Throwing away memories?

with Laura, gelato outside the Vatican, 2003


I LOVE photos. We have tons of photos displayed in our house (I just printed a bunch of wedding photos) and I am one of those people who loves to ogle at others' pictures when I visit their houses. I love taking photos and, while we don't yet have a "nice" camera and by no means do I consider either of us talented photographers (we have lots of friends who are!), we are thinking about getting one in the future. I have been a scrapbooker in the past (really just for travel/trips), but really have just not had the time and have just used the blog as a means to post and record pictures. I have been thinking for a while about printing out the blog (there are some programs, like BLURB, where you can make it into a book) to substitute for scrapbooks and photo albums, but haven't made the commitment yet, as it's quite expensive.

Anyway, currently I am struggling with my conflicting desires to preserve memories on one hand, while avoiding accumulating clutter on the other, and specifically trying to figure out what to do with "random photos" which are currently collecting dust on my desk due to my indecision about their fate, but which have been boxed up for long periods in the past. I haven't been a regular photo-printer for quite some time, and so some of these photos are about 5-10 years old, from past graduations, and long-past trips to Europe! I can only imagine that the photo taking (and maybe printing) might increase exponentially if/when we have kids which, believe me, is no time soon, and so I'm trying to make a photo-plan.

So what do I do with random photos from the past? We have maxed out our # of displayable photos. It's fun to recall these photo memories when I see them, unexpectedly, in a shoe box that I open. But I am REALLY trying to be anti-hoard and trying to get rid of things which we don't anticipate seeing/using/looking at in the future and trying to minimize the "stuff" that ends up as storage in the closet. It just seems wrong to throw photos in the trash/recycling, as if I'm "throwing away memories," even if they could be reprinted easily by retrieving the cd or saved images from the computer which I back up regularly. Nevertheless, I feel very stuck and torn. Ideas? What have you done?

Rice: Good for somethin'

I am not a big fan of rice. It could disappear as a food option and I would not miss it. Kelvin, however, being Asian, is naturally a big rice-eater and feels that it is a perfect side dish for most things I cook, including most meats and even soup. I had never used a rice cooker (and actually did not think I new they existed!) until a couple of years ago as, in the rare instances I cooked rice, I just did it (er, burned it) on the stove top. I was horrified when, early in our relationship, he told his (Vietnamese) parents that I didn't care for rice, as I was convinced that after that comment, I would never be deemed a suitable daughter-in-law. It's not that I hate the taste of rice. It really doesn't taste like anything and really just fills me up. So, except for with curries and the occasional stir-fry, I'd rather "save" my calories and carbs for something more tasty.

I am happy to say, though, that I recently became aware of ONE redeeming feature of rice -- its ability to hasten fruit ripening. Kelvin was actually the one to mention this trick.... and I actually didn't believe him at the time. However, Google came to the rescue for confirmation of this "Vietnamese wives' tale." Just as fruit in close contact with other fruit (i.e. bananas in a bunch, rather than separating them) hastens ripening due to the ethylene gas produced by the fruit, apparently putting fruit in rice allows the ethylene to work in close contact and thus causes it to ripen faster. It apparently doesn't affect or ruin the rice either.

I have not yet put this to the scientific test. While we occasionally buy mangoes and papayas that could use some ripening assistance, my problem (well, not really my problem but rather others' problem, since I eat practically black bananas) is usually that fruit ripens faster than we can eat it.




Nevertheless, the next time we get unripe fruit, we may try a controlled experiment with fruit in rice vs fruit without rice. If you try it first, let me know the outcome!

First Visitors!

Arcata Plaza

Danny and Chamreun receive the honor of being our first out-of-town visitors! They were real troopers-- driving the ~12 hours from Orange County on Friday to stay with us for just two nights (~ 36 hours) and heading back on Sunday. It was a good time, though, and we really enjoyed having them here and sharing Humboldt County with good friends.

Unfortunately, I was on call this weekend, so I couldn't venture out of a 20-min radius or so, but the guys were not too excited about spending any more time in the car, so it worked out. Friday night, they all enjoyed playing with K's new karaoke machine while I tried to get some shut-eye (putting on "Say Yes to the Dress" to drown out the Backstreet Boys).

