We began the new year by kicking off our landscape remodel, as contractors began demolishing the existing foliage and pergolas, letting through sunlight that we did not know existed. It left our yard looking rather bare as we hosted our lab holiday hot pot party last week. We had initially planned for board games also, but the food preparation and logistics of running two pots on our kitchen island was more than enough to keep us occupied. Melody’s division holiday party was less hectic, although the mood was solemn due to a recent patient complication at work. My MLK weekend call was spent volunteering at Paul Hom and helping the TEAM Make-A-Thon. This year’s project was to design an eye drop assist device, and I got to serve as as client, mentor, and judge. Meanwhile, Westley appeared to have a newfound passion for jigsaw puzzles, but also seemed to have misplaced his potty skills. With him starting in the intermediates class at school, we hope that he will recover his bladder control soon.

With back-to-back 4-day weekends, we had activities all lined up for the holidays. Last Saturday, we took Westley to the Global Winter Wonderland. We had sent my parents there some years ago, but thanks to tickets from my post-doc, it was our turn to be dazzled by the gaudy lanterns, foamy faux snow, and Chinese acrobats. Westley was too little for the fairground rides and too confused by the tribal dance, so we left early for creative vegetarian fare at Mother before calling it a night. On Sunday, we stocked up on beef noodle soup ingredients from 99 Ranch and lunched at Yum Buffet, where Westley stuffed himself on sesame balls and taro buns. Having purchased season passes for Six Flags, we had planned to go after his half-school-day on Monday. But winter rain kept us indoors, and we spent the afternoon assembling his Christmas present, which helped to alleviate a grumpy wake-up from nap time. On Christmas day, my sister-in-law and niece joined us for waffles and omelettes while Westley showed off his holiday act, followed by a round of Settlers of Catan during naptime. After a short week taking down disappointing beef noodle soup from a new Instant Pot recipe, we successfully made the trip to Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo. Westley had clear preferences for certain amusement rides (like the train and safari jeeps), but the wildlife exhibits were mostly empty. Without our coats, we warmed up with overpriced smores at the theme park, followed by hearty kalbi tang, soondubu, and KFC at Hot Stone Korean Kitchen. We spent the next two days doing more grocery shopping and home vegging, with Westley binge-watching Pete the Cat and us checking out the most recent Avengers before the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve. We rang in New Year’s Day with a visit to the Sac Zoo. Thanks to a gift membership from a thoughtful colleague, we enjoyed the hyperactive meerkats and hyperacoustic gibbons, followed by HK-style lunch at Macau Cafe. In the evening, we gave Westley a nice haircut as we prepare for another exciting year ahead.

With our budget in the red this year, our department had to forgo the lavish holiday party for more modest celebration. We began the month with a hot chocolate hike with one of our big donors, although Westley preferred sipping the beverage from his stroller. Our lunch afterwards was cut short when our home alarm system was triggered. Our camera showed that the wind had pushed the front door open, but we still had to wait for the police to make their rounds before our house was cleared. The following week, my clinic staff and I planned our own holiday festivities with drinks at the Bank, followed by hot chocolate from a pop-up bar at the Punch Bowl Social. We spent the rest of the weekend at Kit’s holiday lunch and Melody’s department holiday party, where we saved ourselves a drive by squeezing into Jocylen’s minivan with Westley and Brianna. This past Sunday, we invited my friend Brenda and her family up to try our new waffle maker over brunch. Westley warmed up to their daughter Audrey quickly, and the two crafted their way through his Christmas gift. At work, my clinic has been running more smoothly with my new scribe who is quieter but much more efficient. I also took my lab out for a holiday lunch, although most of the students were already out of town. Back home, we learned not to let Westley put his own clothes into the laundry, when we found our last load covered with diaper gel beads that required lots of flicking in the backyard. Westley has been excited to join his classmates in transitioning from pull-ups to undies, although the occasional accidents still showed that he’s not fully potty-trained. Despite how fast he’s growing, we are reminded again that’s he’s just a 2-year-old.

