about "jane"- a fictional patient with psychiatric issues and many, many medical issues throughout her lifetime. and at 4pm on friday evening, we gave that talk. twas my very first public speaking gig in a professional venue. i'm so glad it's over!

the rest of the weekend was spent tooling about santa cruz- here's the view from the hotel:

dessert @ chocolate in downtown santa cruz with margaret, shannon, liz and alvin

hiking by our hotel- the chaminade...

and to finish off a fabulous weekend, date night with my hubby- dinner at the grange, and a 3D IMAX experience - monsters vs. aliens!

life is soooo good. i'm on peds-ER, so enjoying the pleasantness of interspersed shifts and plenty of time off. mm, can't wait for vacation.

granlibakken = good times

2009-03-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

2nd year is undoubtedly better than 1st year of residency... why? well, for one thing, somehow i now have time to attend conferences- like the uc davis family medicine network conference in tahoe a few weekends ago. we stayed at the granlibakken lodge, and reveled in the snow...
here are mehrdad and shannon giving a case presentation...

andy & i struggling to pose in time with the 30 second timer function on the camera while getting just the right exposure...

and the karaoke night, which shall live on in infamy...

and a little clip of our first attempt at snow-shoeing.

I couldn't do this without...

2009-03-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

My house hubby.. who also brings home the bacon. This picture makes me happy ;)

word to your mother

2009-03-03T21:16:00.000-08:00

i'm on ob right now, so it's actually past my bedtime but just wanted to post my thoughts on motherhood... i cannot believe our moms had to go through this crap. labor is NOT PRETTY! aughgh... granted, i am a little shell-shocked after coming off several months of psych and then gyn/blocktime but MAN. it's only the second day, and i'm kinda dreading the next 4 weeks. i'm working long hours, feeling incompetent all the time, and scared out of my crocs that something horrible will happen to these moms and babies. yes yes, joy of birth, etc... this really was more enjoyable as a med student with minimal responsibilities and all the time in the world to learn, which by the way was THREE YEARS AGO (since my 3rd year OB rotation). i trudged to my car today and yesterday through the drizzle and wind, thinking... i am a bad intern. also thinking, thank goodness i'm fp/psych.

i can survive anything for a month. i think.

retreat? RETREAT!!

2009-02-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

went to my first work-related retreat yesterday... in napa! got to eat dinner again at uva trattoria, spend some time with my combined residency friends, and sit through lots of presentations. fun! the hubby got to come up as well, and spent his time doing considerably funner things like playing tennis and buying cookies at butter cream bakery (as rachael ray might say, deeelish!!). i think i'd much prefer being the "spouse" at future conferences/retreats. spouses get to eat better food ;) feeling a little guilty as i ducked out early to come home and work on a presentation, but truly couldn't take another day of people talking... and talking... and talking. thus, i retreated. :P

we did need to make a presentation to introduce ourselves for the retreat, so i put together this little slideshow. i spent way too much time on it, so to extend its shelf-life, so to speak, i'm gonna post it here. enjoy. or not. i'm just happy to have another place to put it! hehe...

too much of a good thing?

2009-02-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

have i mentioned how much i love ice cream? i guess it's a little bit of a fear/love relationship, given my increasingly distressing lactose intolerance... but with my handy lactaid packets at the ready, there's rarely an ice cream dish i won't try. though this little sundae did give me the slightest pause:my good HS friend jermo was interviewing for med school and visited- he needed to buy his friend (pictured above) some ice cream, so i recommended Leatherby's. they like to go big with their sundaes. and yes, we finished. all of it. mmm...
jermo's visit happened to coincide with Dine Downtown, a restaurant promo for 3 course $30 dinners. andy and i had gone out for dinner with the takagi family at 58 degrees, then when jermo came it gave me a convenient excuse to try another restaurant- chanterelle. margaret and shannon, my combined residency colleagues and sacto besties, joined us for dinner, then ALSO accompanied me for the THIRD dessert of the evening- at rick's dessert diner. twas a good day. but i do think i've learned something very important- there is such a thing as too much dessert. three was my limit. good to know.

sleeping by the fishes

2009-01-10T20:38:00.000-08:00

ok so i tried to make the hubby post something, even going so far as to upload all the pics/videos so that all he needed to add was text... but alas, he expresses no such inclination. anyhoo, here are some pics of a recent weekend getaway to monterey...

we stayed at the intercontinental, which spans cannery row- pictured above, the hubs staring out at the row, and the view. pictured below, the monterey aquarium with all its wonders...

whale-watching adventure- grey whales, dolphins, otters, and sea lions, oh my!

a few pics from the deck of our hotel...

the hubs and i have decided to make a new year's resolution to travel as much as possible... here's to new excursions!

happy new year!!

2009-01-01T22:29:00.000-08:00

best wishes to all for a wonderful new year...

and with the new year, comes that bright optimistic burst of energy for resolutions... though it may indeed prove to be just as ephemeral as every other year's resolve, i do have quite a few things i'd like to improve in my life... so i shall say HAHA defiantly in the face of late-january laziness & february fatigue and carry on with these goals!

enough with the blustering, i really just wanted to come up with catchy slogans for these resolutions. with your indulgence, i shall share a few...

1. Get FINE in '09 (oh-nine!) aka Fitness is Mine in '09!! yes, the requisite exercise/diet/weight-loss goal. i suppose it's part of the dream to think that someday, if i lost enough weight, i might not WORRY about weight. but then again i look around at my comparatively emaciated gorgeous friends with similar worries and realize that perhaps it's not just in hollywood that a woman can never be skinny enough. in any case, SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. even my fat fat pants are looking askance at my paunch.

2. Get down with the Big G!! ok, perhaps not so catchy. i'd really like to get more grounded, spiritually, this year. part of the issue has been church- it's been tough to transition from a very supportive church family environment to a new and foreign fellowship, particularly since nearly every weekend someone is post-call, on-call, pre-call, or just plain knackered. the other issue is just a general falling off of spiritual discipline, which went by the wayside along with the other disciplines of avoiding sweets and going to the gym. my soul is hungry- gotta start feeding it some good stuff.

3. Figure out the rest of my [professional] life!! ok, not catchy at all. but still, something i really do need to get done sometime soon. part of why i chose this field is because of its refreshing breadth... except now it's feeling more than a little daunting because i know i have to choose SOMETHING on which to focus. ironic, isn't it? even though i chose what i view as the most primary and generalized of fields, it's kinda necessary to specialize in order to best market myself... and more than marketing, i just can't learn everything there is to know so i do need to pick and choose a bit. which is hard, because i have so many interests and like nearly everything- geriatrics? sure, i love the old folks. disaster psychiatry? awesome! adolescent medicine? cool! delivering babies? shoot, sign me up. psychotherapy? intriguing... gaargh- part of me thinks that i just postponed the hard decisions because i just couldn't do it in med school. anyhoo, hopefully this next half of the year which will be spent in the intern trenches of peds/OB will help me solidify some plans.

and then there are my constant- daily, if you will- goals of trying to be a better wife, daughter, sister, friend, colleague, doctor. striving for excellence- not just a slogan, it's a freakin hard slog. but one that has reaped many often undeserved benefits. as we start this new year, i'm also counting my many blessings and thanking God yet again for providing such a beautiful life... thank you all for being a part of it. :)

bday goodies

2008-12-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

gotta give belated pictorial props to the hubs who greeted me with a byootiful bouquet of flowers and some local hand-made chocolates. also featured, cute mug from sis-in-law and MORE chocolate goodness from margaret (thank you!!).