On Saturday, we took them to the Arcata Farmers' market, which was a Farmers' Market First for both of them! We picked up our pre-ordered fresh Humboldt oysters from "The Oyster Lady," some locally-grown peppers, and Chamreun picked out a football-shaped watermelon :)



We then headed to one of our favorite spots on the Humboldt Coast, Patrick's Point SP, where Danny and I went for a little jog and then we (well, 3/4 of us) enjoyed tasty oysters while overlooking the Pacific cliffs and listening to the barks of the sea lions below. While it was a bit windy, it was a lovely fall day to spend outside.





The boys


Chamreun was our master shucker (we were lucky to have him-- while we looove oysters, neither K nor I are patient enough to want to shuck them)


Our topping: Tapatio, horseradish, and lime... mmm


A red pepper snack (from the farmers' market):

(yes, I ate this whole thing)

Danny was the only one of us who doesn't really like oysters.
Here is how he responded to K's persuasiveness to "just try one...."






Oh well; that meant more for the rest of us (I think we polished off 60 oysters!!)

I cooked some steaks for dinner, we watched more football, and the weekend drew to a close...
punctuated by another VBAC (yes!). Good times.

Next visitors (we think): Serena & Brad! Will you be next? :)

Random fall bests

Best recent book


If you haven't read this book, read it! While I am generally more of a fiction reader, I have gotten more into reading some non-fiction this year. And while I still vote The Help the best novel I've read this year, this book, which chronicles the author's obsession with tracking down the history and lives connected with the HeLa (cervical cancer) cells which were taken from an African American Virginian woman (Henrietta Lacks) without her consent and have revolutionized cancer research, comes a close second.

Best movie series


I had not seen Modern Family until after they swept the Emmys this year. I really wish I had started watching this series earlier, although now being "behind" and starting from season 1 through Netflix has given us a whole lot enjoyment. This show is hilarious, incredibly well written, and deserving of all its acclaim. It definitely ranks up there with The Office (similar humor, I think) and How I Met Your Mother (also a must-see if you haven't yet).

Best delivery


I am a HUGE proponent of VBACs (vaginal births after cesarean sections). Due to requirements of immediate access to surgery, anesthesia, and other OR personnel due to the risk of uterine rupture, they can be very tricky to pull off; actually, many hospitals (particularly smaller hospitals) discourage or don't even offer women VBACs and just deliver with the "convenience" of repeat c-sections, which I feel is incredibly unfortunate and an unnecessary contributor to operative morbidity. While we did lots of VBACs at UCD, it is a large academic center. I am so thrilled that our little hospital here not only offers, but encourages VBACs (they are actually reimbursed better than repeat c-sections, as they should be). We are the only hospital in this immediate area which offers them and, due to limited availability in other parts of the county, some women are resigned to a HBAC (a home birth after cesarean-- which makes me and most other providers reeeeeaaaallllly nervous) rather than come to the hospital for another operative delivery.

In any case, our protocol requires that the surgeon be in-house while the woman is in active labor, and really discourages pitocin unless for a finite amount of time and with OR staff all on standby... which makes it really challenging to get a lady from 2 cm and ruptured until delivered... however, I managed and had had my first attempted & successful VBAC here on Wednesday morning with a woman who'd driven 2 hours to deliver with us, and it was totally worth the overnight in-house sleep deprivation! This made my week!

(Short-lived) Pumpkin Fun

Kelvin has never carved a pumpkin before. And despite my sentiments that pumpkin patches/fall activities are a bit corny unless you have a cute toddler to dress up and place on a pumpkin for photos, and that it might be odd to go sans children to such a place, we went anyway.

On Saturday, we visited Christie's pumpkin patch outside of Blue Lake, the sunnier town east of here. Despite being the only childless couple there, we had a good time. There were no entrance fees (! How rare is that nowadays?!) and we got to ride a wagon way out to the fields, which were totally packed with rows and rows of pumpkins of all different varieties (we bypassed the corn maze which was not nearly as cool as the World's Largest corn maze in Dixon, which is located outside our old stomping ground of Sac).

