Dream Vacation: Santorini, Days 1-2

Dear Husband I can't remember how long we have wanted to vacation in Greece. I think it's a 20-year-old dream, back when one of my college suities showed me pictures of the famous blue domes in Oia (pronounced "E-ya") on Santorini. The next year, DH took a choir trip to the mainland and told me how much he wanted to go back to Athens and other historical sites. I had just started graduate/medical school, so we didn't have the time or money for such a big trip. Maybe 10 years ago we started to think we could save up enough money and time off. Eventually I penciled September 2020 on the calendar and began looking at hotels and Cycladic houses ("caves" built in the hillsides) on Air BnB. One whole week of doing nothing but swimming and napping, followed by a whole week in Athens seeing all the sights is one of the things COVID stole from us.

DH jokes that he feels like he's married to a travel agent, in which case I more than earned my commission on this one. It took 1 day to make our plans and 5 weeks to update them to accommodate the MudPhud conference at which I presented. The problem may ultimately have come down to the Lufthansa customer service rep who changed the names on our new itineraries to "[Lastname]mrs [Firstname]" and "[Lassstname]mr [Firstname]." And yes, they misspelled DH's extremely common last name! Because these didn't match our travel documents, we couldn't check in online, and DH had to beg United to let him get on the first plane. We met up in Newark for an overnight flight on which neither of us slept very much, but The Holdovers was a nice distraction. Thankfully, while the German customs agents noted the name discrepancies, I think the errors were so obvious compared to our passports that they let us through. And in the nick of time, because our trans-Atlantic flight had been delayed 1.5 hours to replace a tire, and that was the entirety of our layover in Munich. Above DH is tickled to have his first bottle of Apfelschorle [bubbly apple juice] in a long time. At the Athens airport, I could finally wash off in the sink and change my clothes for the final leg to Santorini. On the right, DH naps against a backdrop of Greek islands out the airplane window. I managed to get us a cab with my non-exist Greek skills.

Finally, here we are! Two job changes and one family wedding later, we booked a 10-day April vacation that might be a little cool for the beach, but it's plenty warm in the sun. The shoulder season means not everything is open yet, but prices are less than during the summer. Santorini is probably the most touristy destination we've ever visited, and we agree that it's an interesting experience to be around so many people who, just like you, are here to experience the place, rather than mostly locals who are trying to live and work around the minority of visitors. I found us a studio apartment a little way down the hillside under Agios Gerasimos (St. George's Church), one of the famous sites to watch the sun set in Firostefani, the village just north of the capital of Fira. You think you've packed light until you have to haul your suitcase up and down a stone flight of stairs! (We declined to hire the independent porter with his cart.) It's in a compound called "Sensyo." Painted bright yellow, there are a number of units with varying numbers of bedrooms, private bathrooms, and kitchens. We all share the patio overlooking the caldera that functions as an outdoor living and dining room. From there we can hear music playing from nearby restaurants, noisy birds, and workers doing renovations.

The afternoon we arrived was sunny and mid-to-high 70s. We got settled in, and while DH napped, I picked up food provisions from a nearby bodega. For dinner we went to Taverna Simos, which I had heard had a great deck from which to watch the sunset. Alas, it wasn't open for the season, so we ate inside, where some kind of trees are growing up the wall and across the ceiling, with twinkling lights entwined among the branches. With mid-20th-century ballads on the music player and the proprietor who served us in between smoking in the kitchen next to our table, it was definitely an "authentic" experience. We ate stuffed peppers, moussaka (eggplant casserole), and pastitsio (a pasta casserole with an incredibly creamy top).

Then we walked through central Fira to burn off those calories and take in the nightlife. We also did some reconnaissance for later in the week, namely locating the central bus terminal as well as the cable car entrance. The pedestrian streets were full, and there were many kinds of shops: souvenirs, of course, but also gelato, jewelry, sunglasses, leather goods, and a tattoo parlor. We ended the night by walking back to Firostefani--uphill, this time!--along the famous path overlooking the volcanic crater. Our photos don't do justice to how pretty the lights of Fira looked behind us. And if we looked up, we could see the constellations like Orion the hunter.

