For Christopher

Yesterday, many of us were present with your family to watch you being laid to rest. It wasn't a goodbye, though in a lot of ways, it did feel very final. But I cannot imagine that the parents and sister who didn't leave you alone for even one second while you were in the hospital for a year, would ever go a single day without thinking of your bright face. For me, I still see you as a little boy and it amazes me that you were here for 18 years. I remember you as being ye high and running away from me when I tried to give you hugs. I remember the Thanksgiving you spent in Boston with your sister and cousin. I remember when you came to see The Producers with your sister. I remember hearing about so many of your accomplishments, being president of your class, playing the saxophone-- your sister is so proud of you. And I remember you in the hospital but I'd rather soon forget those images because that wasn't the way you would have wanted to live.

You were remembered yesterday and you will continue being remembered and missed incredibly... and thus, yesterday wasn't a goodbye, it was a memorial for the boy you were and continue to be in our hearts. As your father said and as I think as a future pediatrician, I'm sorry Chris... for all the suffering and agony of these years that no one could take away for you. But as you rest now and look down upon all of us remaining here on earth, I hope you're laughing and running around and most of all, knowing that you are so loved by everyone here.

A Review

So the other day I was in a 7 Eleven at Silverthorne, CO, when I discovered Flamin Hot Cheetos with LEMON! What an emotional bundle I was... at first, I was excited because the bag looked so much like my favorite regular Flamin Hot Cheetos, but then I saw the imposter green on the bag and noticed the LEMON, and then I thought, that might taste really weird and wasn't as excited... But I got it anyway.

My first reaction was No, it's not that good. But then as I kept stuffing those crunchy cheetos into my face, I thought, hey, they sort of remind me of the lime tortilla chips which are really quite good. It has an artificial citrus flavor with a spicy punch. I think it would be good if I had never known the regular Flamin Hot Cheetos. But I must say that my conclusion is that the regular ones are still the Best. But these are a good alternative if you like spicy.

My family and I are off to Palm Springs today and will be back on Monday.
Merry Christmas, everyone. I send love and happy holiday thoughts.

Mile High City

Greetings from the Mile High City, where it is lightly snowing and basically freezing. We left behind sunny days and 60 degree weather, to arrive to less than 20 degree weather.
I'm on dialup at my parents' house so I haven't been updating but here's a brief recap in pictures since I have wireless while in Denver.

Everyone, meet Jacklyn Yoona, my first "niece" aka second cousin or whatever the technical relation is. We went to visit my cousin Susan and her husband John, and to meet little Jacklyn. Isn't she the cutest? :) She slept the ENTIRE time. Pretty amazing...

This is the Santa Barbara Mission, where we rediscovered the timer mode on my digital camera. It was an exciting moment. We spent a lot of time here, working on plastic puzzles of Indian tribes in California and watching the long summary video. :)


This is the inside of the Mission. It only took us about 5 takes to get this picture... and we should have taken it vertically. But you get the point.

We went to a couple vineyards up around the Santa Barbara/Solvang area. Kalyra is one that was featured in Sideways. Yes, it's actually an Australian winery in California...

We drove by the Rose Bowl in Pasadena just for the sake of being touristy. Again, see our brilliance in using the timer mode and setting the camera on the car to catch this well-positioned shot. :)

My family hasn't spent Christmas at home in almost 15 years because we usually go up to Mammoth for skiing. But this year my sister finally won and we're not going some place cold for the winter... which means I got to convince my parents that yes, we really really do want a real live Christmas Tree. We went over to the oldest Christmas Tree Auction in Chinatown/Downtown and got this beautiful Douglas fir for an amazing $30! Isn't it pretty?

I'm in Denver until Thursday, interviewing and skiing and generally pigging out. :)

Life is sweet.

This is not a joke

You might have heard about the crazy storm that is crippling the Midwest as I write this entry... It has been snowing heavily nonstop since noon today and it's supposed to continue on right through the night and early morning. I think we are going to get about a foot of snow when all is said and done. This is not funny for two reasons. I'm supposed to dig my car out and drive to my interview in Lincoln Park tomorrow morning...


See this? This is my car at around 6pm when it had been snowing for about 6 hours. Now triple the amount of snow that you see here and that's the scene that I will have to face tomorrow morning at 5am, as I get ready for my interview.