Sunflowers on the way in


Rows and rows...






I thought the short, squat, red pumpkins were pretty cool-looking (although they are apparently better for eating/not so good for carving)


Squash


Weird-looking little pumpkin


It was a beautiful, sunny day (apparently October is when summer starts in Humboldt County!) and we spent quite a while picking our our perfectly sized and shaped pumpkins, which we planned to carve the next day... although that didn't happen...



Since the pumpkins, straight from the patch, had quite a bit of dirt on them, we elected to leave them outside on our front porch as Halloween/fall decor rather than bringing them inside. We'd planned to carve them on Sunday (we had even gotten some pumpkin carving kits with tools!). However, they didn't even last a day.

I got called into a delivery around 1 a.m. on Sunday morning. I know the pumpkins were intact outside our house when I left; however, when I returned a few hours later, they were not. When I drove back into our development and saw a smashed pumpkin in the middle of the street, I immediately knew it was one of our carefully chosen ones... and found the other one smashed around the corner from our house.

It was pretty sad. We are not sure if it was done out of malice, boredom, or both... or who the perpetrators were who took away a small piece of our fall joy, but we are bummed (At least I was. Kelvin, who was the optimist here, was just happy that they didn't smash the pumpkins into our house). I remember some pumpkins in college that Cathleen and I carved were similarly destroyed... and I felt very violated. I am disappointed that I'm not going to be able to make my pumpkin curry or toasted pumpkin seeds this week, but more that K still hasn't carved a pumpkin! In any case, we may get some Safeway pumpkins to carve just for Halloween itself, but you can be sure we are not leaving them outside for any length of time (but are empty pumpkins as much fun to smash, I wonder?).

Luckily, we have a compost bin [see previous post!] that accommodated the pumpkin pieces that we (well, Kelvin) felt obligated to retrieve from the street... although it is now so heavy I can barely turn it!

On another note (so as to not end on a downer), here is a fun pumpkin memory...
Me beside a 900+ lb pumpkin at the Alaska State Fair in 2010.
THAT would be hard to carve!!

Compost Happens

I have been a bit stressed out this week. Part of it is my own fault with filling my "day off" (Tuesday) with: an early morning tubal ligation, my own doctor's appt (to which I was a bit late in checking in [embarrassing] due to being in the OR), a mom-and-baby visit including a circumcision, a provider meeting, helping with another circumcision, agreeing to see a walk-in patient since I was there in clinic, catching up on EMR, and lots of doubling back to the hospital and grocery store because I kept forgetting things (yes, I had to dig through the OR laundry to find my ID badge. Luckily everything is within a 10-minute drive).

On Wednesday, I agreed to come in to the hospital to assist with an early morning c-section... which made me late for work and caused me to be behind for the rest of the morning, especially with all the charting. When I just caught up and could breathe again, an asthmatic walked into clinic over the noon hour who could NOT breathe, requiring a bunch of albuterol nebs and a transfer to the ER... And then it was to OB clinic for the afternoon.

Today, I saw 19 patients (lots of them new) in 7 "clinic" hours which was a new daily record for me. However, it left me feeling really worn thin and frazzled. It is really hard to do a good job with a patient (especially with multiple medical issues and some of whom love to talk, talk, talk...) in a 15 minute appointment. And then, after the patients are seen, there are the phone calls to return, labs to review, box coverage for providers out of the office, and lots of incoming paperwork and records to scrutinize to abstract to EMR. I'm not sure I can handle many more days like this one. I came home frustrated and exhausted. Bad days like these happen, but I hope they do not become more frequent.

The good news, however, is that I have a new toy!!
I have always been guilty of being a bit of a tree-hugger. I think I wrote one of my college essays about my "scrap paper drawer" from elementary school and abhorring waste of all kinds. I hate plastic grocery bags and have Trader Joe's reusable bags with me in my car at all times. I feel bad using coffee shops' disposable cups and carry a thermos with me a lot of the time. I think bottled water creates lots of unnecessary waste and should be banned. I drive a Prius. I wish I could bike to work (and wish K would, too!). I wish we had solar heating in our house. I reuse cups (but not dishes-- LOVE the dishwasher :)).