Between work and Westley, we decided to take it easy for Thanksgiving and invited Melody’s parents for a hot pot lunch. We went to Roseville for Black Friday shopping, and spent most of our time comparing comforters and towels at Macy’s, but ultimately returning and rebuying everything for the 10% cash back. We also return our new 8-qt Instant Pot for a more manageable 6-qt size, and our new 2nd gen Echo Show for a cheaper version. The only thing we didn’t regret was the Mehfil buffet. We headed to Vacaville the next day, detouring through unexplored areas of Yolo County to avoid the freeway traffic, but ultimately left empty handed from HomeGoods and BBB. On Sunday, after dim sum brunch with colleagues at HK Islander, we went to Old Sac for Westley’s ride on the Polar Express. Our Railroad Museum membership allowed us to score first-class tickets for the French Quarter car, where we enjoyed hot chocolate, cookies, music, and dancing on our ride to the North Pole to see Santa and his elves, and a gift of a silver bell. We returned to Old Sac for soupless XLB and boring beef noodles at i-Shanghai Delight, just missing the Theater of Lights show before heading back. At home, we embarked on the new Assassin’s Creed Odyssey as Kassandra, the first female protagonist in the series. Aside from new features like fighting sharks and evading bounty hunters, we were content with the return to form with interesting narrative, stealthy sneaking, and satisfying drop-kills. With disappointing reviews for Fallout 76 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and my inept foray into Fortnite, we were glad to find a new game to keep us occupied on these cold winter nights.

We had planned to recycle last year’s monkey costume for Halloween this year, when Westley came home from Target with my parents sporting a new Spiderman outfit. Fortunately, the fall time change gave us an excuse to delay his bedtime, and I got out of clinic in time to take him trick-or-treating. We stopped by the Glassberg’s again, where Bri-Bri took him to their neighbor’s house to feed some fish. He didn’t take long to overcome his shyness and figure out the “trick-or-treat” and “thank you, bye” routine. By the time we returned home, grandpa was still on candy duty, but almost committed familicide with a Reese’s peanut butter cup. For the rest of the week, I dined out with Melody before she left for a meeting, and took my parents to try spicy dry pot and all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ before they left for NYC. By the time I returned to work last week, it was business as usual – grant applications, progress reports, lab lunch, and busy clinic. Our department had an efficiency consultant visit, but they missed my only clinic day. Fortunately, the Democrats managed to inch past Republicans to retake the House in yet another nail-biting midterm election. It would’ve been a perfect opportunity to take off for Veteran’s Day weekend, if not for my still-unfinished DoD grant, a mysterious fever with no other symptoms, and the deadliest fire in California’s history making the surrounding air nearly unbreathable with smoke. Aside from a brief outing for dim sum with in-laws, we spent most of the long weekend hunkered down with Westley’s Legos, books, and his very first board game as I hummed to the tune of “Smoke gets in your eyes.”

AAO takes place in Chicago biennially and this year, I was able to squeeze all my commitments into a short, two-night stay. Having filled on a breakfast burrito before my 7am flight, I avoided hangriness over catching an Uber to the wrong Hyatt before settling into my actual hotel. For dinner, I left early from an investigator meeting to join Zeiss management at two-Michelin-starred Smyth, where the unique tasting menu was superior to the dinner conversation. I made my way to the Cornea Society party afterwards, but again felt myself aging out of the event. On Saturday, I met with industry colleagues for research updates, then lunched with past UCD fellows at Burger Bar. I returned in time to give a booth talk and laser course before wrapping the evening at the Harvard reunion and an Allergan dinner. On Sunday, I trudged through rain at 6am for an early ad board, then returned to the conference center for my OCT course and poster presentation. I took advantage of happy hour pricing for ramen before joining my co-residents at my friend’s apartment for a baby gathering. I picked up a yogurt parfait for healthier sustenance for the return flight Sunday night. Despite keeping the trip short, I returned to work feeling exhausted, having gone for 3 weeks without a day off. Fortunately, I was able to hang onto Premier status with an Economy Plus upgrade, so I’ll at least be done with air travel for the remainder of the year.

