It’s been a weekend of coincidences since coming to the Axon Guidance and Neural Plasticity meeting here at Cold Spring Harbor. After a week busting my balls trying to get some experiments completed before the 5-day conference, I left early Saturday morning for my flight down to New York. As always, I was running so late I had to catch a cab to the airport, arriving only 5 minutes before boarding, but only to find out that my flight was delayed by more than 3 hours (of course). Luckily, I ran into an old college friend of mine who was on the same flight, so we got to sit down at the airport coffee shop and catch up on our past few years while waiting for our plane to arrive. Yesterday, at one of the poster sessions here, I noticed the name of an old high school friend on a poster from a lab at Yale. I spoke extensively with the post-doc who was presenting the poster, only to realize that I had already met her when I bumped into that friend about a month ago at the Ikea in New Haven! Aside from these random blasts from the past, the conference has otherwise been quite disappointing. Among the exhaustive volume of talks and posters from 9am-11pm each day, I have yet to find much that I didn’t already know. Fortunately, the weather had been beautiful, and the relaxing environment out here is finally giving me a chance to kick back for a couple of days.

Say hello to Howie and Sammy! The foster brothers have been bonding really well, and Sammy has clearly benefited from Mom’s nursing. Mom however, is a little…. strange. Last night, she mysteriously went nuts and started running frantically in circles inside the cage. In fact, when the top was opened, she gained enough centrifugal momentum to spin out of the bin. We spent a good hour (with Thu laughing in the background) trying to catch her without being bitten by the crazed rat. But once we got her back into the bin, she calmed down pretty quickly and started grooming the pups again, despite their squeaky protests. Now, with Melody getting the next three days off and my boss in London, we’ll be looking forward to a more laid back Labor Day weekend.

It’s official. Our young friend Sammy has been adopted by a young mommy rat and her 8-day-old pup, Howie. The decision came mainly from the fact that rats are social creatures and Sammy was lacking in companionship, and also because we were becoming increasingly concerned with his nutritional support from human baby formula. Despite our progress in advancing his diet (he was eating solids at day 14 when rats aren’t usually weaned until 4-5 weeks), his coat of fur was pretty thin and he was severely underweight for his age. Fortunately, the young mom quickly adopted the little guy, though we’re still concerned whether after being fed for so long by human hands, he would still know how to feed from a mom. We’ll keep further updates on Sammy and Howie’s progress, so stay tuned! In other news, we took advantage of restaurants that have extended Restaurant Week and enjoyed a most satisfying 3-course-dinner last night at Pigalle. I started with some pan-fried duck livers over parmesan risotto, followed by a salmon in port reduction cooked to a medium-rare perfection, and closed with a light but rich milk chocolate pana cotta. For Melody, her meal began with a very unique eggplant terrine, followed by a slightly over-salted mushroom risotto, and ended with a delightful peach tarte tatin. Our memorable meal has quickly placed this French restaurant among our favorites in Boston.

It’s official. Our young friend Sammy has been adopted by a young mommy rat and her 8-day-old pup, Howie. The decision came mainly from the fact that rats are social creatures and Sammy was lacking in companionship, and also because we were becoming increasingly concerned with his nutritional support from human baby formula. Despite our progress in advancing his diet (he was eating solids at day 14 when rats aren’t usually weaned until 4-5 weeks), his coat of fur was pretty thin and he was severely underweight for his age. Fortunately, the young mom quickly adopted the little guy, though we’re still concerned whether after being fed for so long by human hands, he would still know how to feed from a mom. We’ll keep further updates on Sammy and Howie’s progress, so stay tuned! In other news, we took advantage of restaurants that have extended Restaurant Week and enjoyed a most satisfying 3-course-dinner last night at Pigalle. I started with some pan-fried duck livers over parmesan risotto, followed by a salmon in port reduction cooked to a medium-rare perfection, and closed with a light but rich milk chocolate pana cotta. For Melody, her meal began with a very unique eggplant terrine, followed by a slightly over-salted mushroom risotto, and ended with a delightful peach tarte tatin. Our memorable meal has quickly placed this French restaurant among our favorites in Boston.