1st Annual Park Holiday Potluck

2008-12-24T11:32:00.000-08:00

so this year, we decided to try and spread some holiday cheer with a potluck... because i think that sharing food is the surest way to encourage bonhomie. we invited our respective classes from residency, as well as the entire combined residency family. et voila- holiday fun! as the title suggests, we hope to make it an annual event, even if we both tend to panic the day before and cook WAAAY too much food (resulting in leftovers ad nauseum). but after witnessing our teeny little house packed with friends and food and warm fuzziness... i think we'll be hosting a few more of these things. some of the photos here are stolen from jeremy, one of my FP classmates- you can quite OBVIOUSLY tell the ones that were taken from my lowly point-and-shoot vs. his paparazzi-ready lens.

so many desserts, we needed another table. mmhmm, my kind of party.

my centerpiece!

pictured, alvin trying to make bryce (the one in the striped hat) smile while also carrying david on his back. awesome.

jeremy & the hubs

merry christmas to all, and to all a good night!!

a night in the life (part dos)

2008-12-18T14:51:00.000-08:00

11:01, 12:12, 1:30, 1:45, 2:05, 4:15 - "... thanks for letting me know they were kicking the staff and that they were put in seclusion, here's something to help them calm down...", "ok, i agree that the guy with cocaine intoxication should get something to make him stop spitting at staff"... all the while, i'm hoping not to get the call that i'm dreading- seclusion in the crisis unit- because i can fall asleep fairly quickly with these other calls, albeit often hovering in a strange hallucinatory half-wake state for awhile (e.g. dreaming about pages and patients that i haven't gotten). i don't medicate everyone, however, lest you think all we shrinks do is push pills (or if they're real lucky, injections). sometimes i demur, because clearly not EVERYONE needs to be conked out or quiet, despite the staff's anxiety when they aren't.
5:00am- "that guy who was spitting at staff, he's in seclusion for throwing punches." CRAP. i roll out of my futon bed (in the spare room, so as to spare my poor hubby), throw on something warm, drive slowly to the crisis unit with bleary eyes, walk straight in to examine the patient, fill out my requisite forms, then walk straight out.
5:45am- back in bed, and dreaming about cute little black puppies (wish fulfillment??). they keep getting lost... i must find them! as i fall asleep, i hear the water running in the other bathroom- my hubs must be getting ready for work... maybe i should say good morningzzzzzzzz....
7:00am- ...aaaaaaaand i'm finally stopping the addictive snooze-sleep cycle and waking up to go to work.

a night in the life (part uno)

2008-12-17T21:51:00.000-08:00

here's my attempt at liveblogging. call it half-dead-blogging. appropriate, somehow, because i'm on call for the crisis unit (our psychiatric emergency room) and the treatment center tonight. here's what a typical evening looks like:
4:15pm- call down to crisis to ask how things are looking, as i'm heading home from another rotation site (nursing home visits, yippeee)... i ask, how many patients do they have left to see? i hear, "a lot". shucks. guess i'm visiting crisis before i head home...
4:30pm- take a look at the board- not tooooooo bad, but there is this one patient they'd like me to see. "sir, why were you handing out your personal checks to people at your apartment complex?" "i want some tums because i ate too much dinner i guess i asked for the second tray i wanted to buy a car, so i stuck it on everyone's window- it said 'do you want to buy a car?' and i only have $1000 in my bank account but you only need a down payment on those things anyway and lady i need some tylenol can you write so i can get it whenever i want?" hmmmmm.... tough call...
5:15pm- racing home (in rush hour traffic) to meet andy so we can carpool on our way to...
6:15pm- DINNER at the firehouse restaurant in old sac! one of the hub's attendings is giving a talk on daptomycin... mmm, fascinating, and what? free food?? and dessert??? SOLD. we enjoy some tasty appetizers and as the salads are being served, just as i've buttered my hot freshly baked dinner roll...
6:56pm- my first call of the night. someone has walked into the unit and immediately gotten himself into seclusion for threatening staff and otherwise causing a ruckus... *sigh* guess that roll will have to wait.
7:20pm- i stroll into crisis, examine my patient (conked out comfortably thanks to prn meds), field a few more pages from the units, write a few meds for folks, then run out..
7:45pm- just in time for entrees!! mmm, mahi-mahi...
7:49pm- someone needs something for anxiety on the inpt side... done, and DONE.
8:00pm- ahhh dessert! sadly, not so exciting when tasted... solid block of chocolate fashioned in the shape of a cake. meh
8:05pm- ...and someone else has won themselves a trip to the seclusion room in crisis! the spouse and i gracefully bow out of the friendly chitchat and head over to the crisis unit...
8:40pm- finally, heading home. hopefully for the night.
9:14, 9:23, 9:27, 9:27, 9:31 - "... yes, he can have some ambien for sleep as well."

... TO BE CONTINUED

egads!

2008-12-10T21:35:00.000-08:00

who knew that underripe persimmons are like POISON??!!!

...

best comedy show ever: whose line is it anyway... they just don't make 'em like they used to.

...

a word to the wise- DON'T SPEED IN ROSEVILLE. apparently the traffic cops don't have anything better to do than to patrol the streets/freeways like VULTURES. blurgh.

...

thanks to all for happy bday wishes- i'll start celebrating again when i hit 30... whenever that will be ;)

gobble gobble all the way home

2008-12-02T20:53:00.001-08:00

ahhhh thanksgiving. time for glorious, guiltless consumption. it's fast becoming one of my favorite holidays. this year, we were actually able to take a little 4-day vacation to socal and spend t-day with my folks. my bro and i were responsible for the dinner:

he took the meats (turkey + roast), and i took the sides (cornbread/hawaiian bread stuffing, mashed potatoes/parsnips/rutabaga, mushrooms + green beans, baked acorn squash

thanksgiving football!

the thing we were most thankful for? having a home. here are some pics of the ravaged shrubbery around our house...

here's to many, many Thanksgivings to come at home :)

stigma

2008-11-22T04:54:00.000-08:00

a family medicine colleague of mine curbsided me on a patient of hers... it's such a familiar story- on meds, but unknown dosages, hasn't been taking them for months but actually does really need them... then she mentioned that the patient had "schizophrenia?" in their medical history, though it was not obvious on exam... she asked, why would someone put that on their chart if she didn't have it? to which i answered, well some people just don't know any better... and then she asked, why would someone do that if she didn't really have it? it must be so hard to get that off her record, that's so awful... i thought, well yes it's not appropriate to have an incorrect diagnosis on one's chart, but what is so bad about schizophrenia as opposed to something like 'palpitations' or an incorrect drug allergy that one would want to get it off their medical record as soon as possible? oh yeah... it's a mental illness. and not the "ok" kind, like depressive disorder or anxiety. it's one of those that you don't want anyone to know about. because you wouldn't want people to think you were psycho or crazy.

*sigh*

the freeway complex fire

2008-11-22T04:17:00.000-08:00

i was just about to doze off on a lazy saturday afternoon when i got a call from my mom, calmly informing me that they had just evacuated my house and that the hills in our backyard were ablaze. needless to say, i wasn't sleepy anymore. let me just give away the punchline right now, and say- my family is safe, and against all odds, our home is still standing too... this story has a happy ending, though incredibly improbable and unexpected.
i talked with my brother, who described a frantic dash out of the house with embers flying in the air as they rushed into the cars. watching the shrubbery burn through his bedroom window. my family drove away that afternoon thinking that our house was gone- a lost cause. up in our neck of the woods, i was frantically trolling all of the socal tv station websites, watching the live feeds and hoping that i wouldn't see my childhood home razed to the ground.
we don't know exactly how our house was spared- like in many other areas, the damage was seemingly arbitrary. our neighbor 3 houses down the street was not so lucky. however, some family friends of ours did report seeing some heroic neighbors fighting a blaze on our hilltop with garden hoses... by the time my parents drove back to help, after hearing that people were trying to save our house, everyone had left but our house was untouched. our hills were scorched, with layers of ash everywhere, but... THE HOUSE IS STILL THERE. by the grace of God and good neighbors.
i guess it's a common mental exercise- "what would you take if you had to evacuate?" and i realized that the things that i worried about the most, after i knew my family was safe, were memories- the piano that suffered through years of painful dissonant practice, our photo albums, my summer cooling spot on the living room couch directly in line with the AC vent, the collection of disney videotapes that helped us survive the years without tv. i can't even imagine what all of those who lost their homes this past week must be feeling. but there is hope- those phantom neighbors really reaffirmed my faith in humanity... we'll all pull together and rebuild.

at long last...

