Outfits

As far as I can remember, I have never been very interested in dressing up. I am sure that, as a child, I got excited about Halloween costumes, being a scary witch one year, a "bunch of grapes" (bunch of purple balloons) or "bag of jellybeans" (bunch of multicolored balloons) other years, but I imagine that I was more excited for the candy than the cosutmes :). However, since then, I have found "dressing up" to be rather a chore. I have artfully dodged about four Halloweens in Sac, by either being on call, or far, far away on vacation and thus have escaped from trying to drum up an imaginative costume. I prefer jeans and comfy fleece sweaters to "hip" outfits, avoid changing more than once a day if I can help it, and definitely value comfort (and warmth) over fashion any day. I had not thought about purchasing a new "dress" for our wedding rehearsal dinner (just thinking I would rewear a sundress I already have in my closet) until the suggestion was near-mandated by my dear mother and (far-more-trendy) sister (who already has a new smokin' dress!) in discussion this past weekend.

Which brings us to the issue of outfits.
While I may not enjoy dressing up, I don't think my sense of style or coordination is all that horrific. K initially wanted to wear a brown suit to our wedding; however, this was very quickly vetoed. And, if I recall correctly, Serena (who is our go-to fashion consultant) agreed that that was a poor fashion choice. While we are on the "brown" topic, I don't think navy and brown should ever be worn together (which, believe me, has been debated to death), nor do I think cardigans and vests are cool. But back to wedding attire... The latest suggestion (not mine), was to have the groomsmen wear red shirts with silver ties (to match our chosen "colors"), which upon much discussion (i.e. me saying, "that sounds ridiculous!") was amended to red shirts with black ties (a bit unconventional, if you ask me, but I could live with it). However, due to some difficulty getting red shirts to match the red bridesmaid dresses, the plan may have to be abandoned altogether to the simple (but elegant, original) plan of black suits, white shirts, and red ties. Apparently, another wedding outfit may have been purchased this past weekend by a certain groom during his bachelor celebration... which is a suit of a different color. I still think black is best, but this is still being debated... (and, Serena, we welcome your input).

For more on crazy outfits... turn to this past weekend's event, the 100th annual Bay to Breakers footrace in San Francisco. I am not entirely sure how this event got so crazy, but in addition to serious runners (for the 12k/ 7.5 mile course), the race (really a "dress up event") consists of lots of odd participants in fairly weird costumes (or, uh, absent costumes... i.e. people running nude!). There are also people dressed as "salmon," running the opposite direction (upstream). I had never been able to see or participate in this race until this year, but was lucky to get the chance to witness it with Wai Kiu, Hanh, Mason, Kelvin, and Medina. On average, between 70,000-80,000 people run this every year (with the record about 110,000 in 1986), about 40,000 of which look really bizarre, and I believe it!

We were initially (despite my dress-up aversion) going to dress up " a bit" and look like Asian tourists, but it was rather cold (50) to start and we ended up just putting on regular running clothes with layers. The numerous other characters definitely made up for our lack of color and imagination. Mason initially was not too thrilled with being in the stroller, but despite power walking, and not running, the majority of the course, we made good time and finished (famished) in about 2 hours.

Group at the start (Medina left us in the dust on his way to a good time!)


Can you see the tortillas flying in the air, flown like frisbees? (this, too is apparently a Bay to Breakers tradition)


Can you tell that I took this while running? :)


Mason's first Bay to Breakers! (not sure if you can tell from this pic, but amidst all the chaos, he lost one shoe.... which no fewer than 100 people pointed out to us. We just told them it was part of his costume)



"Trashbag person" (this really was a walking person in costume, with a "helper" adjusting!)


Guys on Stilts


Guy from "Up"


Randomly decorated building front (w/ furniture)


Buffalos by Golden Gate Park


Home stretch: Ocean Beach (0.5 miles from the finish line)


We had to backtrack about a half-mile to get our medals....


... and then about another mile to get our t-shirts ("Forget it," we said)
We were sooo hungry and had a wonderful Chinese meal with Hanh's family, who picked us up from the race end, before returning to Sac (where we changed into clean outfits).

