With my last few clinic charts closed, I rushed home with Melody to pack, change, and prepare for our dinner reservations at the Restaurant at Meadowood. It was Melody’s birthday weekend, and what better way to celebrate than at a 3 Michelin starred restaurant. We drove through scenic Napa Valley and St. Helena to arrive at the restaurant, tucked inside a luxury resort. After gifting a new pendant from our friends in the diamond business over non-alcoholic cocktails, we started our 10-course odyssey. Our menu began with a crisped kale chip that reminded us of papadum, tiny pickled garden veggies, and a borage oyster leaf mignonette served in a ceramic oyster shell. This was followed by a salad of miner’s lettuce, caviar, asparagus, and smoked butter; a mackerel verjus escabeche with celery; a mesmerizing grilled abalone with beans and wild onion appetizer; and an incredibly round kohlrabi cooked in its own juice with rye porridge and mustard seeds. The fish was a trout with a realistic buckwheat skin and fermented turnip, which was followed by a “duck tea” with chrysanthemum dill. The recent California ban lift allowed us to indulge in the coal-seared foie gras with raw rhubarb, which led to grilled duck with “duck fudge,” yam, and sorrels. The cheese course was a goat cheese with apple porridge bread. After cleansing our palate with a sheeps milk yogurt with hibiscus rose and wild plum, we enjoyed a chocolate burnt milk walnut spicebush dessert and a frosty chocolate chestnut. The birthday girl got a tiny chocolate cake on the house, presented in a wooden box that splayed open when the lid was lifted. By the time we returned to the Candlelight Inn, it was past midnight and too late to enjoy our pricey hot tub room. We awoke to a nice breakfast and took our time planning the day – until we realized we had only booked a single night, not two. We hastily packed up and headed into town to sample olive oils, browse art galleries, comb antique shops, and bypass the multitude of wineries. For lunch, we pre-ordered fried chicken and ribs at Thomas Keller’s Addendum, which let us skip the line and enjoy extra time dining in the lush vegetable and herb garden. After recovering from our postprandial coma in the car, we strolled through Yountville – skipping the lines at Bouchon Bakery, surveying the French Laundry‘s culinary garden, chicken coop, and bee hive, and looking at the art in V Marketplace. We spent the evening at Ox Bow Public Market, dining on oysters and seafood stew at Hog Island Oyster Bar, strawberry and cardamom ice cream from Three Twins, and cream puffs from Ca’ Momi. Despite the short trip, we are left with fond, foodie feelings for this one-of-a-kind birthday celebration.

For an East coast transplant like me, the long weekend for Cesar Chavez day was an unexpected surprise and a chance to catch up with home improvements. After a series of strategic coupon purchases, we dropped a few hundred bucks at the local Home Depot and Lowes to deck out the backyard. While Melody plucked weeds and planted a small herb garden, I was replacing old defunct path lights with new LED ones. After the sun went down, we hoped to relax to the new Game of Thrones video game by Telltale, which also produced the Wolf Among Us. But like the TV series, the game’s harsh decision trees and unavoidable calamities made the whole exercise seem rather futile and us feeling constantly defeated. I felt a similar feeling after spending 2 hours with an electrician unsuccessfully trying to locate a voltage drop in the landscape lighting. On Tuesday, we attended a special showing of the movie After Tiller, which did not lighten the mood, but gave me a better sense of how important and special my wife’s work truly is. We concluded the show with a Q&A session, followed by tapas at Aioli Bodega (and not at Plan B, as I had predicted). With our upcoming weekend trip to Napa, we can’t wait for the week to be over.

