Mainely Awesome

Meg and I just returned from a fantastic week long trip to Maine. The scenery was beautiful, the hiking was fantastic, and the beer was pretty damn good. All of the successful ingredients for a relaxing vacation.

In addition to touring and visiting many fine brew pubs and beer bars, we had the opportunity to tour the Allagash Brewery. A fantastic way to spend a few hours if you find yourself around the Portland, ME area. Additional highlights were Navare Res and Gritty McDuff's in Portland, as well as, Lumpoc Cafe in Bar Harbor.

A few pictures from the trip:


Standing next to a couple of barrels of my favorite wood-aged brew, Allagash Curieux


Meg hanging out between the bubble mountains


The Maine shoreline

Surfing Irene

While most of the island is trying to get away from the ocean in preparation for hurricane Irene's landfall - NJ surfers rush in... There were at least 15 surfers right in front of our Sea Isle place tonight. (We are evacuating tomorrow.) Sorry, Gov. Christie.

Sea Isle Seashell Still-Life

These are some of the shells I collected during our morning walks on the beach - the clam shell in the middle is the "affirmation shell" that I got after completing my beach yoga class on Monday. Below is my first attempt at watercolors; not too bad a for a first try. Life (and vacation) after all is about trying new things.

Before the Evacuation

August 24, 2011

For the past 5 summers, we have rented a house in Sea Isle City, NJ for a week in August with a couple of our friends. This year, our place was a million-dollar home right on the promenade; we moved in last Saturday and are supposed to check out tomorrow - but there is a hurricane coming, and the town is busy boarding up windows and throwing down sandbags... so we are thinking about leaving a day early.



Evacuation is only "suggested" for today - but mandatory tomorrow; Gary just went to get gas because a local said the gas stations are running out. I wonder how badly the Jersey coast is going to get hit by hurricane Irene. At least we had a beautiful week at the shore (see below).

Our Friends' Baby in Front of Our Rental

Our Balcony, Overlooking the Beach

Balcony Dwelling

Morning View from Our Balcony





Afternoon at the Beach

Evening View from Our Balcony

Octreotide Scan Recap

August 16, 2011

On the way up to Boston (for my Octreotide scans), we stopped in Mystic, Conn. for my "meet and greet" with a beluga whale. Afterward, we ate at Sea Swirl, a seafood and ice cream stand which is housed in an old, converted Carvel Ice Cream storefront.

Mystic Sea Port (where Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall spent their honeymoon)

I Love Sea Swirl's Logo: a Fish Eating an Ice Cream Cone

Sea Swirl's clam strips are simultaneously flaky and chewy - in a good way.

Sea Swirl has both soft serve and hard ice cream (including black raspberry); I was especially excited to see watermelon soft serve - but discovered it was vanilla ice cream with a "flavor blast" of watermelon... still delicious.

After we left Mystic, Connecticut, we went to my aunt's place in Wakefield, Massachusetts - where we stayed for a few days in preparation for my Dana-Farber appointments.



August 17, 2011

We arrived at Dana-Farber at 8:00am, and after we wandered around the wrong building and the wrong floor for a while, Gary and I finally found the nuclear medicine department. Perhaps the coolest thing about the entire experience was the crazy-looking metal container that my radioactive iv shot came in - the nurse explained "this container is to protect me, not you." Ok, that's comforting I guess.



After four hours, the scans started. I hated it. I thought I'd be fine after conquering the MRI, but I was wrong. While the Oscan machine is open on both sides, a massive, flat camera gets lowered down until it's right above your nose (for much of the time). Even with a blindfold, meditation music, and deep breathing - I spent nearly every moment fighting panic.



At first, I couldn't figure out why I was having such a problem with the tests (which are a couple of hours long) until I remembered that in my early 20s I went through a phase of having really vivid nightmares of being buried alive. Worse than the nightmares themselves, however, was the fact that somehow I'd manage to crawl UNDER the bed during my sleep... so I'd actually be touching the underneath of my mattress while dreaming that I was feeling the inside of a coffin. I would scream and scream until someone in the house would pull me out from underneath the bed and wake me up. I think having a large flat surface over my face triggered those memories. Hopefully, I won't need to get another Oscan for a long, long time.

My Radioactive "Non-Warning" Label





Octreoscan Machine (the flat screen lowers down once you slide into that doughnut looking hole)





Gene Display at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Post Oscan Activities

Since my first Oscan was an all-day event, Gary took in an afternoon Red Sox game at Fenway. I had some time to kill in between my testing and the end of the ballgame, so I went to the Gardner Museum, which is one of the most eclectic, fascinating, beautiful museums I've ever been to. (Travel note: Fenway Park and the Gardner Museum are both within walking distance of Dana-Farber, and totally worth a visit.)