Day 3: Adventure to the Old Port

MudPhuds in North Carolina

Every 2 years for almost 2 decades, the MD/PhD students and some faculty in the social sciences and humanities get together to share their research and support each other through the weird, wonderful, sometimes abusive, yet also privileged academic experience that is pursuing a dual degree. It's perhaps my most favorite meeting, because these are birds of my feather. This year the conference in Chapel Hill abutted our long-planned trip to Greece, so I missed the end of it. (I missed the beginning of it, too, tracking down a cellphone repair shop to replace the screen that was annihilated by a kamikaze leap onto the tiled bathroom floor the night before I left, but that's another story.) I wasn't planning to go, but several of the old-timers convinced each other to attend, and 3 of us who had gone to grad school together also shared a hotel room like we were broke students again. Best company, however.

Two of my friends gave excellent keynote talks, I heard some interesting research presentations, and I did a little mentoring as well. One of the reasons I agreed to come was because I organized a panel on "What Does It Mean to Have an MD/PhD?" as an extended riff on both the answer to this question on the NIH webpage as well as a book I recently reviewed for the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. My co-panelists talked about the history of the American Physician Scientist Association and about how doing research in the history of psychiatry illuminated her own complicity in structures of power as a future psychiatrist. The punchline to my presentation was a re-writing of the NIH's answer to the question to be more inclusive:

“Dual-degree programs provide training in medicine / nursing / dentistry / public health / veterinary science and research for students who want to become clinician-scholars. Graduates often go on to become faculty at universities, join research institutes, or start businesses. Trainees are prepared for careers in which they will combine research, teaching, activism, and/or patient care. It is a challenging career that offers opportunities to benefit many people by advancing knowledge of health and illness, developing new products or programs, and inventing new approaches to clinical problems.”

MD/PhD (or DO/PhD, or MD/MPH, etc.) training certainly isn't for everyone--especially with the complete collapse of the academic job market outside medicine since 2008--but for those of us with niche or combined interests for whom it makes sense, we can support each other. In 2 years we'll be in central California on the UCSF or UC-Davis campus, and 2 years after that we plan to congregate in Philadelphia, with Ann Arbor maybe after that. And there's actually going to be a European-North America conference in Oslo in June 2025, so I've already put it on my calendar for good food, saunas, catching up with old friends, making new ones, and oh yeah, listening to some talks. I don't know if my book will be out quite that soon (deadline to turn in the manuscript is December 31), but we can celebrate all the same!

Hoppy Easter 2024!

My Awesome Parents (MAP) came to visit us for Easter this year. Saturday morning we went to the Strip District for breakfast and to walk around the shops. It was not as crowded as I had expected it to be, probably due to the cool weather that threatened rain. While Dear Husband was at church rehearsing, we spent the middle part of the day making things: hot-cross buns for Eastern morning, curtains for the guest bedroom, hard-boiled eggs, and plastic eggs to hang on the tree out front, which I've wanted to do for years. I also repaired several items of clothing by hand.

Saturday evening we went to a Liberty Magic show by Billy the Kidd and then out for dinner at Social House 7, before returning home to watch The Miracle Club (2023) with Maggie Smith. All 3 experiences I would grade as B+. The magician had some good tricks and others that were just meh. The restaurant kitchen took a long time to send out the third and largest dish, so we were hungry almost until we were ready to leave. The script had some good ideas, but the pacing was awkward.

Sunday morning we all had an early first Easter breakfast together (at 6am!) before DH left to play the first of three services. The rest of us spent the morning reading, emailing, and having second breakfast before heading up to Sewickley Presbyterian Church for the 11 o'clock worship service, complete with voice choir, brass choir, and beautiful flowers. Also a small snack before and a larger snack afterwards. Then home to change clothes and head to a friend's house for good food, better pisco sours, and an outdoor hunt for confetti-filled eggs that the kids broke on each other's heads. Although rain had been predicted, it was sunny and almost warm. There was time for a nap and a Zoom with family before settling in for smorgasbord for dinner while watching the first two episodes of the British original Ghosts, which is miles better than the American knock-off that DH once watched while we were flying cross-country.

Because we didn't sing my favorite verses from "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" by Charles Wesley (the Presbyterian hymnal has different words), I'll include them here in closing:

Lives again our glorious King! / Where, O death, is now thy sting? / Once he died our souls to save. / Where thy victory, O grave?

Soar we now, where Christ has led, / Following our exalted head; / Made like him, like him we rise,./ Ours the cross—the grave—the skies!

