Working from home this past month has given us interesting opportunities for eating in and exploring outside. We tried new recipes like French onion beef noodle soup, gochujang roast chicken, and soondubu jjigae in my new dolsot. We also ran blinded taste tests for hot chocolate and kimchi, which placed Godiva over Ghiradelli and Starbucks, and YD Tofu House over KP and Sinto. McDonald’s offered “thank you” meals for healthcare workers, which provided the occasional egg mcmuffins for breakfast, and chicken mcnuggets for Westley’s dinners. We also ordered T-Kumi and Ming Dynasty from DoorDash, and Uniboil and Chengdu Style from UberEats, thanks to coupons from our employer. Even Google stepped up and offered a free battery replacement for my Pixel, although UBreakIFix couldn’t get it right the first time, necessitating a second trip to Citrus Heights. Back home, we tried to keep Westley occupied with letter-writing practice and iPad games like Khan Academy Kids and Teach Your Monster to Read. We tried our hands at building 3D wooden puzzles, but our solar-powered rover failed to function. We also handcrafted some cardboard rifles together, but combined with our recent uptick in video gaming, led to some disturbing Westley doodling at daycare. To maintain our physical activity and sun exposure, we visited nearby playgrounds for badminton, frisbee, basketball, and kiting. It has not been windy enough for our Daiso kite to really take flight, but we’ve gotten some good mileage with our bikes. We’re also exploring more of our neighborhood on foot, including a corn field trail with an adjacent waterway that turned out to be home to an otter. Turkeys have been roaming our neighborhood as well, with two confirmed sightings in our own backyard. Feeling the isolation from social distancing, I’ve also taken to reconnecting with old friends from med school, college, and high school through Zoom. It’s hard to imagine what our new normal will be like after all this, but these past weeks have at least encouraged me to spend more time with family and friends.

With VBS, NIH study section, and ad board meetings all canceled last month, we’ve been practicing social distancing by sheltering in place amidst the COVID19 pandemic. Just days before our lab shut down, a turkey crashed through the next door lab window, further accentuating the apocalyptic atmosphere. Despite Merryhill shutting down, our employer secured back-up childcare for healthcare workers at the Hutchison CDC, which at least gave us some reprieve from having to home school Westley. With our time at home, we finally completed our tax returns, and began exploring tax loss harvesting strategies to soften the blow from the market downturn. I also tried to catch up on home projects like adding a GFCI outlet to Westley’s bathroom and waxing all the sinks and glass showers. In the evenings, we finished a refreshing Season 1 of Picard, which had our favorite Star Trek captain chasing Data’s daughter aboard a small freighter with a ragtag crew. I also checked out Gears 5 and Westworld Season 3, which both featured exciting new tech and kick-ass female protagonists to keep my adrenaline pumping. With our Yosemite family trip canceled this weekend, we celebrated Melody’s birthday over take-outs from Uniboil and Tasty Kitchen, along with Chocolate Nougat, Esterhazy, and Gloria cake slices from Konditorei. Fortunately, despite missing the run for toilet paper and other household essentials, we remain well-stocked for the quarantine. Now, we just need to stave off the cabin fever…

I embarked on NIH grant reviews earlier this month, only to find out in the meantime that my first R01 submission was not discussed, which led me to finally break out my new copy of Modern Warfare to start shooting at stuff. As expected, the new Call of Duty entry brought bigger explosions and better graphics, which helped show off my new computer hardware. This was also an opportune time to get back into gaming as continued expansion of the COVID-19 outbreak has led to cancellations of events and meetings, requiring frantic flight and hotel cancellations while the stock market plunged into bear market territory. With stores and restaurants likely to shutter their doors soon, we did manage to squeeze in a visit to Kevin Johnson’s Fixins Soul Kitchen for fried chicken, oxtail, and fried green tomatoes, as well as a massive meal at Tasty Kitchen with enough leftovers to feed us for the weekend. To avoid cabin fever amidst all the social distancing, I installed The Outer Worlds as part of a free Xbox Game Pass trial. The first-person RPG instantly reminded us of Fallout: New Vegas which was created by the same studio. Complete with a retro-futuristic aesthetic, sarcastic dark humor, and a Tactical Time Dilation (TTD) system reminiscent of VATS, the game promises to keep us entertained as we plan to hunker down at home to avoid the growing pandemic. 

