After a series of events that seemed arranged for me to miss my flight, I finally arrived in Sacramento for a very rainy Christmas. Once I landed, Melody hustled me into Ramen House Ryu Jin for black tonkatsu ramen before showing me her new home. We spent the next morning hanging her H-bomb diplomas in her office at UC Davis, then rewarded our hard work with banh cuon, banh xeo, and bun rieu at Ban Cuon Tay Ho in Little Saigon. After some grocery shopping and other errands showing Melody’s usual routine, we had a quick afternoon nap before an elegant dinner at Enotria, where the tasting menu failed to impress, save for a chicken “faux gras” dish so named in response to Cali’s recent ban on the sale of fatty fowl liver. We also installed Dishonored on Melody’s non-gaming computer, which had us stealthily zooming our way through the steampunk world in old-school low resolution. On Sunday, we spooned up more bun rieu for lunch before going to see The Hobbit, the first of the trilogy based on Tolkien’s slim novel. From the theater, we trudged through the persistent drizzle to visit Petco for rat toys and Best Buy for potential new toys. Afterwards, we feasted at New Hong Kong Wok with a lavish dinner that reminded me of what I’ve been missing in Durham. On Christmas Eve, we awoke to a leisurely start, got pho for lunch, picked up groceries and oversized dim sum, then cooked up wintermelon soup and Asian veggie dishes for dinner with the in-law’s. To maximize time with my wife, I managed to change my flight with United to the day after Christmas, which despite costing an extra $180, gave us all of Christmas Day to have yet another bowl of pho and complete the game with a “low chaos” happy ending. My connecting flight home through DC was delayed by more than 2 hours, but was redeemed by an upgrade to first-class. It was easier to say good-bye to Melody this time around, knowing that we’ll be seeing each other again in a month.

Even before the Mayan calendar apocalypse came to pass, my last week was already feeling like the end of the world. The week started off with a weekend of cramming high-level statistics for an abstract to meet the submission deadline for ARVO. On top of retina call the following week, I also had to present journal club on Tuesday, surgical rounds on Wednesday, and submit an IRB application by Friday. My poor 30″ monitor also decided to conk out a month after its warranty ended. Despite going to the repair shop, it came back to me unrepaired, which left me annoyed, to say the least. By the time we had our resident-fellow holiday bash on Saturday, I felt as if a heavy weight had lifted off my shoulders. After the party, which included a disappointing holiday gift exchange that left me with a cranberry-scented candle, we spent the rest of the evening exploring nightlife in Chapel Hill. We started down West Franklin Street with drinks at Lantern, grabbed some NY-style pizza along the way, and ended with wings and nachos at Top of the Hill, where college kids dancing to blaring pop music made us feel old and out of place. I spent the following week recuperating and preparing for my trip to Sacramento with errands around the apartment. I wanted a clean house and clean fridge before leaving. To celebrate the upcoming apocalypse, I decided to re-watch the entire Resident Evil quintology. With ladies the likes of Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter dealing zombie genocide in skin-tight clothing, who wouldn’t welcome the end of days?