Plate o' Shrimp

In the land of the Beats… before I hit the road….

After I finished studying for the USMLE I made a couple of attempts to update the blog..
One penned at café barrone got totally wiped out when my copy of Microsoft office crashed
So about a month?! Ago I wrote…
“First, there are the naps, there have been many naps. And of course there is the obligatory fantasy novel provided by the Palo Alto library. And then there are the walks, many walks, as Shade is terribly behind in her grass rolling activities.. (see video below). And I have some very important MONKEY related items I have been crocheting… in addition to trying to teach myself how to crochet in an aran pattern (not to hard except I have chosen some cotton yarn out of my stash to practice with and it is terribly unforgiving) So, belatedly, I thought it was time that I put something on this blog to update you all on what I have been doing since December.

The Logistics are fairly straight forward. In December I finished my first two years of Medical school, and with that I finished both the majority of my classroom basic science education and my time in Grenada. I spent most of the winter studying of the USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Exam, Step 1, more on that later) and took the exam a couple of weeks ago. Scores should arrive in a couple more weeks. I will move to New Jersey at the beginning of May to start the clinical portion of my medical education, and I will train in some very fine hospitals, no doubt treating many folks with whom I share a mitochondrial genome. (Okay that means in the area where my mom’s family is from.. the proceeding statement is more straight out geek than medical geek I think, also inherited from my mother who is the only person I know who has actually had her mitochondrial genealogy tested, but I digress….)”

And then I stopped writing and proceeded to run around like a crazy person. No wait, scratch that… Earlier this month my Mom and Magda went on a cruise for ten days and I sat around the lovely condo and crocheted and talked to no one…

Then Serena came to visit. We went to point reyes and ate apples and cowgirl creamery triple cream mt tam cheese on a perfect windless day and watch the shinning pacific wrap itself around limatour beach's golden dunes…, then next day we ran around palo alto, braved the ikea and washed down a stunning prosciutto, arugula and crescenza pizza with a beautiful santa cruz pinot noir. And we talked and talked.. After Serena left, M&M came back there was a week of birthday celebrations for My Mom.. dinner at Ginger’s, luncheon with the ladies of Everett house at the country club.. I was the only attendee under 70, and then there was the surprise.. We put my mom in the car and didn’t tell her where we arere going. By the time we hit the east bay she figured out we were taking her to Calistoga for a massage and the mud baths. So when my brother showed up from Tennessee un-announced at the restaurant in Yountville she was really surprised. She in fact said “Jesus Christ!” in an immoderate tone of voice and started to cry. After a dinner at Ad Hoc and the most amazing creamed corn I have ever tasted, we put Zoe the cat and Shade the dog in the car and headed for the Anderson Valley.. stopping at our two favorite wineries on the way to figure out what to drink with diner. Zoe decided to wail nearly the whole way, but Shade had a lovely time running around the lawn at Navarro vineyards while we drank a bottle of Whole food 365 Sauvignon Blanc and ate more cheese. My brother Bill sadly had to leave that day, but we lingered in the redwoods.. It was a grey but it was nice to see the Anderson valley covered in spring green and wildflowers..
We arrived back Tuesday and on Wednesday I catered Mrs. C’s 96th birthday. Another neighbor of my mom’s was there and when he told Mrs C that he was 93 she told him “oh, you are such a child…”

Now yesterday, I took my car in for a break inspection and my Mom’s mechanic pronounced that it perhaps had a 25% chance of making it across the country…

Mom has helped me with the manic search for a car that will hopefully get me across the country and through residency. We will hopefully seal the deal today. Yesterday evening after running around the South bay car shopping.. we then drove to the city to see the San Francisco Ballet with no small amount of trepidation. We were fairly convinced that we would fall asleep actually. But we had a great Thai meal, bolstered our energies with chocolate and coffee at Citizen Cake and went to see program A of the new works festival.  The first two ballets were stunningly good… whirling dirvishes reinterpreted by a young Russian choreographer and a work by Christopher Wheelodon, a former dancer himself still in his 30s who just left the New York City Ballet to form his own company.. We drove him made giddy and giggly by the performances. And I got to see Damian Smith dance.. amazing and not hard on the eyes either….

Somewhere in all this I forgot that is was my Dad’s birthday.. and so I make my apologies Dad.. I know that you aren’t sentimental about these things but happy birthday a day late..

And so gentle reader I marshall my forces to head south then east. Hopefully I will be posting from the road..

posted by Sa @ 10:24 AM