August 18, 2011

After my second day of testing, Gary and I headed home - and hit Frank Pepe Pizzeria in New Haven, Conn. for a clam pie. Gary thought it was absolutely pizza hall-of-fame material; I thought it was solid, but not mind-blowing.

We finally got our clam pie (See previous blog post: Not So Clamtastic aka Shell Shocked)

Beluga Whale - In the Bucket

About 7 years ago, my closest friend from college - Sasha- was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and had radical neurosurgery (during which she was awake) to remove it. Her story is incredible, and has been featured in commercials, print ads and on UCSF's website.



I remember Sasha going through the agonizing process of deciding whether or not to have the surgery. The tumor was under a major artery in her frontal lobe (part of the brain that controls movement, language, memory and personality). Even if they were successful in removing the cancer, there was a strong likelihood that they would fail to preserve "Sasha" as we all knew her. It was an incredibly courageous leap of faith to go ahead with the surgery; but even braver still was the fact that Sasha postponed the operation until she first took a trip to Europe - something she had always wanted to do. I am happy to say that the surgery was a complete success, and today she is alive, and beautiful, and healthy, and very much her same, incredibly spunky self.



Six years after Sasha's cancer diagnosis, mine came. My right hemi colectomy and lymph removal last year wasn't a dangerous nor life threatening surgery... certainly nothing like what Sasha went through - but I still wanted to follow in her footsteps and do something (on a small scale) that I'd always wanted to do before they gutted me like a trout. Only one problem - I couldn't think of anything.



I had no bucket list.



Since carcinoid's "mascot" is a zebra, I thought it'd be cool to do something with an "exotic" animal - so I decided to try and find a place that had beluga whales. I love these ridiculously cute, bulbous, smiling, iceberg-white creatures... if you have never seen one, this is a beluga:

Sign from Mystic Aquarium

Pointing the Way to the Beluga Exhibit

As I was researching aquariums, I came upon the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, which not only has beluga whales, but an entire "Beluga Experience" where participants actually get in the water with one of these amazing animals. I called immediately, but they were completely booked for the summer - so I went into surgery with my one and only bucket list item still left unchecked.



This year - I was determined to finally get to meet a beluga; so on the way to my Dana-Farber appointment (for my radioactive injection and Oscan), Gary and I went to the Mystic Aquarium to meet Juno, a 1,320 lb male beluga whale, who let us pat his tongue, wiggle his melon (head blubber), feel his teeth, pet his back, and give him simple commands. It was a once-in-a-lifetime "encounter" - complete with a parting kiss.



Below are a couple of pictures from the day... the first three were taken by the aquarium photographer and a photo-booth; the second two were taken and edited on my iPhone using Instagram. Guess I need to come up with a new dream to stick on my bucket list.

The Return Home aka the Best Sausage Pizza Anywhere

We packed a lot into our little two-day road trip up to Dana-Farber; and I was completely bed-bound for a day and a half following our return, but it was worth it. In particular, our final stop on the way home was one of the best: Colony Grill in CT.



At home, Gary and I eat vegetarian and organic (as evidenced by our monthly Whole Foods bill)... but when we travel, we eat whatever is the local specialty. The best way to understand the culture of a new place - whether it be a new country or a new state, is to eat whatever the locals eat. Luckily for us, the locals in Stamford, CT eat sweet sausage pizza.



We left Kennebunkport, ME in the afternoon and reached CT around 8 pm... we once again turned to our book Road Food to see if there was a place to stop for dinner; its suggestion was Colony Grill - right off of route 95:



"Pizza is the only food on the menu, available in one size, about a foot-and-a-half in diameter with crust as thin as a saltine...Aside from the wild crunch of their crust, Colony pizzas are known for sweet sausage made across the street at another neighborhood survivor, DeYulio's Sausage Co,, and for the optional topping called 'hot oil': peppery olive oil that imbues them with zest and lusciousness unlike any other." - Roadfood



We ordered a mushroom, sausage, and hot oil pizza. When it came, it looked amazing - Gary took one bite and waived furiously at me to stop... don't eat. His eyes started watering as he mouthed "hot" - I asked "temperature or spice" and he choked out "spice."



Uh oh.



I took a bite and assured him it wasn't too spicy at all... which is weird since he can stand spice more than I can. It turns out that (unbeknownst to us) a "stinger" had made its way onto our pie, which is what Gary had bitten into. We later searched the internet, but couldn't find just what exactly a stinger was... other than ridiculously hot! (I tried a small "stinger" bite and it singed my taste buds). We did come to learn, however, that every hot-oil pie has one to two stingers placed in the middle to indicate that the hot-oil had already been applied to the pie. I guess accidental stinger consumption is part of the "rookie" Colony experience... we won't make that mistake again when we return. And yes, we will drive to CT to have another pie - it may have been one of the best pizzas I've ever had. (That's saying something coming from an Italian-Jersey girl!)