Frustrated by the dearth of contemporary furniture offerings in the Sacramento-Davis area, we decided to head into the Bay area to expand our search. After a 4-hour marathon of med student skits last Friday, we awoke early on Saturday to drive to Berkeley to peruse CB2 and a Crate & Barrel Outlet before meeting with a friend from the East Bay for lunch. Afterwards, we drove into the city to check out KD Buttercup, Room & Board, and Bo Concept; but was disappointed that the Baker furniture showroom was only available by appointment on weekdays. We stopped for fancy Cantonese seafood at Asian Pearl before returning home. My clinical duties kept me busy last week with a pair of RDs that kept me up until 3am Monday night, and our Dean Symposium where I tried to showcase my recent work. Fortunately, my lab work has been alleviated with a new technician whom I hired. In just the few weeks since starting, he has proven to be a quick learner and hard worker. This past weekend, we returned to Berkeley to revisit the C&B outlet among several nearby modern furniture stores in Berkeley and Emeryville, including West Elm, Ikea, and an enormous granite outlet endorsed by Martin Yan and likely run by the Triad. A Yelp coupon gave us a small discount for momos and goat curry for lunch, which was offset by the $5 taro egg puffs after dinner at the Pacific East Mall – our now regular Richmond stop on the way back from the Bay. On Sunday, we ventured back to Vacaville to find more inspiration, scoring a small end table and towering faux ficus plants from Scandinavian Designs and another end table from Pier 1 that Melody’s been eyeing. Despite the low yield of actual furniture purchases, we were encouraged by our slowly-emerging consensus of how we want our new home to look.

With my grant submitted and my parents visiting for 2 weeks, I was planning to spend some quality time with the family. After showing them the new house and our new vacation album for Africa, we took them into the city for banh cuon in Little Saigon, snapper sandwiches at Fins, and shopping at Arden Fair. But by the time I got home, I was curled up in my fetal position with a fever of 104 degrees. This was probably the sickest I’ve been in a long time, so my wife and parents had to take turns nursing me over the remainder of the long weekend. I was conscious enough to watch the 40th anniversary special of SNL, but I ultimately succumbed to a doctor visit after five nights of shaking chills and night sweats. I was finally feeling better by Chinese New Year, so I was able to do our tea ceremony ritual, take family photos, and even help put together our new Joola table for a few rounds of ping pong. This past weekend, we took my parents to Roseville and Fair Oaks for some furniture shopping. Having met with our interior designer, we perused the designs at West Elm, Crate & Barrel, and Restoration Hardware, but ultimately ordered a Natuzzi couch from Furnitalia and some patio furniture from Macy’s. We also made sure our bellies were full with tonkotsu ramen, Cantonese seafood, and Russian buffet. My in-laws also came to visit, which gave us a good opportunity for hot pot with ingredients from 99 Ranch and Koreana Plaza. By the time my parents left, I was in high spirits, having recovered from my virus and returning to work, only to be shattered – literally – with a break-in at our house the next day. Melody had arrived home from work minutes before I did. Having noticed the glass in our rear door shattered and our alarm triggered, she walked out and immediately called the police. By then, the house was clear and the burglars had left with my wife’s jewelry and make-up collection. Surprisingly, our electronics were left untouched, and we wondered if the alarm had limited the potential loss. We spent the evening cleaning the broken glass, calling the insurance company, and looking for a door repair person. All in all, I was glad that my family was safe through this episode, but I went to bed reconsidering my opinion of human nature.

I had wished to spend my birthday quietly at home this year. But as fate would have it, it was my call week and I spent Friday night removing a piece of metal from the back of a patient’s eye. Fortunately, she did surprisingly well considering the injury, and I have been satisfied with the growth of my clinical practice. On the other hand, I had to put much of my lab work on hold this week while I tried desperately to submit my K08 grant on time. This was my first experience submitting an NIH grant, and I had not expected the paperwork to be so overwhelming. Aside from dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s, I had to coordinate a team of mentors, consultants, and referees to have their letters of reference submitted electronically in time. Even my own submission bounced back 3 different times from formatting errors before I was finally able to get it in today – one day before the due date. We celebrated over dim sum with Melody’s cousin, and look forward to my parents driving up from San Jose for their first visit to the area.

For Melody, there is only one reason to visit Monterey. That reason is the Monterey Bay Aquarium. So when we received an invitation for a wedding in Monterey from her high school friend, we figured it would be a nice addition to our aquarium visit. We departed for the 3 hour drive at the break of dawn on Saturday morning, which gave us time to drop off our car at the hotel and enter the aquarium right when it opened. The “jellies” and “tentacles” exhibits immediately captured our attention, filling up half of my camera’s memory card within the first hour. Outside, we spotted an otter sunning itself on the bay amidst kayakers, then returned indoors to watch the big tank feeding. At noon, we broke away to feed ourselves with steamed clams and fried seafood at Sea Harvest. With bellies full, we returned to the aquarium to gaze at the mesmerizing swirls of schooling sardines, and per our tradition, left with a souvenir mug. We returned to the hotel with just enough time to change before the seaside wedding at The Clement. While the ceremony was short and sweet, the lengthy cocktail hour kept us hungry until dinner, where my wife reminisced with her high school classmates at our table. We burned our calories away to West coast rap on the dance floor, only to gain it back when the groom announced the 10pm taco delivery. Begrudgingly, we awoke early again on Sunday to make the drive back for me to volunteer at the Paul Hom clinic. We had expected a TV crew to cover the event, but were disappointed at the last minute. Despite having our trip cut short, our day in Monterey gave us a much needed break from work.

