Travel: worth it??

I had a nice trip *home* to VA last weekend (once I was home, that is).

Despite not meeting up with very many friends from my HS or college days (busy with the holidays), I did a good deal of sleeping, playing with the doggies, reading, and hanging out with Mom and Dad. We had good meals with the Heimers (my sister's godparents) and my godparents (pics to follow) but I wanted to, for a minute, vent.

What the heck has come of air travel in our country??!

I was never a huge fan of flying, but at least it was a way to get some sleep.
Now, it's just downright painful!

I had no real significant delays or weather problems (yay for leaving from California and going through Nevada and Arizona for connections) to complain about, but here are some of the very irritating things about aitravel nowadays:

• The stupid 3.4-oz rule liquid rule which creates waste and which is not cost-effective for toiletry-buying
• The stupid 3.4-oz rule combined with exorbitant fees for checking even ONE BAG on most airlines now. What is one to do??!
• The stupid 3.4-oz liquid rule which just makes people dehydrated. I had to abandon a perfectly good bottle of spring water (and mind you, I almost never buy bottled water) that I bought post-security on my trip out to VA, because I didn't drink it pre-security on the way back.
• The stupid 3.4-oz liquid rule, combined with the fact that airlines (USAIR, at least), now charge for on-flight beverages. No free water anymore. $1 for tea/coffee, $2 for other drinks. And $7 for alcohol (...takers....??). I am so dry after these flights because, on principle, I just refuse to pay these prices.
• Snack boxes, also for purchase... Whatever happened to those pretzels and peanuts??! Do they even feed you on international flights now? Honestly. Maybe I would lose my intern year weight if I got to travel more.
• Crying toddlers. I sat next to a couple and their roughly 15-mo. old child who cried, I kid you not, 3.5 straight hours of a 4.5-hour flight. I didn't know that was possible and I know it was not any parent's fault. However, if I was formerly on the fence about having children someday, I think I just had my mind made up for me. I am just nowhere near that patient or nurturing.
• Mean stewardesses. Get this: On my last return leg, from Phoenix to Sac, I was one of the "Zone 5" people people to board (who knows what these zones mean, anyway? I'm not convinced they are in order from the back to the front of the plane, nor do they seem to be consistently from window to aisle) . In any case, I was having trouble finding a place in the overhead bin for my mini rolly black suitcase. There were lots of spaces taken up by other passengers' hats, coats, purses, small backpacks, etc., which weren't under their seats. I asked a stewardess for help in rearranging, not feeling like it was my liberty to just go moving around others' stuff. She tried for a minute or two, and then just huffed and told me, "Well, maybe you should not try to bring a bag like this (it was a few day sized CARRY ON size bag!!!) as a carry on! Check it next time!" I could not believe my ears. I think I may have muttered something about "Well, maybe if you didn't charge a gazillion dollars for checking bags and have a gazillion ridiculous and arbitrary security rules about packing, I would!" but I don't think she heard me. I was pretty livid.

What ever happened to customer service???!

So if all my complaining has gotten you as down as I was, you have GOT to read this PDF file which my sister sent me a while ago which should make you smile.

Greatest Airline Complaint Letter Ever Written.

Next air trip might be in February, but I'm tempted to boycott. We'll see. As much as I dislike driving, it may beat flying nowadays...

The Season in and out of Sac!

Pictures are better than words...
Esp. when you're on call on Dec 24th and you're getting paged up the wazoo.


MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!
(some updates...)


Flicks from Michelle's Holiday Potluck last weekend...

Michelle and Andy (the hosts)


Mmmm. Stuffing. My favorite.


Dishing up dessert. Jeremy made his famous Lava cakes.



So content after dessert...





Kids and in-utero babies, galore !!!

Rebecca, and (Serena holding) baby Bryce (11 mo)


What's with the stuff in my mouth??! (Jeremy caught me on all these pics!)


Me with Tom and Betza (expecting end of May!!.... and me still chewing on something...)


(looking at Michelle's wedding pictures...) Am I still eating??


Alvin with David

Shannon, with David and Bryce

Bryce has learned to clap, which is adorable!!!

Daddy (Joby) and Bryce

May babies coming!!! (Betza, now ~17w [baby boy] and Noelle, ~21w [baby girl]).

Aren't they darling??!

Sunday: adventure to Tahoe

(from Sac-town to snow!)

Shom puttin' on the newly-purchased chains!

Love having an engineer around for stuff like this!

Brr. Snowshoeing by the lake

Snow-woman-making.