2008-11-04T21:56:00.000-08:00

i chose a winner. after years of feeling disenfranchised, and in fact never getting the president of my choice for as long as i've been able to vote... years of feeling disgusted, discouraged, and actively considering a move to another country...

finally.

yes we can.

obama/biden '08

lovin' (and missin') the life of leisure

2008-10-26T21:52:00.000-07:00

ahhhh vacation. those glorious 2 weeks that make me question why sloth and gluttony are considered 2 of the deadly sins. the hubby & i are now readjusting to work, but it's very difficult after having such great fun and getting oodles of sleep to get used to the residency lifestyle. *sigh* someday, a balanced life? anyhoo, for your viewing pleasure, a pictorial timeline of our carefree frolicking in socal & hawaii...

the hubs had never been to knott's berry farm, so i decided that we needed to take a little trip. twas literally a ghost town, as most folks apparently would rather be scared out of their minds at knott's SCARY farm instead of the wholesome attractions available during the day, so we were able to hop on rides without waiting... as pictured above, one of their newer rides where you get on a little plastic pony and are shot forward at great speeds. unfortunately, my partner is somewhat vestibularly challenged, so we limited the wild rides... which is good, actually, because i think my favorite part of the day was visiting the knott's chicken dinner restaurant for lunch and indulging in some fried chicken with biscuits. twould not have served to have a queasy belly.

we were able to meet up with jayon, one of the groomsmen and now medicine resident who's been slogging away at his program in LA... ate at pizzeria mozza, my first sampling of mario batali's fare, for dinner (tasty but nothing spectacular, though as a bonus we did get to see dave grohl & wife dining at an adjacent table) then hit up the ktown pinkberry where we found these PARK ON 6TH signs. so there you have it. a Park on 6th ;) though i was sorely disappointed (again) to find that the strangely milky new taste of pinkberry as experienced at another store previously was now THE taste of pinkberry everywhere because of a recipe change. NOT cool. so what if the original recipe wasn't "real" yogurt??!!! it was TASTY, and ADDICTIVE- they didn't call it crackberry for nothin. now it just tastes like red mango. boo. i'm planning a petition.

here's me and my sis in front of the santa monica pier- we wandered the promenade and the pier, sampling yummy cupcakes, and got a lot of sun...

...then met up with my bro & mom for some good eats at the water grill. and by good, i mean very expensive but superbly tasty. the occasion for the family dinner (minus my pops)? a belated and early bday gift to my siblings- MUSICAL TICKETS!!

i know, i know, not exactly the first thing that one would expect, especially for my bro, but hey- i think they enjoyed it. loved allison janney in it.

but then it was time to go to hawaii. to stay here:

thank you costco travel for a great deal @ the fairmont orchid, an excellent hotel which has only served to prejudice me even further against any non-luxury accomodation. we were at the big island, which is good because as island vacations go, it seems that bigger really is better because we found ourselves going a little stir-crazy towards the end of our ~1 week stay. twas nice to have a LOT to explore, and explore we did. north, south, east, west, all the coasts.

here are all our exploits at the volcanoes national park- walking through a lava tube, trying to see the lava flow (it doesn't flow all the time, who knew??!!), sulfurous steam that creates "vog" (volcanic fog) coming from the craters... and some pretty flower.

the hawaii spirit. love it. except when it comes to the hawaii style of driving. i'm all about getting from A to B in as little time as (legally) possible. driving in hawaii, not so much about efficiency or speed. luckily, andy drove.

then, on the east side, we visited hilo: ate authentic saimin @ nori's saimin and snacks, a yelp favorite. ate rambutan (a cousin of lychee?) from the hilo farmer's market. wandered through some japanese gardens. visited akaka and angel falls.

Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park down towards the south, past Kona.

we enjoyed a couple of gorgeous sunsets... oh and so many other things i was just too lazy to photograph, like visiting both a macadamia nut and coffee factory, kayaking at our resort, eating at ridiculously excellent restaurants like merriman's (twice), alan wong's outpost @ the four seasons, etc... good times.

but we couldn't leave hawaii without seeing our good buddy jonk. we stayed in oahu just for a night, but got the abbreviated culinary tour including malasadas and bubbie's mochi ice cream. many thanks to captain kim.

and finally, right before we caught our red-eye back to reality, we had to eat at alan wong's one more time.

we spent the last precious weekend in socal with family, visiting andy's sister in loma linda (and discovering an awesome board game- Settlers of Catan), getting my hair cut & permed (a semi-annual occurrence), eating delicious korean food, and dreading monday. why is it that one has to work to get paid? *sigh* it was wonderful to see all our friends and to spend time with family, but it's back to the grind for now and hopefully i'll remember what's so great about this whole medicine thing soon.

flight of ideas

2008-10-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

battling the bulge aka freshman 15+ is HARD. particularly when i've let myself slide into an unprecedented state of deconditioning. and why is it that there are so many cute clothes that just don't accommodate a poochy belly?! but i digress... one of the reasons why it's so difficult to shed pounds- trips to APPLE HILL!!

andy and i decided to take our annual trip to Apple Hill earlier this month, and were happy to actually find APPLES on the trees... and fresh apple pie with homemade ice cream, and the delicious apple cider doughnuts that go oh-so-well with fresh apple cider.

that little blue speck is andy, wandering through the orchards looking for the perfect unsullied fuji apple. citing puffy insect-bitten feet (that's another story), i lingered behind and snapped away.

after a hard day's work of apple-picking, we found sustenance. Schnitzel and bockwurst!

so random... our very own Oktoberfest ;) sans beer.

here's a pic of some combined (family med or internal med + psych) folks- we got together for some soondubu .. twas a nice distraction from the daily grind of internal medicine @ the VA.

in other news, made my first pie (with hand-picked apples from Apple Hill)... it's pretty difficult to make something taste bad if you add lots and lots of butter. and sugar. but dang, pies are no joke. much respect to the bakers of the world. no longer harboring dreams of opening my own bakery... unless someone else is going to be rolling out those crusts.

omg, jon stewart just compared john mccain to gollum. awesome.

totally looking forward to vacation. counting down the days, in fact. 8 more days. 3 more calls. bring it.

not all doom & gloom

2008-08-17T00:05:00.000-07:00

so... yes, the past few months have been difficult and stressful (andy starting out as a resident on medicine, me on inpatient psych), but we HAVE been taking advantage of some of our free weekends. here's some evidence of how we're staying sane ;) and having some summer fun.

date night @ 55 Degrees, and one of the few movies i would go to an actual theater to see- WALL-E!!!!! seriously, we're trying to come up with ways to infiltrate pixar- i think they need a company doc/shrink... and i think that doc/shrink should be ME.

the suitemates reunion

i lived with these 4 ladies my senior year of college, and 5 years later we are all in norcal again... at least, we were :( sadly, the occasion for our reunion was to say farewell to youn, who has moved across the nation to boston. of course, our sorrow didn't keep us from cooking and eating up an excellent brunch, as pictured above. we know how to eat. it was so great to hang out with this collection of very different, amazing ladies.

i've been working on some fitness goals for myself, and roped a couple of my FP/Psych coresidents into a health pact... so, one sunny afternoon, shannon (who refused to be photographed) and i set out on the american river bike path. we did ~10+ miles, and let me just say... i have such heightened respect for cyclists now. but clearly, as pictured below, my dedication to health has not been fanatical... to say the least.

yay for fair food!!! the california state fair is back in town, and again it's just mind-boggling that a whole year has gone by... we went in the evening this time, which was a GREAT idea because we were able to walk around the entire fairgrounds without fearing heat exhaustion. enjoyed lots of fried foods, admired food stands with LCD screens, saw some livestock, watched a hypnotist show, ate some more fried food, oohed and aahed over fireworks, then called it a day.

here's to big fun.

mental exhaustion

2008-07-23T17:49:00.000-07:00

today, one of our more vocal psychotic manic ladies was muttering, "no feelings, no feelings! they don't allow you to have feelings in this place..." as i walked out the door. she was looking at the mirror and doing her little jerky dance of madness as she said it, but i felt like she was talking to me. but now, for a short while, i'd like to share some of the feelings that i normally have to suppress in order to get through the day.

inpatient psychiatry is... challenging. we see the sickest of the mentally ill, and it ain't pretty. most of the rules of medicine and inpatient care that i've learned last year and in med school don't apply. patients' histories and diagnoses are often a mystery. most of them DON'T want to be there, and tell you so- over, and over, and over again with varying degrees of hostility. they also don't want to take medications, which is usually what landed them in the hospital in the first place. so, as you can guess, patients who don't want to be there and don't want your stinking meds also aren't interested in building a therapeutic alliance, or in giving you more insight into their psyche. they just want out, and I'M the one standing in their way. how do they know this? because i'm the one who has to go to their court hearings and testify about how they're unable to take care of themselves because of their mental illness... which means that they need to stay longer and take those goshdarn meds. some of the patients have gotten past the anger and are just there, waiting, until we can find a place for them, which depends on funding and just how crazy they seem because i have yet to hear of a living facility for mentally ill that wants mentally ill patients... then there's the scariness of it all- potentially unpredictable, crazy patients who could lash out in violence. i've already gotten over the verbal lashings- my favorite printable name that i've been called thus far has been "psych witch".

so how do we get through all this? how do i cope... well, it helps that my time there is limited- only a few more months, then i'm done. it's really important to use my sense of humor- to chuckle when my previously very sick, manic psychotic lady calls her even more manic and psychotic roommate "nuts". to smile when the very scary stocky pacific-islander male patient who mumbles to himself and stares me down suddenly breaks into song and starts doing the hula to "pearly shells". i've heard that the friday night dance is pretty amusing- the recreational department turns on some hip hop and lets the patients get down with their bad selves. sugar is also a temporizing measure- my fellow resident stocked his desk with jelly beans, which never fail to uplift (briefly) on a tough day. and i talk it out- to my co-residents, my husband, to anyone who will listen... or read ;)

but it is tough, even if the hours aren't bad, because i feel so drained most days. forget about working out- i'm pretty happy if i put some dinner on the table and do a few loads of laundry. my reading selections from the library have gotten progressively fluffier. they say it gets easier, and it's certainly better now than it was the first week... so i continue to hope that things will get better- and not at the expense of my optimism/idealism.