I kicked off October with a visit to the Bay Area to give grand rounds at UCSF. To avoid rush hour traffic, I asked them to put me up at a hotel, which was conveniently located at the Japan Center and gave me a chance for some Daiso shopping and noodle slurping at Kui Shin Bo and Hinodeya, in addition to the hosts’ dinner. I spent the rest of the weekend with family, trying out Fish’s Wild Island Grill, petting farm animals at Grandpa’s Barn, and introducing Westley to his first movie – My Neighbor Totoro. Despite occasional scares from the makkurokurosuke and big totoro, he was glued to the screen. With my parents in town for a 3-week visit, I kept myself busy with grant applications, fellowship interviews, and Paul Hom, while Melody attended several meetings. I finally succeeded in changing our fellowship lunch location, but the back-to-back weekend commitments left me little time to spend with my folks, with only a few opportunities to dine out for hot pot, poke, and pozole. Fortunately, Westley has become much more verbal now, and is keeping them plenty entertained.

Still jet-lagged from our road trip tour of Ireland, we had little time to prepare for our lab party last weekend. Fortunately, it was a potluck, so we were able to play host while Westley served as the entertainment for our guests. Back at work, I’ve been contributing my share by giving a talk to a retirement community in Sun City, while also pressing forward with two research grant applications from the BrightFocus Foundation and DoD. In between, I’ve been checking out HBO’s Sharp Objects, where the strong female protagonists, haunting music, evocative locations, and immersive murder-mystery story-telling were reminiscent of Big Little Lies. This has left me little time to edit our vacation photos a.k.a. “panorama-rama”, which has taken considerably more time to photo-merge the expansive landscape sceneries. Last weekend, after our usual Farmer’s Market / Library / Dance Daze routine, Melody’s car battery died. After youtubing how to use our jumper cables, we drove around Davis to charge up and settled on Persian eats on the patio at Village Pizza, only to find that the battery died again. By the time she got the battery replaced on Monday, the Republicans had confirmed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in face of multiple sexual assault and misconduct accusations, leaving us feeling powerless on all fronts.

With a belated start and a tight schedule, we took turns driving from Belfast to Connemara, filling on sandwiches from Sawers and Cuban Sandwich Factory and Melody’s aptly-named Stinky Bishop cheese. We hiked for an hour in Connemara before a locavore dinner at Kai Café and a short overnight stay in Galway. On Friday, we stopped by prehistoric Poulnabourne Dolmen on the way to the Burren, where our solitary nature walk through the unique, glaciated karst landscape reminded us of its once existence as a tropical sea. The Cliffs of Moher was more touristy, punctated by a singing troupe and a marriage proposal. Stuffed with mussels and Irish stew from Stonecutter’s Kitchen, we made our way to Adare Manor where our mud-splattered Mazda Juke looked out of place at the newly-renovated luxury castle. We indulged in the high-end amenities – free minibar, smarthome features, warmed bathroom floors – before dinner at the Oak Room, where my first taste of grouse fortunately did not contain shot. The concierge managed to squeeze us in for a private falconry experience next morning, where we handled 8 different falcons, hawks, and owls with an avid ornithologist. After a treacherous climb through Conor Pass, we stopped for a quick lunch and Murphy’s ice-cream in Dingle before completing the 3-hour drive along the gorgeous but windy peninsula. Filling on hearty crab dip and seafood curry at Quinlan & Cooke, we settled into our Cahersiveen glamping pod to the sound of rain. Next morning, we drove to Portmagee for our ferry to Skellig Michael. We were glad we skipped the landing tour after suffering the nauseating sail through the rocky waters and seeing the steep climb up to the ancient Gaelic monastery featured in the recent Star Wars franchise. Still nauseated, we skipped lunch and tackled the Ring of Kerry, where highlights included samplings at Skelligs Chocolate Factory and the panoramas at Staigue Fort. We browsed local shops and video-chatted with Westley in Kenmare until dinner at Mulcahy’s, where we learned that the Irish could cook fish but not make sushi. Another 2 hours on the road led us to our yurt in the Galtee Mountains, hosted by an Australian hippie with a cooking oil-run, solar/wind-powered double-decker restaurant bus that he took to music festivals. We made respectable use of the fireplace and car-radio audio system, but found the outdoor shipping-container bathroom inconvenient. We forewent a visit to his chickens in the organic eco-dome garden to truck off next morning for Cahir Castle and the Rock of Cashel on the way to Waterford for lunch and the Waterford Crystal Vistor Center. Here, we learned about the 4-year apprenticeship and one female apprentice before searching their showroom for souvenirs. We reached Kilkenny Castle just before closing, and were fascinated by the investigative work to restore the castle and long portrait hall of the Butler family. Exhausted by pub food, we filled up on Rogan Josh and Saag Paneer at Royal Spice then retired to our stilted treehouse a few blocks away. We awoke before dawn to reach Dublin Airport in time for more hot chocolate from Butler’s and a bite at the airport lounge. Our 6-hour JFK layover was spent in Flushing, where we inhaled cold noodles and potato noodle soup at New World Mall and picked up spicy wontons from White Bear for the flight home. Westley was delighted with our sheep souvenirs and having us back. But with his growing awareness, it will be hard to leave him for this long again.