Admittedly, some of my experience of this hymn is undoubtedly tied up with having heard DH play these verses on the organ--triumphantly, as only he can--almost every year since 1997. Happy Easter to all of you, from both of us.

DIY: Rusted Tin Box Edition

When we purchased our house, which is larger than our apartment was, I spent a lot of time on Facebook Marketplace furnishing it, which is how I found this delightful enameled tin box, which I thought would be perfect for storing my cross-stitch supplies. However, it came with a lot of rust, so I looked up home rust-removal procedures, such as a soaped-up cut potato (?). I decided to try a coating of baking soda and water paste that I applied with an old sock and left to sit for an hour while crafting with a girlfriend by Zoom. Then I scrubbed everything with a toothbrush. It seemed to required more elbow grease to remove the gritty powder than the rust! I finished it off with a coat of linseed oil that a neighbor on our local Buy-Nothing Group dropped off. After sitting for several days, the box was shiny but slightly tacky, and I worried about storing thread unprotected. So while watching a presentation about caring for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, I applied some marble-patterned contact paper left over from a previous DIY project to freshen up an old Ikea shelf for the exercise room / conservatory. It's so much prettier on my shelf than the cardboard mailing box I had been hiding in a drawer!

2023 Rememberlutions

This time last year, I created a Pittsburgh Bucket List which, upon reflection, was a complete and utter failure. The only item we completed was a tour of Bayernhof for my 1-day staycation--and we were 15 minutes late on account of getting lost. However, we will be taking My Awesome Parents to a Liberty Magic show this spring as a Christmas gift, and we have promises for rollerskating at the Neville Roller Dome and dinner at The Woods House from friends. 

Which isn't to say that we had no fun in 2023! I did keep a few mementos in my Rememberlutions jar. First up is...a ticket to a performance we didn't end up seeing: Billy Strayhorn: Something to Live For. I tried to squeeze this in between travel, but the performance kept being cancelled for cast illness, and finally I took a refund. In no particular order, this is what else I found in the jar:

We watched the Pittsburgh Pirates defeat the St. Louis Cardinals when one brother was pitching against his brother on the other team. That was with colleagues from my work.

I saw a really great one-woman show about Frida Kahlo in June.

We finally visited the Pittsburgh Zoo, where we enjoyed the Chinese lanterns.

In February, Dear Husband and I had a "grand pause" at Dogwood Cabin to celebrate his new job, and in March, we had a great second trip to Phoenix, AZ, for Spring Training baseball, hiking, biking, museums, etc.

A patient wrote this to me in a message: "Just wanted you to know that you were the very best doctor I ever knew and I consider you as my friend."

Over Memorial Day Weekend, I went home to Baltimore to celebrate my father, and over Labor Dar Weekend, I flew to Charlotte to visit my grandmother, aunt, and her family.

A lovely outdoor lunch at Kaya followed by an afternoon exploring the Heinz History Center for DH's 1-day vacay.

We took a tour of Laurel Caverns with MAP in August and lunch afterwards.

Sitting at my desk with a breeze blowing sweetly through the window. This is what my office looked like recently, shortly after signing my book contract (!).

We drove to DH's family picnic at the little church by the graveyard, and on our way home, we spent the night in a tiny cabin.

When DH leaned over while driving to kiss me not once but twice after I read the poem I picked out for my youngest brother's wedding. If you search "San Diego," you can find the other posts from our vacation that week.

Finishing not one but two Princess Bride cross-stitch samplers; I gifted the one I did not keep.

When I found out parents of adult children with disabilities refer other parents to me via Facebook discussion threads. Honestly, anytime a patient compliments me on my care is really meaningful. I even had one tell me he had referred some people to me--"but not too many, because I want to make sure I can still get an appointment!"

I not only got a co-edited special issue of a journal published, but I had a magical afternoon in Montreal with my co-editor in 80-degree weather.

Every time Rosie purred through a morning brushing session, and the way she flops herself against me in ecstasy.

In March, I was invited to Chicago as an expert on teaching nutrition.

Watching "Animal Kingdom" in our backyard during dinner on the patio in the warmer months.

The time one of the nurses put someone on the phone on hold so she could join the other one in giving me a hug when I was feeling down about the way clinic was going.