.... and i'm spent.

2008-07-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

that's enough uploading for the month.

my pet peeve of the week: people who expect respect because of a title. respect is earned, and is not correlated to the grouping of words (or letters) following your name. argh.

oh joy and happiness- love, LOVE our new FP/Psych interns. and ridiculously happy that betza has joined me on this long, crazy journey that is our 5-year residency. yay for great comrades-in-arms.

totally did NOT love my first week at our inpatient psych ward, but i'm slowly getting used to the barely organized chaos. one thing i'm not getting used to- teaching med students. you'd think this would come easily, after all i was JUST a med student, so i should know what was helpful and what was not. you know, like i used to tell myself when i was a kid that i would never be one of those adults that "didn't get" children because i would always always remember what it was like... but no. sigh... i may not be able to teach much, but at the least i'm hoping that they have a great experience with psychiatry, to encourage a little empathy for the extremely mentally ill.

alright, enough blogging. time to whip up some grub for the hubby, who's now on internal medicine (as a SENIOR, craaazy) and working late most days. and then, off to bed early to recover some hours of precious sleep lost last night while on call- *sigh*... only 4 more years of call to go :P

potpourri of pictorial randomness

2008-07-10T17:17:00.000-07:00

you know the thing about waterproof cameras? you never finish them, so they stick around for ages and then when you finally develop them (if you develop them) the pics have this grainy, ancient look- BUT i had to share these pics of our honeymoon!! check out the turtle!!! ... yes, i'm very excited... as we kayaked around, there were turtles all over the place but i was so afraid we wouldn't get a nice underwater pic. anyhoo, i'm definitely looking forward to some more watersport fun on our next trip to hawaii, this october.

my bro graduated!! some pics from the happy event... i was retarded and left my digital camera behind, so these are from an old-fashioned disposable. what can i say, i have a soft spot for the old school.

rafting, moi??

2008-07-10T16:35:00.000-07:00

i rafted down the american river the other week... and survived. this was an awesome opportunity set up by alvin for our housestaff- man, it was fun. it was seriously great to try something NEW and potentially risky, if for no other reason than to push my normally risk-averse boundaries a bit. my Michigan visor was sacrificed to the river gods, but in return i think i regained some of that ole adventurous spirit that i've been mourning this year.

here are some pics of the group, signing forms before the trip, then happily grouped together for a picnic lunch. also, joby and shomir picking wild blackberries for dessert.

ACTION PICS!!!

and the view from one of the quiet portions of the river.

summer shenanigans

2008-07-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

despite weeks of neglect and intermittent guilty (over)watering... we have our first tomato.

and now, a pictorial spread of some of the reasons why i'm so surprised our tomatoes are growing... june and july have been busy months for us.

above, the oh family (jason and sharon) battling it out with air hockey (p.s. she won, 7-0)... and below that, the reason why we were fortunate enough to have a reunion- sharon and david's wedding!

andy was charged with creating the slideshow for his program's graduation, along with cathy- one of his classmates, pictured above previewing the slideshow anxiously before the guests all arrived. thankfully, the long nights of editing paid off and the slideshow went off without a hitch. and, the culmination of one year's work- andy's intern certificate. moonlighting, here we come!

this was a wonderful treat- tim, one of andy's attendings, invited us to an argentinian dinner, which was sponsored as a school fundraiser at someone's beautiful land park home. we had gourmet eats, watched a little argentinian tango demonstration, listened to good music, and enjoyed a lovely summer evening outside.

summer may never be the same again, now that it doesn't mean three months of blissful vacation, but thanks to friends and family... summer is still pretty darn great.

time flies

2008-06-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

the morning coolness that usually greets me on my walk to work from my car has been replaced by a foreboding warmth... another sacramento summer. already?! this year has gone by ridiculously quickly, though i suppose almost all chunks of time probably seem that way in hindsight. it's totally surreal though, planning for orientation events for the INCOMING interns... not to mention other life events, like the class of '08 LLUSOM graduation that we were fortunate enough to attend (no pics tho, forgot our camera :P) or my brother's upcoming college graduation, and of course- sharon and david's wedding?!! i can only imagine what the next "school year" will bring.

i started intern year at the VA on a substance abuse rotation, waiting in my little office for mentally ill and substance-abusing veterans to show up for their appointments... and it's also how i will end my *first* intern year. gotta love the VA, when i'm on a psych rotation that is... a nice, chill, outpatient rotation. it's definitely been nice to have some time to reflect on what i've learned, and what more i need to do to become the kind of physician i want to be- needless to say, there's a LOT. i'm starting to think that 5 years, though long, may barely be enough to time to learn what i want to learn.

but enough about work... here's what has been occupying some of my newly found time on this psych rotation: PHOTOBOOKS!! we recently got the digital copies of our wedding pics, which just happened to coincide with a promotion on mypublisher photobooks for costco members... anyhoo, we got a little carried away and created essentially copies of my original wedding album for our parents (though not as photoshopped and glorious as our original from the inimitable joe latter), then decided to make a "behind the scenes" album with cool "candid" shots, then decided- hey what the heck, we'll just make an album with "our story" including the engagement stuff and everything that followed, ending with the honeymoon. our books are currently on their way, so we'll see if it was ultimately worth it, but i was thinking... you know, i rarely print out my digital pictures and put them in an album, so why not create these books (especially at a reasonable price) for posterity?? anyhoo, feel free to click on the links for previews of the books i created... i hope you enjoy!

another subject that has been on my mind recently, now that i have time to think about it, is our lifestyle- namely, how unhealthy it has become. seriously, who knew it would be this hard to exercise regularly and eat healthily?! i was horrified to realize, looking back on this year, that we've basically adopted the "typical" poor family's diet- high in carbs, frozen foods, quick meals, eating out, ordering in... it's ugly. and the degree of my deconditioning is even more horrifying- just last year, i was running several miles without a second thought... now?! well, my waistline and extreme shortness of breath with ANY exertion are testament to the fact that it's been waaaaaay too long since i've done any sort of regular exercise. and irony of all ironies, my poor hubby- whom i've tried to fatten up since we started dating- has either maintained or lost some weight... which i blame on his inpatient medicine months, when i wasn't able to feed him properly :( in any case, i'm determined to make some kind of change- i've given myself some leniency this year, because it's "intern year" and it's supposed to be arduous and time-consuming, etc... but i cannot go two years without reclaiming the kind of lifestyle i want to maintain! so, here's a belated new year's resolution... or rather, a new "school year" resolution: LIVE THE WAY I WANT TO LIVE IN THE FUTURE... i.e. tasty but healthy diet, REGULAR physical activity, good sleep, etc. we'll see how it goes...

weekend warriors

2008-05-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

it's pretty rare that andy and i get a weekend off together- one of us is almost always on call, or on an inpatient rotation that is q4, or we only get one day off a week... we're interns. so, when we DO get weekends off, we've been trying to make the most of them.

amazingly, while i was on micu, i was able to spend my days off doing OUTDOOR activities (though you wouldn't be able to tell from my as-of-yet pasty white & flabby physique). here are some pics stolen from Tara's blog (THANKS TARA! hehe) from one lovely weekend day spent outdoors with family med/psych friends playing soccer, ultimate frisbee, and bocce ball. twas the weekend diane came up for an interview, actually, and i'd managed to convince youn and suzie to visit from the bay area as well; all in all, a GOOD DAY of catching up with friends old & new.