Now, who knows some good places to get a new dress?

Random May Updates

I haven't had much occasion to blog lately. Here are a few random snippets of what's going on in my life...

Goodbye, Chiefdom
Last Friday marked the last day (and night) I would have to spend as "OB Chief" on Labor and Delivery. I still remember (and it seems that it was not that long ago) how I spent many a workday (/night) timid and overwhelmed in triage, and it is truly amazing that I have completed my months at UCD being partly "in charge" and hoping not to be involved in too many interpersonal conflicts. I am currently on the "MIC" (maternal infant care) rotation, taking care of FP moms and babies and so I am still on L and D quite a bit. However, I'm trying to lay low, and trying to avoid getting sucked in to see random triage patients or put in orders on random people.

Rather than watching others do deliveries which is sort of what you do as chief, I hope to get to do a few myself this month.....which may happen if there aren't any more precipitous deliveries onto the bed!!

Lesson duly learned: never leave the room when you have a multip in active labor without an epidural.

Last week, a continuity patient of mine/Randy's came in in labor towards the end of my day. She'd had a relatively fast 1st delivery (which I'd missed b/c I was out of town). This time, she'd labored at home with her doula for most of the day. She wouldn't allow me to break her water and progressed steadily from 5 --8 cm.... but it wasn't quite time to push yet. The nurse asked me to come to the room as the patient wasn't able to hold back from pushing.... and, in the 10 seconds or so it took to complete our conversation, the baby was definitely coming...
I didn't glove fast enough and didn't really feel like barehanding the baby... so, at 11:00 at night, the baby delivered itself (en caul [in the bag]), and I laughed at how useless I felt or how I just spent several hours "hanging out" to watch a baby deliver itself (and without lacerations). The patient didn't need me at all!!! But it was about the spirit of continuity, right? ( Wasted bed delivery #1).

Today, I admitted a patient with ruptured membranes who'd had precipitous labors in the past (her last baby delivered on the gurney between triage and her room). She at first wasn't contracting but then got really uncomfortable... and was progressing at a very normal rate. I joked that I should just stay at the bedside so as not to miss the delivery (and her continuity provider was also notified to stick around!), but I made the mistake of turning my back when she hadn't changed much from 6 --> 7 cm in 30 minutes... and walked around the corner only to hear the staff emergency alarm go off. Sure enough, 1 minute later than my exam, head was crowning, and I bare-handed my first baby head, although there were plenty of other people in the room to help (Wasted bed delivery #2). Again, this humbled me as a provider in that really, how often do people need you for their deliveries? Babies have delivered themselves without obstetricians for centuries!!! Natural labor really is the best. But I still felt a little cheated of a potential delivery and still very much want to catch some babies this month.

Social outings
... have been few and far between in the past month. I always feel so out of the loop on L and D.
This past weekend, I got to go to Davis to meet Shabu, Serena's new shih-tzu puppy. While he is not 100% housetrained yet (no accidents on me, though!), he is just the cutest little thing. I so so want a dog... and am thinking a doggie might make a great birthday present for me and the big 3-0 in November [hint for Kelvin]...
Sorry the picture is so miniscule--- blame the Mac which doesn't save things well



Allergy hell
I thought I had bad allergies in Richmond, when the yellow tree pollen coated our dorm windows. I thought I got a bit sniffly in Rochester, MN summers.
But NOTHING I have ever experienced compares to the misery of this past week in Sacramento. I am a heavy springtime antihistamine user-- it used to be Allegra, then Costco loratadine, and occasional ($$) Zyrtec (which works the best). Since moving to Sac, I have had to add on daily flonase nasal spray which, albeit weird feeling at first, works quite well. However, this past week, I have barely been able to open my crusted, swollen eyes, due to the severe ocular allergies I seem to have. For the first 3 days of this week, people at work asked me, "WHAT is wrong with you?! You look awful!" I tried to hide my red, itchy, swollen eyes/eyelids with some fake glasses I have. The eye itching seemed to be antihistamine-eye drop-resistant. It was Visine-resistant. I could function marginally at work (it was actually a relief to be indoors... the bike ride with blowing pollen really destroyed me). However, I would come home from work after a brief stint outdoors and lie on the couch, unable to see or do anything, holding ice cubes on my eyeballs until I fell asleep and the whole cycle repeated itself.