We visited the Phipps Botanical Garden twice this year, once for Billy Porter and once for the holiday light show.

Our musical adventures included a trip to State College in July, which I declared "a perfect summer day." That was made better by the presence of friends, which I also enjoyed multiple times the week between Christmas and New Year's.

So that's the year that was. It was not as terrible for me as it was for some people I know. I hope we all have a better 2024.

Christmas 2023

Editor's Note: If you're following along in real time, this post is dropping one month after the big event due to general busyness of mixing family/friend time with a half-week of work over the holidays, followed by jumping into the new semester with both feet. Also, I was waiting for my new storage items to arrive in the mail, and I wanted to show them to you, because this post is dedicated to the suburban wife I have become. Cheers!

Dear Husband and I had a lovely Christmas 2023, in part because for the first(!?) time in two decades, we did not travel. Instead, his immediate family came to us. Unsurprisingly, I made very ambitious plans for cooking and activities, beginning with a great new taco place. Christmas Eve breakfast was waffles with a warm, homemade cinnamon pear compote topped with walnuts and powdered sugar that looked like something from a Williams Sonoma catalogue, but I was too busy serving and eating to photograph it.

(Moravian star visible in front window.)

(Yes, that is a flock of flamingoes; alas, their days may be numbered--

they really should have flown south for the winter, as snow and ice do not agree with them.)

Since buying our house almost 2 years ago, we have been purchasing more Christmas decorations. Last year was a reusable wreath with matching garland for the light pole in the front, and a sparkly light-up deer for the back. This year I discovered "urn fillers" for the concrete containers on either side of the driveway and scoured the internet to find a set that DH liked with battery-operated timers that didn't require a second mortgage. (Our first picks cost $170! EACH!) I also leaned into some kind of country kitsch with two oversized black metal lanterns with battery-operated candles to hang in the back yard--for ambience? DH seems to like them.

For Christmas Eve lunch (DH would already be at church by dinnertime), I decided to re-create that phyllo pie recipe. This time I made chickpea-with-spinach and chicken-(leftover from chicken soup)-with-peas, served with homemade cranberry sauce and my in-laws' German cucumber salad. Demerits for forgetting to defrost the frozen dough sheets overnight, although it turns out you can nuke them in their plastic wrappers in the microwave for 60 seconds (thanks, Alan Brown!).

Christmas Day breakfast was cinnamon rolls with grapefruit. More demerits to me for hustling us out of the house at 9am to be early for the 10am service at St. Paul's Cathedral, when actually we wanted to attend the noon service with the special music that started at 11:30am (whoops). So we gave up our spot in the parking lot and drove across town to Homewood Cemetery, where we hunted for the grave of a distant relative, then dawdled over hot drinks from the Starbucks that was open in the Jewish neighborhood. It felt so nice to give ourselves the gift of "no stress." (Kudos AND TIPS to the baristas who were working hard!) We were in good time for the brass, choir, and organ music and came home to a late lunch of phyllo pie with my MIL's raspberry pie for dessert.

There was jigsaw-puzzling, various rounds of card games, and we visited the large train set that is up in the living room of the older couple next door. The husband grew up in our house, and that train set used to be in what is now our living room.

Christmas Day dinner was London broil with this excellent marinade (not shown), mashed potatoes with my in-law's mushroom gravy, and Brussels sprouts that I thought would continue to cook while they rested on the stovetop but didn't (whoops).

On Boxing Day I took two meals off and only cooked for dinner, since DH's brother had come to town. I made this Martha Stewart "Cajun shrimp" recipe (above), except I swapped out the Andouille sausage for water chestnuts to lower the salt and fat content for my FIL, and I skipped the celery altogether, since only my MIL and I like it. I also tossed in the green pepper chunks last so they would stay crunchy. Served with roasted carrots and cumin. This filled our stomachs before we headed out to the Holiday Lights at the Phipps Botanical Garden.

Finally, this year I tired of storing our ornaments in torn, decades-old tissue paper and a mish-mash of cardboard boxes, so I invested in a set of plastic tubs and red-and-green canvas storage containers with cardboard inserts. Here you can see Rosamunda "helping" me sort everything into their new containers. There's a little space to grow, but we have more than enough ornaments to fit on a standard-issue live fir tree, so it's mostly about being able to see what you're looking for when you're decorating and feeling neat and tidy when everything is put away.