then, one weekend we decided to finally visit Napa... and found that there isn't all that much to do if you're a nondrinker :P sure, we could have visited the vineyards and done some tours, whatnot... instead, we decided to visit Copia- this museum-ish institution with herb gardens and exhibits and (of course) free wine tastings, which appears to have been heavily inspired by Julia Child. we spent the rest of the afternoon... eating, basically. sampled some tasty baked treats from model bakery, wandered through the oxbow market; enjoyed live jazz music during dinner @ Uva Trattoria Italiana, then headed home... totally stuffed, and with a little "seed" of an idea (if you will)...

after wandering through the fragrant herb gardens, we were inspired... the parks are going to try their hand at GARDENING. so, on another weekend, we went on a field trip.

several home & garden stores and a couple of hours of good ole sweaty soil-shoveling later, we have our very own garden- complete with Park's Whopper tomatoes :)

here's a little random note from our friendly neighborhood postman. a little while ago, andy and i were at the post office. now, this is the kind of post office where people go up to the window and actually have a conversation with the post-people. conversations that indicate that they know each other. totally unexpected, but really nice- a small-town feel in a medium-sized city. anyhoo, so our postman gives us our stamps or whatever, then starts asking us about our lives- somehow, we mention loma linda, and he mentions some old neighbors who were SDA missionaries, how he and his wife celebrate "day-versaries", and all the while is scribbling something on a paper...
<----- random, but lovely.

speaking of random, on the way home from church one day, we noticed this sign. wouldn't you like to live down memory lane? :)

so this tuesday is our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY. totally crazy how quickly this year has gone by... must be the wedded bliss overpowering the intern pain :) to celebrate, the hubby and i went to SF for a quick weekend getaway... if nothing else, to escape the oven that is sacramento (>100 degree highs already). we stayed at le meridien (see room & view), ate @ fleur de lys (and were surprised by a little dessert treat on the house), wandered around the city a bit, then explored sausalito the next day (with requisite touristy pic of the Golden Gate Bridge). ate lunch outside on the patio @ poggio, sampled some gourmet icecream for dessert, then drove on back to the sweltering heat of sacto.

it's been a fabulous, blessed, whirlwind of a year... and here's to many more ;)

i'm a believer of slow medicine

2008-05-08T21:42:00.000-07:00

FROM the NY TIMES

HEALTH | May 5, 2008
For the Elderly, Being Heard About Life's End
By JANE GROSS
“Slow medicine,” which encourages less aggressive care at the end of life, is increasingly available in nursing homes.

it's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day

2008-05-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

yes folks, i can see clearly now... indeed, the rain is gone. ;) i'm safely into my second week of neuro consult, which with its 9am - 5pm hours has singlehandedly restored my faith in sleep and humanity. strangely enough, there are definitely things i miss about the MICU... i definitely shouldered more responsibility and felt more competent than i do now on this rotation where essentially i'm treated like a med student (but PAID- cha ching!$!$ makes all the difference)... but hey, how can i argue with 8 hours of sleep a night?!

one of the things i miss MOST about socal is... ok, i have to rephrase that because of course i'd have to say FAMILY and FRIENDS but really what i'm trying to say is that one of the TASTY TREAT things that i miss the most is certainly pinkberry. however, andy has discovered yet another worthy substitute, which makes it all the more tolerable here in sacto- YOG YOG! i'm quite envious as it is RIGHTnext to his hospital, making for totally doable yogurt runs in the middle of the workday. yes, we're workin hard up here for our (piddly intern) money. ;)

tales from the crypt, aka MICU

2008-04-16T22:34:00.001-07:00

my residents and i have jokingly called ourselves "the death team". dark humor and several gallons of diet pepsi are all that stand between me and total despair/apathy. i have realized, over the past few weeks of MICU, that i prefer to have patients who are able to speak to me, who are able to walk in by themselves to clinic, who aren't constantly trying to die on me. i'm on call tomorrow, but took a very ill-advised nap this afternoon, so now i'm half-awake/asleep but too anxious to rest. which pretty much sums up how i've felt this entire rotation.

if nothing else, i've learned how important it is to discuss one's mortality and one's wishes with one's family. the hospital is really one of the worst places to die... in my opinion. things can happen so quickly, and so often- people end up worse than they were when they came in... and i can't even express the WRONGNESS of having to discuss life/death issues and code status with someone- or even worse, someone's family member because they end up crashing in the middle of the night. i've decided to start bringing it up with my clinic patients- making sure they have advance directives in place, and that they've started this dialogue with their loved ones... i know, noone wants to talk about dying and perhaps this is all just a preoccupation because of what has been going on this month... but even so... i think part of my job as a primary care physician should also entail preventive care to ensure the best death possible... if that makes any sense.

viva las vegas

2008-03-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

our vacation tales continue...

i felt compelled to document our "duk bo sam" moment, all the way out in michigan. andy's aunt has never heard of or eaten the "california"-version, but came up with her own recipe, a blend of vietnamese spring rolls with a veritable cornucopia of fresh veggies and tasty organic beef. as you can see, the park men enjoyed it quite a bit (as did everyone else). i was really glad we got a chance to see andy's extended family, especially his adorable little cousins. i grew up blessed with an abundance of awesomely generous older cousins (and aunts and uncles) who took me and my siblings off of my parents' hands on many occasions to babysit, go to the movies, amusement parks, etc... many, many happy childhood memories with special thanks to j., dean, brenda, and my e-mo (as in aunt linda, not the genre ;) ). anyhoo, i've always wanted to return the favor, so to speak. but seriously, i don't know how they did it- i make excuses for myself by telling myself that i don't live close enough to any of the madly cute cousin-spawn to be there for them... *sigh*, all this to say that i hope to be a better older cousin/sibling/relative in general, in the future. so we ended up taking the kids out to a movie- "horton hears a who"- and i think we enjoyed ourselves more than the kiddos ;)

so then we prepared ourselves for VEGAS... but first, we needed to get there. easier said than done.

this is why i cannot live in detroit, or any state that requires "de-icing" of aircraft prior to take-off. i just don't have the patience. on our outbound flight, the plane came in about an hour late, then we boarded and sat on the runway for about an hour, got "de-iced" for 30 minutes, sat for another 20 minutes or so until we were told that the plane "due to mechanical problems" would NOT be taking off that evening. meanwhile, the snow that had NOT been falling all throughout our stay decided to make its way down to earth with a vengeance. after another hour of limbo in the terminal (are we canceled? delayed? catching the next flight? getting another airplane? where's our luggage?), we were given hotel and food vouchers and told to come back early the next morning, with the same boarding passes. by that time the snow was really coming down, so calling andy's parents back out to the airport was not an option. we spent the night, sans luggage, in a dinky room where the bathroom light was broken (andy put one of the bedside lamps by the sink) and returned the next morning only to find out, after waiting in a long security line, that our boarding passes were no longer valid, despite seeing various other people FROM THE SAME FLIGHT entering through the same security lines. long story short: OUR AIRPORTS ARE NOT SECURE, PEOPLE!! the TSA folk were frustratingly unhelpful, not to mention inconsistent with whom they were letting through. i tried another security line after being turned away initially, just to see if our boarding pass would work, and voila-> i was through. andy tried the same line, and was turned away. EH, you say??!! yes. sigh. but now i have spent a great deal of energy on my tale of airline/airport incompetence which is just depressing so ... ON TO VEGAS!! ... one last note. our flight to vegas was also one hour late. with a wailing, inconsolable baby who cried for nearly the entire flight + delays. the system is broken... like so many others in this country. ok. i'm done griping.

ok, so pictures of a decidedly happier time. i had a tough time deciding where to eat out of the myriad possibilities of haute cuisine in vegas- joel robuchon? mario batali? jean georges vongerichten? wolfgang puck? anyone who has ever appeared as a guest judge on top chef has at LEAST one restaurant in vegas- including tom colicchio. it's like a foodie-groupie's dream. i chose the most affordable (used in the loosest, most relative form of the word) yet totally formal of the 2 michelin star restaurants out there- PICASSO. how often does one get to eat with priceless works of art hanging behind one's head??? or, for that matter, how often does one get to EAT pieces of art?