Here is a rather tame picture of what my eyes resemble.


I was considering getting some goggles to protect me from the deadly pollen. However, this has been my savior:


I think the regular (BID) use of these antihistamine eye drops has really calmed things down. By Wednesday night, I actually felt well enough to go to "Wine Wednesdays" for a post-work tasting. Thursday, I was able to put eye makeup on again and feel like a regular person. While I have been avoiding the outdoors like the plague, today I ventured out for a run. I may pay for it tomorrow, but I have decided that I can't live inside like a sickly hermit for the next 2 months. If Zaditor fails, I hear that Patanol eye drops may be life savers. And maybe I'll need some goggles.

2 months left!
It is now after May 2nd, which means that there is fewer than 2 months until the wedding! This is incredibly hard to believe. We are excited. I am especially excited to have the big day over with, just to have more free time not sucked up with the "planning." We are very disappointed that several out of town friends can't make it, but are excited to celebrate with those that are coming!
This week, we went to the Sac County Courthouse to get our marriage license... and so now, there's no going back on the name change unless I feel like forking over another $88 (which I'm too cheap to do)....
We have our hotels for our Bali-Malaysia-Singapore trip, as well as some more specific plans like hiking volcanic Mt. Batur. We are getting gifts galore which are filling my living room.
It's starting to feel real!


Here's to a work-free, allergy-free and stress-free weekend!

Angel Island (/Angel Mason)

We had this weekend off and on Saturday, K, the Lee family, and I took a day trip to San Francisco to visit Angel Island.

It was a wonderful time! Angel Island is its own state park, and had many sites worth seeing. There are numerous hiking and biking trails (including up to the viewpoint of Mt. Livermore); however, we spent our time at what we thought to be the highlight, which was the Immigration Station that, between 1910 - 1940, processed over 1 million immigrants to the U.S. (most from China and other places in Asia). In fact, Wai Kiu believes that his great grandparents likely came over to resettle in California through Angel Island, or the "Ellis Island of the West."

We reached the Island by a half-hour ferry that left from Pier 41 near Fisherman's Wharf. We enjoyed watching the sea lions and the views from the dock while awaiting embarkation.






Boudin bread lobster




(don't worry; although I don't seem to have many pics of them, Mason's very responsible parents, Wai Kiu and Hanh, were along to supervise!)

Once on the island, we hiked around Perimeter road, and went on an awesome guided tour of the Historical Landmark, where we learned some of the stories of former residents (more like inmates), and saw some important historical graffiti left by some of the inhabitants. Due to relatively arbitrary laws, many Asians were discriminated against rather egregiously and stayed here at the station (fearing deportation) from weeks to even years. The site was later used to house German and Japanese POWs during World War II.






Mason (who was very cooperative our whole trip!) enjoyed meeting other child travelers



While awaiting our return ferry, we were very amused by these HS kids playing "Warrior," or what appeared to be ninja-tag.


Had to snap this picture at the corner of something and "Mason Street"


We met Kimie and Vin for a delicious dinner of seasonal dungeness crab at PPQ Dungeness Island in the city, where I tried my first whole cooked crab (we tried the peppercorn and roasted garlic varieties) "Asian style." The garlic noodles were also heavenly!
We enjoyed our seat by the "live" aquarium from which our dinner originated...



Crab-time!


And, not that we had room left in our crab-filled bellies, but before returning to Sac, we stopped at Max's Opera Cafe (where the waiters sing!) for some heavenly desserts, shared family-style, which included; rich carrot-cake, banana-rum cake, apple pie, apple-cran cobbler, ice cream, chocolate/cheesecake torte, and .... some insulin.