We celebrated Westley’s birthday weekend by taking advantage of our new Sac Zoo membership, where Westley backed out of the giraffe encounter, but Melody finally got to see the anteater in action. Per his request, we celebrated Westley’s 4th birthday with Korean BBQ and a homemade chocolate cake, although he was more excited by the new Lego kits from grandma and grandpa including a space shuttle, dinosaur, and police van sets. The following week, we took advantage of our parents’ day out for some Uniboil action, then shared more spicy hot pot at home with my friend Ala’s family. We spent the remainder of February conferencing, with me attending Macula Society in San Diego and Melody attending APGO in Orlando afterwards. Still catching up on work I had put off for my recent R01 submission, I spent my entire meeting at the conference hotel, with only a quick ramen stop at Menya Ultra and seolleongtang at Woomiok on the way to and from the hotel. I would’ve liked to scout out the city ahead of our family trip this summer, but I was glad to also relax a little by the pool between working and networking. With Melody away this week, I tried to carry out daddy duty by taking Westley to his new swim lessons, neighborhood bike rides, Spiderman gaming, and Lego building, while also building a shiny white PC for my wife to accompany her new white desk. The patio at Taqueria Guadelajara was perfect for the spring weather, although fears of coronavirus meant sparse crowds at 99 Ranch. Melody returned on Leap Day to partake in Westley’s first official experience with Vietnamese pho, followed by a play date with a friend over Italian ice.  It’ll be interesting watching Westley’s social life develop, as we keep losing our own. 

I had little time to celebrate my birthday this year over the few days between unpacking swim gear from Kauai and packing snow gear for the Squaw Valley Retina meeting in Tahoe. After 3 nights of sleeping 3 hours each to finish my grant, I caught a ride with my friend Carlos, checked into the Ritz-Carlton, grabbed a burger at Manzanita, then quickly fell into slumber before the conference began that evening. I was too tired afterwards to hunt for dinner, so I opted for overpriced in-room BBQ wings while watching the new Breaking Bad movie in bed. On Friday, I gave my second talk, took the free gondola to Northstar Village for lunch, then joined colleagues for dinner and drinks while waiting for Melody and Westley to arrive. We had another night of BBQ wings, followed by a morning in the village sipping hot chocolate while watching skiers and snowboarders line up for the slopes. After sushi rolls and dan dan noodles from Drunken Monkey, we headed to the Tahoe Donner SnoPlay area for an afternoon of tubing, sledding, snowmen, snow angels, and snowball fights. The fresh mini donuts from a nearby food truck kept our energy up, but a near-loss with our rental car keys in the snow really got our adrenaline going.  Dinner was at Morgan’s Lobster Shack, where the chowder and lobster rolls reminded us of New England. I gave my last talk Sunday morning before meeting Westley at the resort arcade for some Batman pinball, motorcycle racing, and Jurassic shooting action. After checkout, we lunched at Truckee Tavern & Grill and got hot chocolate and truffles from Sweets for more snow action at the Donner Summit Snopark with our new sled from a local Ace Hardware. With Westley’s new love for Korean food videos, we stopped by KP supermarket to stock on jajangmyeon ingredients and other goodies on the way home.

With an early-February deadline for my second R01 submission, it was a race to the finish line as I scrambled to finish a draft of the proposal before our back-to-back trips for the Hawaiian Eye and Squaw Valley Retina meetings. Melody was out of town the week before our trip, which despite childcare assistance from in-laws kept me busy with Westley amidst pulling late nights for grant writing. I was up late packing for our Saturday morning flight when I found out that our connection had been compromised by a flight delay. Luckily, we rescued our trip by driving to SFO and arrived early enough to fill on breakfast tacos before boarding the now direct flight to Lihue. On arrival, we picked up our Ford Fiesta and enjoyed some tasty ahi wraps and karaage steam-bun sandwiches from Kikuchi’s, then drove through the tree tunnel to arrive at the Grand Hyatt for our stellar beach view room. Dinner at the Beach House was overpriced and underwhelming, despite the Pacific sunset. We awoke to French toast and crepes at Living Foods Market before embarking on the Kauai Plantation Railway for crop viewing, chicken chasing, and pig feeding.  After hearty oxtail soup and loco moco from Tip Top, we dipped into Poipu Beach, braving the rocky shallows and a sleeping Hawaiian monk seal, before another sunset dinner at Merriman’s and ice-cream from Lappert’s. On Monday, we munched on malasadas aboard our boat tour to the Fern Grotto as we relaxed to ukulele music and hula dancing along the Wailua River. We ignored the intermittent rain during our plate lunches from Mark’s Place before my ad board, and we met up with the Moshiri’s for dinner at touristy Keoki’s Paradise. On Tuesday, we toured the island’s secluded falls, coasts, and craters by helicopter as Westley entertained us with his ABCs over the intercom before dozing off for the last portion of the flight. Afterwards, we picked up poke and musubis from Ishihara Market en route to Waimea Canyon, where we encountered an unlicensed native Hawaiian story-teller and many chickens. We drove back to snorkel at Salt Pond Beach, share Good Vibes shave ice, and dine at Japanese Grandma’s Cafe to conclude the day. I spent most of Wednesday at the the conference before regrouping with the family for take-out poke and leftover pizza in the hotel room, and Eating House 1849 for dinner. On Thursday, we hiked the Maha’ulepu Heritage Trail to stunning ocean lookouts, then shared chicken n’ waffle and more loco moco at Nom Kauai on the way to Opaekaa Falls. We spent the afternoon lazing around Lydgate Beach Park’s elaborate playground and enclosed lagoon before returning for the hotel luau where Westley refused to join the hula stage performance. I wrapped up my final session Friday with poke and fried chicken from Koloa Fish Market, which we took aboard our flight home. Between the multiple talks, ad boards, and CME events, the Hawaiian Eye conference seemed tailored to commercial vendors and private practioners, but I was glad to bring my family to experience the beautiful Garden Island.