one of the lovely offerings from the pastry chef. i would comment more on the food, but i'm thinking of saving our food reviews for a later post in which i shall unveil our new restaurant rating system- andy and i fancy ourselves to have fairly discerning palates, but more for our sake than anything else we thought it would be fun to have some sort of record of good eats to which we can refer in the future... given that the months of inpatient service as an intern tend to drive out all other peripheral knowledge like, the particular fish dish we loved at that one restaurant. we're debating between "parks" and "forks" and "stars" for the rating scale. ;)

here are some of our more touristy pics of the strip. at this point i should probably mention that hotel-hopping, though fun and informative, is definitely energy-consuming. we stayed at 3 different hotels during our 4 1/2 day trip- the platinum, the bellagio (pictured on left), and the signature @ MGM. all excellent hotels, though our favorite was definitely the signature. LOVED the nonsmoking (non-casino) lobby, in-suite kitchenette complete with cookware/flatware/silverware, and bathroom tv. sadly, no pics of said tv. you'll just have to believe me.

here are a couple of pics that are a continuation of a series i shall refer to as "hubby contemplates menu". our foodie tour included bobby flay's enclave- mesa grill (on left) and daniel boulud's self-named bistro (on right). again, food reviews *may* follow but in brief, i shall say-> thumbs down, and thumbs up. can't beat the restaurant design in vegas, though...

ah, and here- one of the FREE exhibits on the strip-> the MGM lion habitat. i wish i could have captured the scale of the lion vs. andy's head a little bit more clearly on camera, but suffice to say- that's a big cat. after spending a pretty penny (or two or three or thousands) on food, we were pretty loath to part with our cash for the various galleries, aquariums, etc... available on the strip. thus, another example of a FREE tourist attraction :

M&M heaven!

but lest you think we spent our days eating and finding cheesy free tourist traps, we also found a new hobby. cirque hopping.

this pic is from le reve @ the wynn, which was the second of two cirque du soleil shows we watched, back-to-back. the previous evening, we watched O @ bellagio. two gorgeous, brilliant, inspiring and oh-so-entertaining but different shows, despite both being cirque du soleil, created by dragone, with lots of water involved. i was telling andy that i'd love to meet the brain behind these shows- such interesting themes of good/evil, heaven/hell, madness, love, marriage, gender, sexuality... but even without my psych imagination going wild- the shows were amazing, and truly a celebration of the human canvas.

our stint in sin city ended not a minute too soon- we ended up getting sick and spending our last few days sniffling in our room, so we're both quite happy to be finishing up the convalescent period of our colds in the comfort of HOME. i'll be starting MICU, and andy starts his last medicine month as an intern soon, so most likely there will be another long period of silence to follow. but then, after MICU month, i'll have two psych months to go until 1/2 of my internship is finished!! woohoo! i can't believe it- seriously, it seems like just yesterday we were celebrating match day with everyone... and now i'm congratulating the new graduates- and interns to be. time flies. i heard a line the other day on an old episode of ER that i thought was pretty funny- "med students want to be residents, residents want to be attendings, and attendings... just want to be left alone." they got it wrong though... this intern just wants to jump to retirement. ;)

vive le reve!!

2008-03-20T07:37:00.001-07:00

i'm dreaming again, big fantastical dreams about tidal waves, dinosaurs, castles, glittering dance routines... so glorious. and why? because... i'm on vacation. YAAAAAY! though my last two weeks of work were hardly strenuous (sports medicine) and thus sort of a pre-vacation, i realize that there really is no substitute for a REAL vacation- when the pager comes off, and i can prance around fancy-free without worrying about patient prescription requests and calls. *sigh* life is good.

we're currently in michigan with andy's folks, eating lots of healthy greenery which has done wonders for my *ahem* intestinal regularity and enjoying what they call a "warm" spell of winter with temps in the 30s and snow still lying unmelted at the sides of the roads. andy took me on a "this is your life" type of tour, including sites like his childhood home, junior high, and of course- high school. we almost passed up the high school, but then andy remembered something...

HIS BRICK!

turns out andy has his name carved on school property for all eternity, thanks to one of his myriad high school accomplishments. talk about overachievers ;)

we've also had a chance to catch up with his michigander friends, including rich and daniel - his two best men! it's been very strange indeed to look back and realize- hey, we've been married for almost a year~ well, 10 months and counting. SO much has changed since then... out of our wedding party, two got engaged with weddings coming up in june (sharon) and july '09 (rich), one's got a baby on the way (eli)... the relentless wheel of time, with new celebrations at every turn. it's beautiful, man.

next up on the vacation itinerary: VEGAS!!! many exuberant photos to come. :)

REAL scutmonkey dreams

2008-03-01T19:24:00.000-08:00

scutmonkeys don't dream of rockstardom. or at least, this scutmonkey does not. not on medicine months. no, this past month, i dreamt of scut.

i've been at the VA, caring for our veterans and generally not caring about anything else. it's consuming. i'd wake up before my alarm at ~4:30-5am in a blind panic, having just had a nightmare about an unsigned order or missing a "panic value" in a lab, etc... i'd go to sleep thinking about how early i'd have to get there the next morning and running through all the things that i'd need to check up on, or all the things that may have been happening to my patients. i know they say that most medicine folks have some OCPD traits, but sometimes i wonder HOW that could possibly be a good fit-> it's an anxiety-provoking profession to start with, so is it really a good idea to have anxious people in it??! sigh.

so now, i sit here at a coffee shop and have the time to type away at something other than CPRS. actually, CPRS is also up- typing off service notes. it never ends. ANYWAY- the point is, i'm slowing peeling off the tentacles of the VA, one by one. it's the emotional suckers that will be the hardest to rip off. gosh, but i do really enjoy this population sometimes- the nicest old guys you'll meet. sure, i had my share of mean meth-using alcoholics, but by and large the veterans are very appreciative and, i suspect, particularly nice to me as a young Asian-American woman.. i try not to think of the memories of "native" women-past that i might evoke, but i'm not above using it to develop a rapport of sorts ;) and i have to say, working at a hospital where people know my name is ... kinda nice. i like the community feel, though believe me i cursed it plenty over the weekends when i would give my left foot for an ultrasound tech or MRI or radiologist to read said unobtainable MRIs or ultrasounds. i've had such an array of experiences here, and right now they're jostling about in my head fighting for attention... so i'll just have to let them out one by one over time.

instead, i shall describe one of my proudest non-medicine accomplishments this past month... i got myself a library card. YAY!!! in a moment of shiny optimism, i borrowed a bunch of books on my day off and started reading... i've never finished a book so slowly in my life, but i guess that's what happens when you have to read snatches of a chapter in the brief moments of lucidity before passing out at night. so, i'm 1 of 4 and very hopeful going into my sports medicine rotation that i'll make some good progress with my "must read" list. thinking back, i guess i was inspired by shomir, my "co-intern" for the month who recommended "the kite runner". he tossed me the book one day, and i DEVOURED it. this was earlier this month when the patient census was decent (as opposed to the indecent wreck i left). and then i just had to keep reading, because i missed it so much. now if only i could feel the same away about, say, THE GYM. ;)

foray to the bay

2008-01-27T16:42:00.000-08:00

step 3 is looming in the near future (this week), but no pre-exam weekend would be complete without unabashed playtime/procrastination.

diane & ida are visiting the bay area this weekend (and notably *ahem* NOT sacramento), so i decided to spend a day in SF. first, visited younch's new apartment in SOMA... had lunch at Brainwash Cafe & Laundromat, pictured below with left-most pic stolen from Yelp, then spent some "productive" time at the SF Public Library- which is huge, airy, beautiful, and a popular hangout for the homeless. i sat next to an older vagabond (who by the way would fit RIGHT IN at the treatment center), who was engrossed in a book about some conspiracy theory or another (the beginning of the title: "The REAL Truth about...."), which he held about 2 inches from his face. i most certainly felt like i was IN THE CITY. we convinced suzie to trek in from berkeley, and spent some quality time catching up at Citizen Cupcake... before enjoying dinner with the girls + co. @ Ristorante Milano.

the draw of city life for me should be pretty evident- see highlighted words above. i am SO enthralled by the myriad eating-out options, the opportunity to find tastiness on every corner. i'm a fan of WALKING to places and the subsequent insertion into a whole new milieu of people.
and everytime i go to SF, i bemoan the lack of character in Sacto... but i think it's time i should be honest with myself. i couldn't LIVE in the city- the ample parking spaces, superstores, and general ease of suburban life is even more seductive to me at this point than the urban sprawl. what can i say... i'm weak. and an ah-jum-mah. i'm learning to accept it ;)

foggy beginnings

2008-01-15T16:41:00.000-08:00

this is the view from my home's little octagon window that i see every morning before going to work. and no, sadly, that is NOT the sun. it's a streetlamp. but it's pretty all the same.

