{"id":4043,"date":"2019-04-07T23:28:53","date_gmt":"2019-04-07T23:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/?p=4043"},"modified":"2019-05-06T03:02:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T03:02:36","slug":"spring-celebrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2019\/04\/07\/spring-celebrations\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Celebrations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019.04.07.a.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-4058\" src=\"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019.04.07.a-100x100.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019.04.07.b.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-4059\" src=\"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019.04.07.b-100x100.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a>After my birthday extravaganza in Marin back in January, Melody felt that it would be tough to surpass. So\u00a0she instead agreed to treat our prior getaway as a joint celebration and keep things more laid back for her own 40th. After imaging some monkeys while she enjoyed a lazy morning reading on the couch, we drove to Napa for <a href=\"https:\/\/hogislandoysters.com\/locations\/napa\">Hog Island<\/a> oysters, <a href=\"https:\/\/oxbowpublicmarket.com\/oxbow-cheese-wine-merchant\/\">Oxbow Merchant<\/a> cheese, <a href=\"https:\/\/oxbowpublicmarket.com\/three-twins-ice-cream\/\">Three Twins<\/a> ice-cream, <a href=\"https:\/\/oxbowpublicmarket.com\/karas-cupcakes\/\">Kara&#8217;s<\/a> cupcakes, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themodelbakery.com\/\">Model Bakery<\/a> treats. We had little time to extend the love as I was off to Las Vegas the next morning to attend <a href=\"https:\/\/vitbucklesociety.org\/annual-meeting\">VBS7<\/a>. This was my first time attending the glitzy conference which caters to a younger generation of retinal surgeons, featuring live surgeries, audience participation, and live tweets. I had fun moderating a session, but felt underdressed for the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Austin_Powers\">Austin Powers<\/a>-themed reception and was bewildered by a closing lecture on medical ethics by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/lanow\/la-me-usc-dean-photos-drugs-20170831-story.html\">former dean of USC<\/a>. The short overnight trip left me little time to check out the city except for some <a href=\"https:\/\/popeyes.com\/\">Popeyes<\/a> at the airport before my flight home. Before her Napa retreat, Melody had dropped Westley off with Pam&#8217;s family. His full day of movies, <a href=\"https:\/\/funderlandpark.com\/\">Funderland,<\/a>\u00a0light-saber battles, and brief cousin rivalry left him zonked out by the time I arrived, and made for an easy hand-off as I drove him home for bed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After my birthday extravaganza in Marin back in January, Melody felt that it would be tough to surpass. So\u00a0she instead agreed to treat our prior getaway as a joint celebration and keep things more laid back for her own 40th. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2019\/04\/07\/spring-celebrations\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4043"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4093,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions\/4093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}