We had decided to graduate our toddler from his old Duplo set to standard Lego bricks, but we did not anticipate that he would become an instant addict. Westley awoke Christmas morning to two Lego classic crates from my parents and another set from Costco. We corrected our mistake of dumping all the different pieces into a single bin, but realized that our boy might be a bit colorblind during the resorting process. We got Westley out of the house with another trip to Stockton to spend Christmas with my in-laws. Melody adopted our niece’s old bike, so we also took a few family bike rides to nearby playgrounds. Otherwise, we spent our evenings warming up to spicy hot pot and binging on Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri’s adventures in Netflix’s adaptation of the Witcher. Despite the tricky names and accented enunciation requiring the subtitles to be kept on, we were enthralled by the time-warped storytelling, colorful monsters, and uncovered bodies. New Year’s was all things Lego including an Ikea run for Lego storage and a Roseville Galleria visit for Lego figures from the Lego store. We also met up with my med school friend Amy and my high school friend Brenda, which also gave Westley a chance to hang out with their kids (and play with more Legos). Luckily, a white cloud dominated my call week, and we were able to start 2020 without much drama. 

Having joined the ARVO meeting program committee, my December has been consumed by abstract reviews which between overbooked clinics, Kaiser referrals, and scribe absences, kept me plenty busy at work. Our department did well enough this year to bring back the holiday party, although the DJ was a fail. We also squeezed into the Glassberg-mobile to attend the Ob-Gyn chair’s gathering for a second year in a row, but ghosted the Kit Lam luncheon when it turned into a potluck. We kept our in-laws busy this month with childcare, and gave us time to try out Shoku Ramen Bar near work, and HK-styled Flame Cafe outside 99 Ranch. Both were solid. We also munched on an Insomnia ice-cream cookie-wich on the way to watching the Rise of Skywalker, which despite providing some fan service, was too sloppy a movie to provide the satisfying conclusion to the Star Wars saga that we had hoped for. Back home, I took advantage of holiday deals and leftover grant money to gather components to build a new PC for my home office. The new rig sports a Ryzen 7 3700x CPU with a Kraken X72 liquid cooler on an ROG Crosshair VIII Hero mobo with G.Skill Ripjaw memory, ROG Strix RTX 2070s graphics, and a 970 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD, all powered by a Focus PX-750 power supply and housed in a sleek, windowed H710 case. With this much horsepower, it’s a shame we don’t have a PC game to enjoy for the holidays. Instead, we fired up the PS4 with our new GOTY edition of Spiderman to get us swinging through the digital Big Apple to prepare for the NYE ball drop.

