the season begins...

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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...

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

word to your mother

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.