I can't take credit for this one; it was already there, and I am NOT creative in the slightest!!

We had an awesome lunch, warming up at the Beacon Grill, lake-side at Camp Richardson.

Then: expedition to the Hot Springs at Grover Hot Springs State Park, where I've been wanting to go for ages!!!

We certainly warmed up there, with the natural mineral water at 102-104 degrees in the "warm pool" (there was also a "cool pool" at around 80 degrees!). Believe it or not, it (the hot pool) was almost too hot to get in initially, but then felt HEAVENLY compared to the cold outside air.

There is nothing like sitting in a warm pool looking out at the mountains....

Around 5:00 p.m., they actually started to set up a large projector and play "Christmas Vacation" while people basked in the warmth, but we had to head back over the passes back to Sac-town.

Fun trip!!!

Much more fun than being on call on December 24th.

It was kind of a crazy day including a moderate decel and getting an intern here for a continuity delivery for an OB patient this a.m., admitting the baby and dealing with another newborn with jaundice and an arrythmia, covering the inpatient family medicine wards service with some complicated people, including one going in/out of complete heart block (now, thankfully, on the cardiology service-- I didn't really want to have to put my ACLS [advanced cardiac life support] skills to use today), taking operator FP phone triage calls what seemed like every 10 minutes, harrassing OB patients who called the OB advice nurse to actually come to triage on Christmas Eve to get checked out, admitting from the ED and putting in a central line on a (former) IV drug user admitted for an abcess (oh yeah.. and she's + for cocaine, too...)...

... and there's still 5 hours left of call!

I fly to Virginia on the 10 a.m. flight out of here (through Las Vegas). Can't wait to see my parents and doggies! I hope there aren't any storms on the way ...

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE !!!!

'Tis the season to be Jolly (Social)

Although I'm still higher than Lesley on Wendi's blog-roll, it seems like I'm due for a post.

I've been again on a clinic rotation this past week, so it's hard to believe that I'm THAT busy (maybe I'm getting spoiled and lazy with my outpatient time?!), but time is just flying by!

The past couple of weeks have gone something like this:

Tuesday night: applicant dinner with FP/OB applicants and Peds Mommy call all night long

Wednesday: Peds urgent care and Mommy call all night long

Thursday: Peds urgent care and dinner with the categorical FP applicants

Friday 12/12: PPP-party at Kristin's house where your costume had to be something starting with a P and the snacks were similarly alliterated :)

Can you guess what we are? (they have to do with bodily functions, grossly; however, it saved going out and trying to be creative, not one of my talents)

Tim's costume was very original, as a "Posistive Pregnancy Test"!!

Kelvin went as the "Pho King" (also the name of a Vietnamese restaurant here in Sac)

Saturday 12/13:

AM: Clinica Tepati (I worked as a preceptor at this free clinic run by UC Davis Medical and Undergraduate Students that works to serve a large Latino population in town)

PM: FP Department Party

Brenden taking pictures (unfortunately, I didn't take many)

Susanna and baby Sage

I can't take credit for these next pictures, as Kyla, Aline, and I party-hopped and went to the OB department party which was the same night.

Apparently there was a lot of fun Karaoke going on!

Shomir and Steve

Not sure what this is all about.

Tim and Mehrdad

FP/OBs at Party #2

Sunday: Farmers' Market, church, and overall recuperation

Then:

Monday: long day in Clinic where my teen clinic became a same-day access clinic. Phone triage until 10 p.m.

Tuesday: AM clinic, 2 fairly urgent FP C-sections with Sarah in the afternoon, and then Dinner at Cafe Bernardo with the FP/OB applicants

Wednesday: Clinic, interviewing applicants and giving the tour, grocery shopping and making a disaster of my Mom's rumball recipe by trying to smash Nilla wafers with an iron and not a mortar and pestle which I lack.

Thursday: Clinic, more interviews, PM clinic, FP applicant dinner at Sonia's where the theme was Trader Joe's tapas! Mmm. Phone triage until 10 pm.

Friday (yesterday): Clinic, and induction of my continuity OB patient who was still not delivered at 41 and 1/7 weeks! She sort of hung around at 4-5 cm all day, until I ruptured her membranes around 6:30. When I went in around 8:15 pm to check her, she was ready to push! Scrambling to call to get my attending there, we had her hold off, but she pushed for about 10 minutes and had her beautiful baby girl just before 9 p.m.! I stuck around to take care of admitting the baby, too, and so didn't get home until close to midnight, but at least I have today off! I will try to check on her later.