We spent most of November vegetating at home as we braced the chilly weather and battled a stubborn cold that kept us coughing for weeks. We tried to warm up with new Well Season dim sum and Kotchen DIY hot pot, but was not impressed by either restaurant. We also evaded cooking for my lab holiday party and ordered out from Taqueria Guadelajara. Most of the students were studying for finals and couldn’t stay for our usual board gaming, but we did manage to make it up with another lab outing at the newly-renovated Mikuni the following week. At work, I was busy preparing graduate lectures, manuscript revisions, and a record of 10 upcoming talks in January. This freed me up for Thanksgiving to drive down to Stockton for home-cooked lunch with the in-laws. We returned to Vacaville for Black Friday shopping, where we were exhausted despite scoring just a few coats and sweaters, and filled on lumpia and lechon kawali from Ma Sarap before heading home. Heavy rain kept us indoors for the rest of the weekend, as we successfully revived the wind fish in Link’s Awakening and watched cute baby Yoda get rescued in The Mandalorian on the new Disney+ service. We set up our Christmas tree as in prior years, and also repurposed some old string lights from our previous pergola to decorate the front porch. Hopefully, we’ll recover from our cough soon to enjoy the holidays.

We had planned a trip to Oahu to unwind and enjoy some family time, so we kept our agenda light with minimal activities planned. With much to wrap up at work, we didn’t finish packing until late and overslept our alarm. Fortunately, we managed to beat rush hour traffic to board our 7 AM flight at SFO, where we entertained Westley with TV shows, Nintendo, and WikkiStix. Picking up our car seat-equipped rental and checking in to the marina-view AirBnb were a cinch, leaving us time to enjoy Marukame Udon and SomiSomi taiyaki while exploring the Ala Moana Center and Shirokiya Japan Village Walk. Due to the jet-lag, we awoke super-early next morning for Leonard’s malasadas on the way to Hanauma Bay. Westley did not have the courage to snorkel with us, so he mostly worked on sand castles while we took turns swimming with the fishes. We were so post-prandial from Fatboy’s loco moco and BBQ lunch plate that we napped in the parking lot at Sea Life Park before heading in to feed their sea turtles and parakeets. That evening, there was hardly a line for the crispy tonkatsu at Tamafuji, which gave us time to nab an epic matcha warabi mochi parfait at Nana’s Green Tea and a Quiksilver rash guard before calling it a night. On Saturday, we marched through the Hilton property to embark on the Atlantis submarine ride for a deep-sea view of fish and corals amidst sunken boats and planes, followed by refreshing cold soba and uni/ikuro bowls at I-naba. We hung out with my friend Jeff’s family at Izakaya Gazen afterwards, then at their house until well past bedtime. Sunday brunch at Koko Head Cafe included amazing cornflake french toast and “koko moco,” which kept us nourished for our visit with the African wild dogs and giant koi at the Honolulu Zoo. We returned to Waikiki Yokocho for Bario Ramen and Nana’s hoji soft-serve, followed by lychee sorbet from Henry’s Place and supersized udon bowls from TsuroTonTan. Our busy Monday began at dawn as we braved cold rain to inspect sea anemones in the shallows of Duke Kahanamoku Lagoon. We warmed up with homemade chow fun and congee at Lam’s Kitchen, grabbed road snacks at Musubi Cafe Iyasume, then drove to the Dole Plantation to enjoy a Dole Whip while waiting in line for the Pineapple Express train ride. Our afternoon at the Polynesian Cultural Center included a musical canoe show, a revisit to our favorite Samoan performer, poi balls and games, rhythmic bamboo sticks, and pole fishing. We returned for a late dinner afterwards at Sushi Izakaya Gaku with uni shooters, chazuke, and a massive yellowtail collar which shifted the bulge from our wallets to our bellies. The next day, we split some Liliha coco and choco puffs on the way to the tiny Waikiki Aquarium, ate unimpressive Palace Saimin, then revisited the lagoon for water gun fights. For dinner, we compared tonkatsu at Bairin with Jeff’s family, then shared coconut, pineapple, and watermelon sorbets for palate cleansing. An earlier morning visit to Haunama Bay on Friday scored us free snorkeling, this time as a whole family, which made us plenty hungry for tako and ahi poke and malasadas a la mode. Westley slept through lunch at Helena’s Hawaiian Food, where the pipikaula short ribs and butterfish collars overshadowed the kalua pig, tripe stew, and chicken long rice. Unfortunately, he awoke too late for aqua-bike rentals, but we did enjoy more lagoon time prior to Wagaya ramen and corn tempura. After packing the next morning, we returned to the Ala Moana food court for Jollibee ChickenJoy, MyungRang Korean hot dogs, and shaved ice before heading to the airport. In honor of the holiday, Westley flew home as Spiderman to the delight of the crew. We spent the last days off recovering from jet lag by adventuring through Koholint Island in Link’s Awakening, as we reminisced about our trip to the Japanese food haven of Honolulu.