Just kidding. I guess I'll have to start that wedding diet tomorrow :)

1000 miles and a night in Bakersfield

I might have a pressure sore from sitting in the car for so long.

After a day’s driving TO Death Valley (5 hours from Orange County), in and around Death Valley National Park, and then out of Death Valley by about 3 p.m., (about 550 miles) we thought we were making good time. Having seen the park highlights, we decided to try to make the haul all of the way back to Sacramento (another 9 or 10 hours). Despite the long journey ahead of us, I was excited to show Kelvin the very scenic route home (one of the prettiest drives in California), which would take us north on US-395, past the portals to Mt. Whitney (outside of Lone Pine), north to Mammoth Lakes (one of my favorite spots in California!), and then through Tahoe Back home. Despite being pretty thoughtful people and generally good planners, we forgot something major which was abruptly brought to our attention when we reached Bishop, CA.

After driving about 1.5 hours north on US-395, we saw a flashing sign which read, “Snow/Ice; chains required 40 miles ahead. High winds, caution.”

We drove another few blocks before the implication of the words sunk in.

It snows on mountains, even in April.

California has lots of mountains.

We have had a TON of precipitation this year.

We had to drive home through the mountains.

We had Kelvin’s car and did not have tire chains.

Our comments:

“Did that just say chains are required?!”

“Where would that be? Mammoth? Tahoe is too far away. But we still have to drive through Tahoe.”

“What should we do?!?!”

We had just passed an office of the CA State Department of Transportation, so we thought about stopping to inquire about our options. However, it was 5:18 p.m. While it was the weekday, they were closed.

We realized that, had we stayed overnight in Death Valley, we would have been realizing this tomorrow and without the extra cushion of time. Yikes.

So, alternate route planning was in order. But, as I wrote earlier, parts of (eastern) California are with difficult road access, as there are very few roads that travel over Sierra Nevada mountains.

What were our options?

K (studying the map): “Can we continue up and cut across Yosemite?” (which was north of us at the time).

Me: “That is still north of Mammoth, so I think we're still up a creek. Besides, I don’t think the main road is open yet for the summer. That would also take forever.”

K: (thinking...)

Me: "Can we somehow drive east to Nevada and go around all of the mountains??"

K: "don't think so."

Me: (jokingly) "Maybe we can spend the night in Vegas after all!" (LV was probably 8-9 hours away)

K (after many minutes of silence and map review): "Hmm. I think we are stuck then. I don’t see any other options to go in the same direction."

After much map-scrutinizing by both of us and playing with the GPS for distances/times, we realized that yes, indeed, we had no other options to get over from the eastern to the middle part of California without completely backtracking.

When you’ve already driven 550 miles in one day, what’s another 500? (even if half of it is is the same direction from where you came, albeit on a scenic road with mostly views like this:

Lone Pine, CA

This reminded us both of times when we, independently, inadvertently drove the WRONG way on I-5 towards Bakersfield, me (making good time) with Amy coming back from Big Sur, and K going about 80 miles before realizing he was going south, not north.

But this was different in that we HAD to backtrack. There was no other way. What really hurt the most was not the extra many hours that we were sort of "wasting," but that gas was averaging us about $4.20 per gallon, and we did NOT have the Prius (which would have had chains in the trunk and would have obviated this whole predicament.)

Anyway, we headed back south for about 3 hours to get back to where we started—the meeting point of the Hwy 190 to Death Valley NP and 395. And then we kept driving south.

More decisions (as the sun was setting)

- Could we make it to Sac (driving until 3 a.m.) this same day? Would that be ridiculous?? That would be a near 24 hours awake!

- Do we just drive back (and backtrack completely) south to Orange County to K's parents' house (another 4.5 hours), rest, then haul it tomorrow north on major highways to Sacramento (6 hours, hoping to avoid traffic)?

- Do we hit up Vegas??

- Do we try to get to Bakersfield, which is on the main Hwy 99, just stay overnight, and then drive tomorrow the ~5 hours to Sac?

- Do we drive until we're tired and find a ghetto motel off the highway?

- [Me] Could we stop somewhere near something fun and see something new tomorrow?