Tonight: Michelle's holiday party.

Tomorrow: Shom and I may go to Tahoe to snowshoe/ cross-country or downhill ski.

Monday: All day clinic and phone triage till 10.

Tuesday: Clinic and Xmas potluck with the interns.

Wednesday, Christmas eve: 24 hour FP call.

Thursday: (CHRISTMAS!!): end shift around 8 a.m. and fly to VA!

Wow! 'Tis quite a busy season!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Tagged by Wendi

I was tagged by Wendi to "go to the 5th folder in your Pictures folder, open up the 5th picture, and post it."

However, when you are a compulsive organizer like I am, and every folder has multiple folders, this task is a bit tricky. No loose pictures hanging out there. This is the photo that is in within my 5th "Pictures" folder, but it is the 5th picture within the first folder within that 5th folder. Got that? :) It's Erin and TJ at Sequoia National Park last December.

Good times!


*** I was so confused by all that that I forgot to tag people, too :) I'll let others tag others :)

A little City culture

I have been a bit wimpy on the California day-trips so far this year! While I was a bit of an adventure-holic last (intern) year, I have somehow become complacent and cozy in my little Sacramento home and have not been exploring as I should/as has been characteristic.
I have been meaning for a while to make the trip into SF to go to the Asian Art Museum and the California Academy of Sciences.

On Sunday, despite being nervous that my 39-plus week pregnant patient was going to go into labor the minute I headed west on Highway 80, I decided to make the trip anyway, as full days (much less weekends) off are still quite a novelty/rarity for me in residency. Lucky for me was that Amy, back from week 1 of her vacation with her boyfriend in Cancun, wanted to go with me! (And, no worries; I was lucky and my patient did not go into labor while I was the 80 miles away or whatever. I saw her, still pregnant, back in clinic today. She is 39 and 4/7 weeks, a prime but dilated to 3 cm (!) although not contracting very much. Despite my offer, she declined membrane-stripping this morning with the hope that it makes her "go" sooner (and which would allow me, if she delivers before her 40-week mark, to leave town for a guilt- and worry- free weekend... but, alas, there is nothing predictable or plan-able about OB).

In any case, Amy and I had a wonderful time on Sunday! I found out the day before that the Asian Art Museum is free on the 1st Sunday of the month, so it worked out wonderfully that we decided to go this weekend (not that I like free stuff or anything...the best was that we didn't even have to pay for PARKING in San Fran on the Sunday because the meters, too, were free)! They had a great current exhibition on treasures of Afghanistan, as well as gallery after gallery of rooms featuring art and sculpture from periods, and locations all over the Asian world, including China, Japan, Korea, India, Iran, Bhutan, Indonesia and more. Here are a couple of neat pictures!

The nearby City Hall (NOT opera house, as my mom corrected me)





(Amy laughed at me for taking a picture of the San Francisco Public Library, which I imagine must be awesome, but, to refrain from further ridicule, I will refrain from posting here).

The art and sculpture...

We had a wonderful lunch (shared 2 asian dishes- a lamb curry and an udon noodle bowl) at the museum cafe and then headed over to Golden Gate Park (I hadn't actually been to that park yet!) where the newly-reopened California Academy of Sciences is located, which houses a planetarium, 4-story aquarium, and natural history museum all in one place. It was wonderful! We visited some exhibits on conservation and got to see a ton of little creatures including amphibians, birds, fish, and other sea creatures in the aquarium/rainforest setup. On our way out, we ogled the 13-year old albino alligator that is unique to the academy and which, featured on the cover of a AAA travel magazine (we actually got $3 AAA discounts to the academy! Yeah!), piqued my interest in visiting sooner rather than later. Very cool. (Thanks to Amy for taking the pics since my camera battery died).

View of (a very small part of) Golden Gate Park from the Living Rooftop

View of (some of) San Fran from the living rooftop

T. rex display


Part of the Rainforest/Aquarium

Snakes... ew....

Little red poisonous froggies (yes, JB, that is the Latin name)

Magical fish


Pre-historic-looking Sea Bass

Jellyfish

The albino alligator-- cool, huh?



Ah. Such good times.

Some other California locations on the Must-Visit list: Apple Hill for apple-picking, Lassen National Volcanic Park (near Redding in the north), Grover Natural Hot Springs (near Tahoe), Monterey Aquarium/whale-watching, Hearst Castle (down south on the coast), and San Diego. And the list will certainly keep growing. I'm open to other suggestions, too :)