The second reason this is not funny is because the first cab company I tried to call kindly informed me that "no, we can't pick you up tomorrow at 6am because we're not arranging any 'time pick ups' due to the weather." WHA?!? How can a cab company do this to me? Thankfully, the second cab company I called said they would pick me up... I think it's ironic that I'm having the hardest time figuring out how to get to my interview for a hospital in the same city that I live in.

And the moral of the story is... Don't live in the midwest, if you can help it.

p.s. Yes, I know my car looks ghetto with the side rubber/plastic thing hanging off like that. What am I supposed to do about it without a screwdriver?!?

My Vitriol

Every morning, I walk to the gym which is about 12 minutes away. 15 minutes, if you count the time that I need to avoid the ice in order to not fall flat on my face and crack my precious head open. and every morning, I think to myself, "what the hell is this? why do I live here? I don't see anyone smiling and enjoying the 'four seasons' of Chicago. This sucks. I need to get the hell out of here as fast as possible. Oh my god, my face feels like it is going to FALL OFF!"

I have a news flash for all those poor poor souls who grew up in the midwest, or on the east coast: Life does not have to be this painful suffering, every year, for 4 long miserable months. I know it's hard to imagine living in a place with *perfect* weather but I come from a place that has beautiful sunny warm perfect weather, all year round. It hardly even rains. I WANT TO GO BACK THERE.

On the way back from the gym, when I thought the sweat from my workout was going to turn into icicles and that my eyeballs were going to freeze right out of my head... I saw a young kid walking with his mother... and then suddenly, he started crying! Do you know why he was crying? BECAUSE IT WAS SO COLD. His mom had to stop and wrap him back up in his hat and scarf. I share his indignity!! I am not going to raise my children here. or anywhere that gets this awfully ridiculously miserably cold.

The high for today, by the way, is going to be 18 degrees. fahrenheit. and that's without windchill. Even Boston can't beat that...

To the west coast and back again

Does anyone else who is a blogspot user have issues with changing the font? Every time I scroll down and click on Times, but it inevitably comes out as some other font. I've resorted to typing a few letters, highlighting, and then clicking Times font... Maybe my computer is just crazy.

Hi Natalie! What are you up to? Are you still in San Francisco?!? How did you find me?

Speaking of SF! I was just in SF for my interview on Friday. Being in California was almost surreal. It was like being home but not being home, since California is California but San Francisco is definitely NOT Los Angeles. As the shuttle was taking me from the airport to my hotel, I found myself being surprised to see a California license plate... But then I realized, duh. I'm in California. It was pouring rain and generally miserable on my first day there, Thursday. I checked in to my hotel, the Holiday Inn on Van Ness and walked around to find lunch... I found a pizzeria where I had a chicken sandwich and then went to see "A History of Violence." By the way, that is an excellent movie, for those of you who have a chance to still find it in an old theatre, or at least go rent it when it comes out in rentable form.

Anyway, I won't bore you with the details of my SF stay, but I will say that I really liked the program a lot and would be so incredibly excited and honored if I matched there. But we shall see what happens...

I'm back in Chicago now and it's freezing... literally. We got a lot of snow last night and today. And by a lot, I mean a couple inches. :) That's enough for me! If I have to take out my little snow scraper brush thing-a-ma-jig, that's too much snow. Don't even talk to me about buying a shovel. As I told Susan once, PRINCESSES DON'T SHOVEL. especially ones from California.

I finished Middlesex recently. It is a fascinating story that is written with much fluidity and beautiful descriptions of places and feelings of an adolescent mind. But I wouldn't say it was Virginia Woolf. or even Jose Saramago. These are my favorite authors. :) I picked up The Piano Teacher by Austrian Elfriede Jelinek today, as well as two plays by Harold Pinter called The Caretaker and The Dumb Waiter. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature recently, Jelinek in 2004 and Pinter in 2005. Several years ago, one of my new years resolutions was to read at least one book by the Nobel Prize in Literature winner of that year. I'm doing a little catching up but I've done pretty well. I read Disgrace by Coetzee and Fatelessness by Kertesz and The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul. and of course a long time ago, I read Blindness by Jose Saramago. Saramago has a new book out that I saw at the bookstore. I'm torn about reading it... I don't want to be let down after Blindness.

I hope everyone is watching Grey's Anatomy tonight!