With this year’s ISER meeting in Belfast, we decided to challenge ourselves with a road trip through Ireland and the U.K. before the impending Brexit. We arrived in Dublin thoroughly jet-lagged but ready to drive on the left side of the road. Despite realizing that I had left my credit card at SMF, requiring constant monitoring on the Chase app, I pulled myself together for our tour of Kilmainham Gaol, which was commemorating the life of Nelson Mandela as a parallel to its history as a political prison. After dining on charcuterie and Cockles and Mussels at the Winding Stair, we crossed Ha’Penny Bridge to check out Temple Bar before heading to Martello Tower Sutton. Built in preparation for a Napoleonic attack that never occurred, the AirBnb featured 10 foot-thick walls with poor cellular reception, but spectacular views of Dublin and the bay. With our Dublin Pass, we set out on a whirlwind tour of the city – chancing an arm at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, getting blocked at Christ Church Cathedral, studying Viking life at Dublinia, photographing State Apartments at Dublin Castle, strolling St. Stephen’s Green, rocking out at the Little Museum of Dublin’s U2 exhibit, and exploring the literary collection at the Chester Beatty Library – all fueled by Butler’s famous hot chocolate and the Shelbourne’s Sunday Roast. After pictures with Molly Malone and some mediocre Korean food, we spent another night in the tower listening to the crashing waves. We awoke next morning to brave the crowds at Trinity College’s Old Library and Book of Kells exhibit. After a full Irish Breakfast at O’Neill’s Pub, we crossed the UK border to Belfast, where we filled on fish and chips from John Long’s. I registered for the conference while Melody settled into our tiny, hip room at the Bullitt Hotel, before reconvening for delicious fare at quirky Made in Belfast. We spent Tuesday driving along the Antrim Coast. Our first stop at Carrickfergus Castle confirmed our preference for non-restored castles, and we wove around the Gobbins visitor centre, various Glens of Antrim, and many sheep before hiking the scenic waterfall trail in Glenariff. Our fish & chips at Morton’s nearly made another appearance when a brisk wind buffeted us on the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge, but settled after some honeycomb ice-cream at Ballintoy Harbor and scenic panoramas at Dunluce Castle. We spent the late afternoon on the surf-washed hexagon towers of the Giant’s Causeway, then stopped for photos along the Dark Hedges of Game of Thrones’ fame before returning for seafood chowder and bouillabaisse at Mourne. On Wednesday, we immersed ourselves at the interactive Titanic Belfast, learning about the city’s history as a ship-building mecca and the events surrounding the ill-fated maiden voyage of the “unsinkable” liner. A disappointing not-all-you-can-eat lunch buffet and city hall visit left us uninspired to explore further that afternoon, but our evening was saved by the inventive tasting menu at Michelin-starred Ox. I gave my talk and received my travel award on our last morning in Belfast before embarking on the second part of our trip. With different hotels and AirBnb’s scheduled each night, we were prepared for a unique experience.