Now having a small yard and space, I had been doing a lot of compost research. I couldn't really warm up to the idea of composting with red wiggler worms...


... or building something out of chicken wire in the back...

... so here is my new toy:

(a 52-gallon, 7 cubic-foot compost tumbler)

I've already had to work on "training" Kelvin to not reflexively throw everything in the trash. We are both fruit lovers and eat many veggies, so I have a cookie jar (thrift store steal) on the kitchen counter to collect our compostable items... and then I transfer them outside and turn, turn, turn.
I was really excited to learn that there are tons of things (besides the obvious organic kitchen waste) that you can put in there.... including coffee grounds/filters, teabags, eggshells, hair, toenail clippings, dryer lint, shredded cardboard, paper towels, and more... Awesome!

I am not quite sure what I plan to do with my finished compost when it happens; however, I just LOVE that I can already see a reduction in our household waste (probably cutting it by 2/3). New to and not that confident in composting, I was told that even without much maintenance, compost happens! Here's to my newest hobby :)

Our (Mason/Asian food) fill...

We headed to Oakland this past weekend (about a 5 hour drive) to visit our residency friends Wai Kiu, Hanh, and Mason who just moved into their recently purchased beautiful new home! I can't believe that, so soon after moving (and with Wai Kiu working full time), they contemplated the idea of inviting lucky visitors (us), but it was so great to see them and to see their new place! While 3 months have passed since residency ended, it was just like old times with this crew.

They are now proud owners of a lovely 4+ (?) bedroom home near Montclair Village in the hills of Oakland with views of the SF Bay. Although despite it being "Fleet Week" in SF, where the naval ships come in and there are lots of fun seaside events, we did not venture far past Oakland.

We had a great almost-two-days spent relaxing, playing with Mason, and eating wonderful Asian food which we can't get up here. In three meals, we had Thai food in the village, Korean barbeque (where Kimie, Vin, Khuong, and Kim's brother and girlfriend joined us), and then dim sum at Hong Kong East Ocean on Sunday morning, where we also got to catch up with Ashby (another residency friend who works in the same office as Wai Kiu) and Apurva, one of K's groomsmen and college friends who was in town for a wedding.

We hit up Ikea (dangerous) and got a TV stand and also did our Asian food shopping at Ranch 99, where we stocked up on rice noodles and sauces (but they were out of Sriracha! :() before heading home.

We can never get enough of this awesome toddler who will always be so special to us as I held him first:

Ikea ice-cream is awesome! (Fenton's ice cream later that night was pretty awesome, too!)



Karaoke is cool! (esp with Uncle Kelvin wearing glasses like that!)








And Ratatouille is puzzling... (engrossed with Hanh's phone...)


Thanks, Wai Kiu, Hanh, and Mason for such a great weekend! See you next time!

Fern Canyon

Last weekend, we took advantage of a day-off-from-call-where-I-could-venture-more-than-20-minutes-away to hike a little bit.

We chose Fern Canyon, which was voted Humboldt's "Best Hike" (with 19% of voters choosing this trail, tripling the percentage for the next most popular one). The location, within Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (about 50 minutes north of us), was actually chosen by Steven Spielberg for the setting of Jurassic Park 2 and BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs, and is a lovely place to wander. We hiked along the creek which was lined with steep walls covered in different types of ferns, and took a couple of vertical offshoots.

We saw lots of these (snuggling slugs, I think):


and some of these... (elk at the trailhead)


...as well as a bright orange-colored snake which slithered across our path which caused me to yelp in fear, jump back, and push Kelvin in front of me.

It was not a strenuous walk, but a very interesting one, filled with natural wonders and nice scenery.