fog is much preferred to the torrential downpour we experienced in the past few weeks though. it was pretty crazy at work- pun oh-so-truly intended. one day, we lost power in our outpatient psych clinic (also known as "the base" by a bipolar lady i had to calm down over the phone this morning), the same day we were hosting some family-psych applicants... we had morning rounds by candlelight. i walked around all day basically with sopping feet and straggly hair, because the umbrella i brought was useless against the brutal winds. then, one morning, i walked into the clinic thinking that someone had been a little overenthusiastic with popcorn in the breakroom microwave... then i saw the gaping holes in the ceiling. we had an electrical fire, and luckily noone was hurt, but didn't exactly help dispel the vague ambiance of chaos. never a dull day in psychiatry ;)

in terms of social gatherings, andy's schedule has lightened up so we've been able to have some dinners...
here are a few of andy's co-interns... lovely bunch :) we were also able to take pastor joel out to dinner @ todo un poco pizza & bistro, a mexican-italian place in elk grove- there really should be more fusion mexican/italian places out there... chips + salsa + garlic bread is quite, quite tasty. i made it out to a "journal club" meeting at scott's seafood, and rediscovered my love of sampler dessert plates. it's been a good month.

so, my non sequitur for the entry: i'm a total sucker for food advertising/marketing. particularly when it comes to candy and chocolate... not unlike the subjects of the wine study just published where people thought the more expensive wine tasted better than the cheaper wine (of course, it was all the same wine), i tend to prefer the exotic, boutique, and yes... expensive brands. i loove the thrill of the "find"- discovering the perfect truffle, or tastiest gummy bear... anyhoo, it's an illness, but i'm certainly not alone. i happened upon kookaburra liquorice at my local grocery store, and knew i had to have it. after all, the package said LIQUORICE. when i was checking out, my cashier asked me where i had found the candy, like in detail, as in.. which row, where on the shelf, etc... and kept mentioning how he was going to buy some himself, like at his next break, etc... so i opened up the bag and we both had our first taste of some superior red licorice. it's good stuff. and not just because it's imported from australia... ;)

christmas time is here... and gone

2007-12-27T12:43:00.000-08:00

i'm so sad christmas is over. by the graces of this psych rotation, i got both xmas eve and day off... all the better to prepare for MY FIRST CHRISTMAS DINNER. my family decided to visit us this year, as andy had to work on xmas eve, so i was quite set on creating the perfect holiday dinner table... and the perfect holiday meal. here's my menu + recipe links:

Zuni Cafe Bread Salad with Baby Arugula
Bandera's Cheddar-Jack Cornbread
Baked Acorn Squash with Brown Sugar and Butter

Green Beans with Fresh Herbs & Walnuts

Filet Mignon with Chevre and Balsamic Reduction Sauce
Maple Roasted Turkey Parts with Sage Butter and Turkey Pan Gravy

Chocolate Fondue

here's a pic of my sous chef (hehe)

man... i was pooped, and stuffed at the end of the day. but i think my family enjoyed it, and i KNOW andy did, which is ultimately all that matters ;)

************************

on a totally unrelated note, i must document our first trip to ARCO ARENA.

one of andy's attendings is a huge college women's volleyball fan, and happened to have two free tickets to the NCAA women's volleyball semifinals- where STANFORD beat USC for a spot at the finals. sadly, i was too excited during that match to take pictures, so all i have are pictures of the 2nd match- penn state vs. cal.

it was freakin awesome.
*************************************

2007 was a year of milestones, and i'm so grateful to the family and friends who have shared them with me. getting married, graduating med school, starting a new job and moving to a new town... it's been a crazy, wonderful, fulfilling year.

andy and i will be ringing in the new year ON CALL... so for all our loved ones out there, we'll be celebrating with you in spirit! and please, please... BE SAFE.

here's to a similarly spectacular 2008, hopefully a year of change. it's ELECTION YEAR!!! woohoo! on that note, the Dem candidates on their New Year's resolutions... who's your favorite?? [i haven't decided yet...]

everything changes yet stays the same

2007-12-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

it's amazing how quickly things that were once bizarre to the senses can become familiar. for example, when i first came to ucdmc, i was puzzled by the nurses' "vocera" phone system. I guess I should have been used to it, what with microscopic Bluetooth devices rampant in the world, but the thing is... the Bluetooth doesn't talk back. i'd be walking down the hall, or in an elevator with a worthy member of the RN lifeforce of the hospital who had a little plastic box hanging around her/his neck (maybe a pager?)... when suddenly, I'd hear:

[musical chimes... "Would you like to talk to?:

MARY SMITH"]

to which the RN in question would say, "Yes," then proceed to have a conversation with Mary Smith, holding the plastic box up to his/her face.
Or, I'd be in the same elevator, minding my own business, and the person next to me would say, "CALL DAVID JONES." That same robotic voice would reply,

"Did you mean: DANILA JOVOVICH?"

"NO, CALL DAVID JONES." (slightly irked tone)

"Did you mean: DAVID JAMES??"

"NO!?!, CALL DAVID JONES!!!" (really pissed now)

At which point I'd exit the elevator speedily, cuz conversations with these little walkie-talkie Vocera things don't tend to end quickly. The other day though, I passed by someone having a frustratingly one-sided conversation with the Vocera and didn't blink... until I realized how odd this seemed a few months ago.

And then there are the smells... the particular stink of the ED, the components of which I need not enumerate (you KNOW what I'm talking about)... the fetid odors of unwashed ICU patients who have been unconscious for many days and therefore have not been able to tell the staff who give them bedbaths to pay attention to certain nooks and crannies... the unmistakable scent of the hospital, so familiar while at work and so foreign when I pass by my white coat, hanging on the wall at home.

I've always been intrigued by this transition-> from alien to commonplace; perhaps because I haven't moved that much in my life, so each change is sortof a big deal. The first few times I drive to a new house, I muse to myself how familiar these roads will be in time but how scared I'll be of getting lost til that time (given my dearth of navigational sense)... and sure enough, a few months later I'll muse at how I'm able to trace, almost automatically, my way back home.

holiday cheer

2007-12-11T20:26:00.000-08:00

i'm back. on psych-ation, and not a minute too soon. i've accumulated lots of sleep debt, but am finally chipping away at it... which is good, so maybe i'll stop making potentially inappropriate comments in my semi-comatose state, like today on psych consult when i asked a psychotic prisoner to "take a stab" at a few questions before realizing, with a start, that i had NO IDEA what he was in prison for. i tell ya, coulda been a BAD choice of words.

so, tis been an eventful month thus far! on one of our days off, andy and i embarked upon a daunting enterprise- to infuse some xmas spirit into our home- we're preparing for my family's arrival. it started out with a half-hearted jaunt to the dollar store for plastic snowflakes... and ended with handmade dove/poinsettia/pinecone centerpieces and a fiberoptic mini-tree. we were struck with decoration madness, what can i say ;) oh, and for the first time in my life, there are xmas lights outside my house. i'm very proud of my hubby- he's started a trend... a few days after putting up our lights (which was "late" by traditional standards, e.g. 2 weeks after thanksgiving), some of the neighbors decided to put up some twinklers. nothing like a little friendly holiday competition to light up a street. ;)

then, it was my bday. the actual day of, not too fun. workday- 14 hours, hubby- postcall, dinner- takeout. but twas certainly brightened by the texts/phone calls/emails- i appreciate you all!! i just didn't have time to reply, just enough to smile, feel a warm fuzzy, and get back to work. is this what grownup birthdays are supposed to be?! sigh... but i can't complain much, cuz i had a fabulous pre-birthday celebration the weekend before.

we ate brunch at tower cafe, and i CANNOT say enough about their famous french toast. it certainly perked up my poor sleep-deprived belly and tastebuds.

not to mention some delicious hot chocolate... as you can see, the hours have taken a toll on my soul, as evidenced by my bleary eyes.

dinner was at the waterboy, which i've been meaning to try since we moved up here... which also has no relation to the adam sandler movie. lovely atmosphere, tasty cuisine, not a shabby bday dinner by any means.