We ended up doing option #4, staying overnight in Bakersfield at a really delightful inn which was very comfortable. While listening to the news, we were shocked at the strange weather that was hitting California. We had actually driven through SNOW (yes, snow, although it did not stick after hitting the ground) on Highway 58 to Bakersfield, which is in central (on the east-west axis), southern CA ! Undoubtedly there is snow (LOTS of it) in the mountains, including Big Bear (favorite ski resort for LA residents) and many eastern CA mountain towns. We learned that, indeed as we suspected, Mammoth Lakes had a huge snowstorm, necessitating the closing of some ski resorts, and leading to the projection that people may be able to ski there until the fourth of July (a weekend that I went there to hike, in shorts and t-shifts, just 2 years ago!).

How weird.

In any Case, we left Bakersfield the next morning around 9 a.m. (without any sightseeing :( -- apparently Lonely Planet even had some Bakersfield highlights, believe it or not, but we just wanted to GET HOME!) and were back in Sacramento before 2 p.m.-- one national park, one thousand miles (about half of California!), 22 hours of driving, and one night in Bakersfield later. THAT is what I call a road trip :) (We need to get an RV!)

Day trip (sort of) to Death Valley

I have lived in California for four years and have gotten to see so many wonderful things in this amazing state! I feel like I have explored it with the intensity of the philosophy that “I may never be back.” Luckily, I will be living here for at least four more years (and, by marrying a California “lifer” thus far, there is a good chance I may become a “lifer,” too); however, there are still a few things which are lingering on my “must do/must see list.” Death Valley National Park was one of them.

We had a bit of time after our Costa Rica trip (before returning to “real life” in Sac) to spend in the U.S. (having taken K’s advice to not “milk every vacation” for every last day abroad, as I have been guilty of doing in the past. I must say, as a result, it really has been one of the most relaxing vacations I have had, and certainly one of the best that I have had in the past four years).

So my idea of “relaxing” some more was to get up at 4 a.m. to leave Orange County to visit Death Valley National Park, a mere 5 hours away (and about 10 hours from Sacramento). Let’s just say that I think K must really love me because this 4 a.m. wake-up was not the first in the past week of “vacation” (think: early AM flights and bus rides in order to get where we needed to go in C.R.). But waking up at 4 a.m. to go visit a breathtaking national park is far better than getting up at the same hour to, say, preround, right?? We are definitely still vacationing.

Let’s just put it out there that lots of travel is sort of mandatory to see this park, as Death Valley is not close to ANYTHING. Well, anything besides maybe Las Vegas which may be a more popular competing tourist destination (when I asked some So Cal natives, “Have you ever been to Death Valley?”, most of them replied “No, why would we go there? We’ve driven by there on the way to Vegas, though.”) A couple of times on the road, K did ask, “Are you sure you don’t want to go to Vegas instead?” ("No, I'll leave that to you for your Bachelor party," I replied.) Death Valley is across the Mojave Desert from the LA metropolitan area. It is south of Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Yosemite NPs, and Mammoth Lakes, which are similarly quite difficult to get to at times (think Sierra Nevada mountain passes, road closings… and a future blog post for more on that subject...). The park is basically 5000 square miles of desert, and there aren’t many ways in or out.

But we went. And we made good time. WE ARE SO GLAD!!! What a wonderful treasure of a national park! It is the largest national park in the continental U.S., and one of the most unique that I have visited. We had heard that March- April (a great time to visit, as temperatures are reasonable) can be swarming with tourists. However, visiting on a weekday, we were pleasantly surprised by the paucity of visitors (mainly old people on tour buses—likely from Vegas or NV!), which seemed interestingly to parallel the rather desolate environment.

Death Valley is not the most beautiful of national parks I have visited (I'm thinking that Glacier, Yosemite, or Yellowstone are up there at the top). It being pretty much a desert (the area gets the least rainfall of anywhere in the U.S.), there is very little “green” to be seen. There are years when springtime can be blessed with the blooming of wildflowers; however, due to the very small amount of precipitation this year, this was not one of those years. However, the landscape and the variety, as well as the history and extremes, makes this park extremely interesting.