Interestingly, we had a bit of deja vu en route to the trail, as K and I had actually visited this state park about a year and a half ago on a trip to Oregon and the Redwood Coast. We remember driving past Gold Bluffs Beach and attempting to traverse a road with lots of ditches filled with water, but had to turn back as I worried that my Prius wouldn't make it across. This time (not yet "wet" season, although doesn't this place look wet?!), we made it all the way there.

Forest Awe




Now we have only 95 things left to do in Humboldt County! :)

Privacy

I know most of you who read my blog read it through Facebook; however, for the rest of you, thank you for being loyal blogger followers :) I don't think my blog is easily "found" through google or anything associated with my name (esp with the name change! Sneaky!). However, due to some of my chosen topics, and because of our rather isolated location and positions in the community, I think it is best, in the pattern of many of my bloggy friends, to now make the blog private.

If I know you are a reader through blogger, you should be getting an e-mail "inviting" you to to sign in to read from now on. If you are a reader but not a regular commenter, please comment and post your e-mail address so that I can include you in the readership. Thanks!!

Hello, furniture!!

We have been waiting close to one month for some of our downstairs furniture to arrive. After much sofa- and dining-table browsing in August (I definitely wore Kelvin out), we were advised to try shopping at Macy's home store (in Sac) for more selection... and found an awesome sectional sofa as well as a beautiful dining table set (for a great deal). As we both were formerly living in too cramped quarters to "entertain" the idea of entertaining, we were excited to move into our house here to have the space to enjoy visitors (without embarrassment). However, we couldn't really put forth the full invites until we had places for guests to sit, so we are ecstatic to now have both items of furniture (with our first visitors, Chamreun and Danny, scheduled to come in a couple of weeks, and Serena/Brad planning to pay us a visit in November-- yay!).

We had some trouble coordinating the items' delivery (and, truthfully felt quite strung-along), as apparently us both working full-time and living in the boonies complicates deliveries from companies outside the Humboldt area. Nevertheless, our goodies arrived yesterday, when Kelvin was home to greet the delivery men, and we are loving them!

Living room sectional


Dining Table (and very comfy chairs)


Our room(s) are not totally complete, yet, though...
Here is a living room area rug on the way that I ordered yesterday, and there might be a bigger TV in our future (so we can better enjoy football season... :))



Come visit so you can check out our set-up "live"!

Goodbye, anonymity

Neither Kelvin nor I have ever lived anywhere small enough to really be "recognized" out and about town. Sure, you occasionally run into people you know here and there, but no one (no stranger) would ever pick either one of us out of a crowd.

That has all changed.

We knew that, by moving to a small area like Humboldt County, we'd run into patients here and there. We knew we'd even have to prepared to "treat" people we'd have to interact with socially. It comes with the small-town territory. Some of the docs at our clinic have delivered and treated not only multiple siblings of the same family, but also multiple generations! :) In my opinion, being small-town doctors is really neat and really fits the model of family medicine that I hope to practice.

However, last week we had a few things happen which really made the concept of the "small town" hit home...

On Friday, I tried to schedule an appointment for a well woman "annual" exam (which is more like bi- or tri-annual in my case, and, after about 2 hours and about 10 phone calls, was still unsuccessful. I was limited by many factors which included
a) several clinics being closed for multiple days per week (esp on Friday afternoons), or closed for 2 hours for lunch (I guess the volume of patients just isn't there!)
b) the fact that some docs/providers aren't taking "new patients" (although, as noted above, I go to the doctor about 2-3 times a decade)
c) the fact that I work directly or very closely with many local providers (through either Open Door or through OB at the hospital) and that it would probably be a bit awkward to be their patient...

Never before have I felt limited in options for scheduling regular preventative medical care! I guess I'll get back to it and try some more later this week with the limited options... I may have to go as far as the "big city" of Eureka... :)

2. Face recognition
Kelvin and I went to dinner at a sushi place in Eureka on Friday and were greeted with, "Are you guys doctors?"
We immediately both grabbed at our waistbands and necks, thinking that we inadvertently left a stethoscope or name-badge on. I mean, really, do we look otherwise "doctorly"?