and dessert? sacto's answer to pinkberry... MOCHII!

one of my last bday surprises- from my sister-in-law, who obviously knows me all too well.

well enough foodie nonsense. what is UP with the tv writers' strike?! and why am i SOO not as excited about this season of project runway?? as you can tell, my life has been: work/eat/tv/sleep/work/eat/tv/sleep/work some more for the past month or so (or at least it feels that way). looking forward this month to studying/reading for step III, working out (so help me, i WILL step foot into a 24 hour fitness this month), developing a semblance of a social life, etc...

non sequitur of the entry: just saw Sicko on DVD. i hate, HATE, hate having to discuss financial concerns about medications/tests/procedures with my patients, and i am so ashamed that physicians have not done more to remedy this broken, limping, decrepit system. sigh.
andy and i are now biding our time til we finish residency to relocate ourselves and our families to a country with free universal healthcare... namely, ANY OTHER WESTERN DEVELOPED NATION. new zealand's lookin pretty good. who's with us?!?!

the most wonderful time of the year

2007-11-23T20:34:00.000-08:00

ahhhh how i love holiday season!!! can't you tell from our doormat?? ;)

finally i can start listening to christmas carols, which will be on my ipod/radio 24/7 til xmas. it's one of the simple pleasures of my life, to have this seasonal soundtrack.

andy and i spent our first married thanksgiving together dining at the mccarrons' in davis, and i wish i had the presence of mind to take pictures of the bountiful feast put before us... if for no other reason than to provide myself with happy photographic memories of those culinary delights... but in any case, suffice to say, we ate ourselves silly. felt slightly guilty as my only contributions were of the egg/sugar/butter/flour variety- pumpkin cheesecake with a gingersnap/graham/pecan crust, and pumpkin cranberry walnut cookies... feel like i should learn to cook a thanksgiving meal. ah well. someday, i too will roast a turkey. someday...

we had to work today, unfortunately, so we decided last-minute to make a trip down to socal this past weekend. it was, of course, great to see my family and to visit cksda. but awesomeness truly abounded as the llusm ohana converged for jason oh's birthday. in the tradition of korean sda folks, we had to segregate the photos. don't ask me why, it just happens.

sometimes i worry that we're not really giving sacramento a chance to feel like home, since we're so fixated on going back to socal to (in order of priority) our family, friends, and pinkberry. however, today as i walked from my car to the hospital in the cool crisp fall air, i realized that we are putting down roots- tentative though they may be. it was so great to visit this past weekend, but it felt good to come home as well.

non sequitur comment of the entry: hands down, the best new show of the fall season is CHUCK. we're totally hooked.

the family man is on tv right now. i recently asked my hubby if he ever thought about his other self living in an alternate universe- you know, like what would have happened if he had missed a subway train (e.g. sliding doors) which altered the trajectory of his life. i asked, of course, because i often think about this other "me"... which is NOT in fact disloyalty towards my spouse, as i believe we were meant to be and all that other mushy jazz that i will spare y'all- but i think we could have met and lived in a totally different way. i imagine a totally cosmopolitan/metropolitan life- mostly because my imagined wardrobe would be fabulously chic, and our apartment would be fabulously chic with a gorgeous view of the cityscape, and our schedules and budgets would be so much more flexible than they are now because i, at least, would not be in medicine but instead in something presumably less fulfilling but substantially more glamorous. not that i'm not happy where i am, but these are just the dreams of a thoroughly bedraggled occasionally self-pitying intern... of course, he, being much more practical and grounded than me, does not have such imaginings. which is probably best.

autumn festivities

2007-11-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

andy and i have been attempting to enjoy our days off by taking advantage of the cool crisp weather. and what better way to spend a lovely fall afternoon than a leisurely bike ride through the Pocket?

safety first!

we're also trying to create new "family traditions". andy and his family used to go apple picking every year back in michigan, and i have vague memories of hay rides and apple cider from my home-school days... so we decided to take a trip to apple hill. it's this amazing stretch of orchards in the mountains, just about an hour's drive away.

we started out at rainbow orchards, for lunch. having no prior knowledge of the area, we pretty much followed the crowds, lemming-style. this place was PACKED.

we soon discovered why.

fresh apple cider (with some unremarkable bbq-fare)...
and
hot, crispy, moist and delicious apple cider doughnuts.
as you can see, i took a few rapturous bites before remembering to take a picture.

we wandered for a bit, researching the different bake shops and U-Pick orchards. sadly, we visited too late in the season, so no fruit for us.

we happened upon a small stretch of a "nature trail" transformed for halloween (see the little hanging ghosts in the back?).

all in all, quite a beautiful afternoon and definitely a tradition we'd like to continue in the future.

and yesterday was andy's birthday. took the hubby to dinner at bandera, one of the hillstone group restaurants (cousin of rutherford's grill, for all the PUC fans).

cornbread!
[insert sound of Homer-esque drooling here]

it was our first "date night" in a long time. our interactions have become so routine with our work schedules... twas very nice to have an evening out to celebrate the man in my life. :)

schadenfreude

2007-10-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

i have a confession. i've realized something about myself. and perhaps, something about doctors in general. but nevermind everyone else- i should claim this vice as my own. so here it is: i do so love to feel intelligent and, dare i say, superior. oftentimes, however, this feeling comes at the expense of my medical colleagues' ineptitude... unabashed schadenfreude. ok maybe it's not so much deriving joy from others' suffering, but it's the closest word/concept i could think of. anyhoo, let me elaborate...

i first thought about this when i was catching up on some recorded private practice episodes one free afternoon. the poor writers- they mean well, but gosh they get a lot of the medical stuff wrong. i mean, it's a glorified soap opera- am i really expecting clinical realism?! i catch myself thinking about how incompetent addison & her colleagues are... "like, puhleeze, you need to diagnose Crohn's disease with a camera swallow study?! like, hello, you could have just asked the patient if she has diarrhea?! how about checking for some extraintestinal stigmata??!" and for a moment, i sit there, warm in my little pocket of smugness and superiority over TV fake doctors- because let's face it, i'll never be as telegenic as they are. ;)

but it doesn't stop there. it's an unpleasant reality that as we physicans choose specialties, we somewhat inevitably tend to devalue others that we did not choose. perhaps devalue isn't the right word, but there's definitely a reason why i chose my particular field over others. in psychology terms, i guess it's an example of an ego-defensive attitude- we adapt our attitudes to confirm the decisions we have already made, or would make. for example, surgeons can't imagine who would willingly choose the interminable rounds of medicine, medicine docs turn up their noses at the crude butchery of surgery, everyone dumps on the family docs, etc...

so here's how it plays out in real life- when i was on surgery, the surgery team (myself included) would bash the poor UrgiCenter docs (a hodgepodge of family & internal medicine docs & moonlighting fellows) with every "stupid" consult that came in. we'd ruthlessly snicker at the mismanagement of a patient at the hands of the one OBGYN surgeon at the hospital. at the med center, with so many specialties in play, it's a veritable smorgasbord of options for evil delight. pity the ED docs who get slammed by everyone unlucky enough to be called to consult or admit a patient. just last week, my team shook our heads in disbelief at the orthopods and general surgeons who had initially misdiagnosed a substantial leg/knee abscess as a "sterile collection of fluid secondary to pseudogout" on a patient. even amongst our own colleagues, one tends to figure out pretty quickly who knows something and who isn't quite up to snuff... and of course, i know that it's a two-way street. i'm sure i'm providing lots of laughs at my own expense.

i honestly don't know how much of it is medicine in general, or just my attitudes overlying it all. i'm a perfectionist, and i can be pretty darn supercritical of others as well as myself. i guess the sad thing is that i'm figuring out that the criticism is sortof an ego defense... if i can say, "dood, i TOTALLY wouldn't have done that", or "i TOTALLY would have caught that abscess" , or... well, you get it... if i can say that, or think that... i'm momentarily reassured, in my own head, that i'm somewhat competent- or at the very least, more competent than the poor saps i'm skewering. because not only would it be very damaging to my ego to be incompetent- patients' lives potentially hang in the balance. not now, of course- as an intern, i kinda get a free pass with lots of supervision... but in the future. scary.

this neurotic monologue has actually been quite therapeutic, i have to say. ;) here's hoping that i'll take the guilt that has fueled this entry and sublimate it into a more accepting, open, nonjudgmental and less snarky attitude towards.... well, life.