Zabriskie point (thank you to a friendly tourist for taking this photo, one of the only of the two of us)

The name of the park comes supposedly from the spoken farewell of a woman in a group of pioneers who wandered into the valley in the 1849. Few members of the original party survived in the stark environment and, when leaving, the woman uttered, “Good bye, death valley.” In case you didn’t know, Death Valley is the most scorching place within the U.S. in the summer, with temperatures reaching up to 136 degrees Farenheit as you can see from this sign:

Apparently, summer (July-August) is one of the peak times for tourism (I CAN’T IMAGINE WHY, with those temps), as many Europeans venture here to get the recognition for surviving the record heat. Per one of the park rangers, it cools down to a refreshing 110 degrees at night in the summer. [And another factoid: crazy people run the Badwater Ultramarathon in July, where a course takes them 130 miles from Badwater, the lowest point in the continental U.S. (see below), to Mt. Whitney, the highest. I am not sure how many people die trying or how many of their shoes melt in the process.] Currently, the weather is nice-- 50s-80s; however, the blustery winds (up to 35 mph) were quite a surprise for us. The ranger told us that the wind is kind of random—it does not appear to be correlated with specific seasons. Here is the gist of the conversation we had:

Me [brushing sand out of my eyes]: Is it always this windy??!
Ranger: No; it seems to come and go. Sometimes every other day or so it’s like this. It happens due to the storms on the California coast.

Me: Is it this windy in the summer?

Ranger: It can be.

Me: Well, at least the breeze must feel nice when it’s that hot.

Ranger: Not really. It’s like having a blow-dryer on in your face. With sand blowing everywhere.

Me: Oh. Well, I guess it’s good that we are visiting now, then.

The park consists of various natural attractions which are quite widely spaced by desert landscape (we didn’t get a chance to visit “Scotty’s castle,” the opulent home of a famous tale-teller as it would have been an extra two hours' drive); however, the connecting roads are very nice. Here are just snapshots of the highlights:

Dante’s View at 5475 feet

(the hair gives you an idea of how windy it was-- we worried we'd get blown off the mountain!)

Furnace Creek Ranch, with various old country-western equipment (along with a General Store and Saloon)...

...and palm trees!

We drove through twenty-mule canyon-- where wagons of mules carried mined borax to the villages, as well as to a viewpoint called Artists’ Palette—the hills of sand were glorious colors, including reds, browns, greens, purples, and yellows...

Badwater Flats

Badwater is the lowest point in the continental U.S., at -282 feet (282 feet below sea level; land below sea level can only exist in areas where it is extremely dry).

We could see the sign reading “Sea level” high upon a rockface behind us.

What is really cool about this is that the highest point in the continental U.S., Mt. Whitney at 14,497 ft (which Erin, TJ, Brian, and I hiked last September), is a mere 80 miles (as the crow flies) from Badwater. Isn’t California awesome?!

K and I had fun hiking along the salt flat, which reminded me of my excursion to the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia with Mindy in 2009.

Here are the obligatory fun, jumping pictures…

(this was on the first take!)

(not this one, though. Apparently, per Kelvin, I don't "get off the ground" very well)

....and a guy with a hula hoop... (?!)

Devil’s golf course with sand spires

Mesquite Flat sand dunes

I just ADORE sand dunes!

Lone Joshua Tree (Joshua Tree N.P. was another contender for the day trip but lost out to D.V.N.P.)

As I mentioned before, we were originally going to camp overnight at Furnace Creek. I was envious of all the visitors who drove around in their RVs (while K wants a Segway, I badly want a RV so we can travel around in full style without worry about where to stay :)); however, for fear that our tent would blow away due to the gusts, and the fact that (due to our early [!] start) we saw most of the highlights of the park over the course of the daylight hours, we opted to be hard-core and drive back to Sacramento the same day. That is a LOT of miles.

This last part definitely did NOT go according to plan. For details about that part of the adventure, you will have to wait for another post. Stay tuned for that drama….