January has been a month of malfunctions. Just after our oven door came loose, which took three different visits from the repairman to fix, our garage door hinges snapped open also. Not having learned my lesson, I then ordered a Surface Pro 3 as a new laptop replacement, only to have it break down after just one day. It would have been less frustrating if I had not spent that entire day meticulously installing all the programs programs and customizing the settings. And for that extra twist of the knife, the keyboard Type Cover decided to poop out a week later as well. I was relieved that my office furniture arrived safely at least, but not before my DisplayPort cable snapped and my SLR telephoto lens fell to its demise. At work, I’m still trying to get experiments started while interviewing potential candidates for a junior technician position. With my NIH grant about to be submitted, I’m looking forward to some reprieve in the days ahead.

Christmas eve brought us dual emergent late cases in the OR, so having the day off on Christmas Day was a relief. We spent the day cooking sides of sauteed kale and brussel sprouts, mashed parsnips, extra crispy roasted potatoes, green beans, and corn chowder to go with the prime rib roast that Melody’s sister was making. Our niece provided after-dinner entertainment with Mancala before we headed home. On the day after Christmas, we joined the mayhem at the mall to score some deals on shirts and sweaters. We enjoyed our post-shopping dinner at Taylor’s Kitchen, where we watched the show from the kitchen counter as we dined on sweetbreads, clams, a burger, and agnolotti. We spent the rest of the holidays lounging at home, working on my first NIH grant interspersed with bouts of dragon-slaying. The expansive game kept us busy through New Year’s Eve, when we took a brief break to watch the Times Square ball-drop from the West Coast for the first time. This week, we received our first delivery from Blue Apron as a gift from Melody’s sister, and whipped up a Southern Beef and Collard Green stew over cheddar grits and Shrimp Paella for our New Year’s Day meals. The packaging of individually-wrapped fresh ingredients (one medium carrot; an ounce of fresh cream) was quite the novelty, but the low leftovers-to-dishes-used ratio makes us unlikely to use this service often.

We returned to the Bay area this past Sunday for a night out – at the circus! Neither Melody nor I have been to the circus since we were little kids. For me, it was the Ringling Bros then, complete with acrobats, clowns, and elephants across three rings in an enormous stadium. In contrast, Cirque du Soleil’s new show, Kurios, was a fantastic production of sights and sounds with steampunk elements and a cool electro-swing soundtack. The memorable acts included a Japanese yo-yo champion, a rolla bolla genius, and a miniature woman who is one meter tall. We had secured a ghetto parking spot for the show through ParkWhiz, but ended the evening with a festive holiday dinner at the Michelin-starred Boulevard, which featured a delectable white truffle polenta and lobster bisque among the highlights. The meal stood out among my other holiday dining experiences this week, including Paesanos for our lab lunch, Shoki Ramen for a VA candidate luncheon, and Mexican take-out at my wife’s division holiday party at her boss’ house. Back home, we interviewed several interior designers including Misha Lindsey and Kerrie Kelly (her minion at least), with the hope of putting our home improvement projects back on track.

The holiday season has barely arrived, but I decided to treat myself to a few new gadgets to replace my aging hardware and gear. Our adventures in Orlais & Ferelden became much smoother with a new Sapphire Radeon R9 280x graphics card, which features three tandem 12mm fans that barely fit into my tower. Taking advantage of Black Friday specials, I also replaced my 4-year-old not-so-smart phone with a new Samsung Galaxy S5. The new phone is not much of a looker, but certainly has the specs to keep my mobile experience lag-free at least for the near future. Meanwhile, we’re also joining in the holiday spirit with some Christmas decorations and a new tree from Emigh’s. Last week, the ALTA holiday dinner at Asian Pearl featured a talk from a Buddhist monk which fortunately did not interfere with the full-on HK banquet-style meal. The food at my department holiday party was less interesting in comparison, but at least featured a DJ and raffle.