Nevertheless, it was not our attire nor any accessories that tipped people off-- their recognition was account of a very prominent ad placed in a local newspaper (the free weekly North Coast Journal, which is quite widely circulated around here), that had people remembering our young faces:



It's a bit awkward, but also cute. I've had a couple patients establish care with me just after seeing my picture in the paper :) K looks a bit too comfortable in his modeling pose.
Anyway, here's to small-town medicine and our new celebrity status :)

DIY Silver Polish

Amidst the many hours of HGTV-watching that has become my vice, I have also become interested in home DIY (do-it-yourself) projects (decorating and otherwise). I had a very productive trip to the thrift store this past week for picture frames (my intention was to spray-paint frames of different colors to have them match [I was thinking of a bronze-type color]) in order to create a gallery wall for some nice photos and travel memorabilia (an idea I got from blog-surfing on Jane's awesome blog). I actually found a bunch of gold frames (not even requiring painting!) for a mere $3, and am excited to get some photos printed to put together this display!

However, that was a bit of a tangent. Last week, I was talking to a friend about cleaning jewelry, and I got a great tip for a "home concoction" for getting the tarnish out of silver (jewelry, plates, etc.). I certainly don't own any silver platters. However, since I have accumulated several silver necklaces (most of which are gifts) which are nice, but which I rarely (well, never) wear, due to both a) not being a necklace person and b) their tarnished appearance, I was motivated to try a little home cleaning which, I hoped, would make me more motivated to wear the jewelry.

Here is a really easy home jewelry treatment which will get your old silver looking new and shiny again!

1. Line a pot or baking dish with aluminum foil
2. Boil enough water to submerge your items-to-be-cleaned (I used an electric water heater)
3. Place jewelry on top of the aluminum foil
4. Sprinkle a layer of baking soda (approx 1-2 tsp) over your jewelry
5. Pour just enough boiling water over the jewelry to submerge it

(watch the fun bubbling action which dislodges the tarnish from the silver and encourages it to bind to the aluminum)


6. Use a chopstick to move the jewelry around to get it in contact with the aluminum
7. Rinse the jewelry with tap water, and polish with a cloth (if you have one :))

Can you tell the difference?
(Before)


(After)


I am no Heloise but I was excited to try and to pass on this home cleaning remedy.
Do you have others?

P.S. I have never been a good baker, but now have an awesome source of some tasty recipes. Check out my friend Eva's new blog for some great step-by-step recipes for some sweet concoctions!

Golden Birthday

Thursday was Kelvin's "golden birthday," where his numeric birth date equals his age in years (I'll let you figure out the math). Since I was actually on call that day (and had the privilege of delivering another Arcata baby by c-section who I will now forever remember as sharing my hubby's special day), we wisely chose to celebrate one day early by going out on Wednesday to a nice restaurant, Moonstone Grill (highly recommended by some coworkers) in Trinidad, a coastal town just north of us.

While the location of dinner was a surprise for Kelvin, I had perused the menu ahead of time and was really excited. We don't eat out very often and, when we do, we rarely go to fancy places. I'd heard great things about their filet mignon, but I was really interested in trying the red abalone, which is both the largest mollusk in the world, as well as a special delicacy of the north coast. There are strict regulations, but, with a fishing license and special permit, you are can dive for red abalones in the coastal areas of California north of the San Francisco Bay. You are supposed to dive only with breath-holding (scuba gear not permitted) and are only allowed to capture those which are larger than 7 inches in diameter. You are limited to three per 24-hour period, and no more than 24 per year (in a season that runs April - November).

Red abalone


After I'd decided and had my heart set on the Abalone Medallions, I was really disappointed by the waitress to hear that the "Abalone guy" no-showed for his Wednesday delivery, and the restaurant did not have any that night :(. So instead, I ordered the filet:



and this is what Kelvin got:


(a 2.5-lb lobster, with garlic mashed potatoes!)


Yum!


The meal, set over lovely Moonstone beach, left us totally satisfied (and with leftovers for a gourmet lunch the next day!) with not enough room to contemplate dessert. I had my first glass of wine in a looong while, which had me asleep at home by about 8:00, but it was definitely worth it :) I guess we'll have to save the abalones for another time.