Kennebunkport, ME

We stayed overnight at my Aunt's house in Wakefield, Mass on Monday night, in order to make my appointment with Dr. Kulke Tuesday morning at 8:15 am. We were done at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute around 11 am, and did the only thing we could following a disappointing doctor's appointment that basically left us with no answers and no plan of action - we drove to Maine for lobster rolls.







We were a bit apprehensive given that Road Food's "best clams" suggestion was a big flop; but the book assured us that The Clam Shack in Kennebunkport Maine was THE place for lobster rolls. It was a split decision - I loved them while Gary was so - so on them. They were no frills - just one lb of fresh lobster drenched in butter on freshly baked bread. The lobster meat was delicate and fresh - the lobster claws in particular were sweet and the perfect firmness.





After lunch, we did some strolling around - Kennebunkport is a fishing town on the coast, with a lot of amazing houses overlooking the ocean. We decided to get some blueberry pie at Mabel's Lobster Claw Restaurant. Gary was tempted to try another lobster roll - but opted for "Yankee style" clam chowder instead, which was outstanding: creamy and filled with fresh hunks of clams and roasted potatoes. My blueberry pie was equally good... I guess Maine wild blueberries are a regional specialty, and the locally grown ones are much smaller than the ones in the supermarket, with a tangy flavor punch.



Political Note:



George W. and Laura Bush have their vacation "compound" in Kennebunkport. They too love Mabel's blueberry desserts ... but trust me, the pie transcends politics.

Not So Clamtastic aka Shell Shocked

Monday, August 8TH (on the way to MA)







For lunch, we went to Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in CT - to sample some of their famous "clam pie," which is basically a white pizza with fresh clams on top. So imagine our disappointment when we arrived only to be met with this sign:







What bad luck!



We ended up ordering their "summer pizza" which was amazing: it's served on a rectangular baking sheet, and the crust is thin yet doughy, with the perfect amount of cheese, topped with basil and slightly caramelized marinated fresh tomatoes.









While the pizza was out of this world, we just had to ask our waitress: "why no clam pies today?" As soon as we uttered the question, the couple in the next booth piped up: "They never have clams on Mondays."



The waitress expanded on this by explaining that apparently "Eric" is the only one who shucks the clams, and he works 6 days a week... Monday is his only day free from his high-pressured, fast-paced mollusk responsibilities. In fact, (she announced somewhat tauntingly) there was presently a huge pile of clams in the back - patiently waiting for Eric's magic touch. Drats.



So, with clams in mind, we continued our journey north to The Clam Box in MA, which according to Road Food has some of the best fried clams in the country.









Road Food was wrong; dead wrong.



We ordered their two types of clams: strips and native... both were fried, and both were big letdowns.









The clam strips were tasteless, and the batter severely under seasoned. The native clams had little balls of briny flesh attached, which tasted watery and bitter instead of sweet. Even the fries were non-noteworthy.



I used to think anything fried was delicious... I guess I have The Clam Box to thank for setting me straight on that one. Looks like we will just have to get some good old fashioned New Jersey steamers this weekend, to finally satiate our clam craving.



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On The Road Again

Today, Gary and I packed up the car for an overnight trip to Boston in preparation for my appointment tomorrow with Dr. Kulke, a carcinoid expert, at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center.



Three years ago, Gary and I drove my car (and stuff) cross country from CA to NJ, and made a pact to only eat at local places -- NO FAST FOOD period. It was a fun challenge; one we met with the help of this book:









So last night we dusted off this old friend of ours, and picked out three places (and seafood specialties) to work into our trip:



Pepe's Pizzeria Napoletana (New Haven, CT) - clam pizza

The Clam Shack (Kennebunkport, ME) - fried clams

Clam Box (Ipswich, MA) - lobster rolls



Should be an interesting 48 hours.



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Visiting Sistah

I got to spend a couple days with my sister Meredith (aka sistah) in Claremont, CA before I had to fly East and she had to start her second year of medical school; once again we jam packed our days ... Here is a recap of our top 5 mini adventures:

1. 90 min Bikram (hot) yoga class

2. Double feature at a drive-in movie theater (Captain America and Harry Potter)

3. Lots of play time with Lil - her 4 lb chihuahua

4. Awesome trip to the antique mart

5. And of course In and Out Burgers! (Can you tell which one is sans meat?... Hint: not mine.)

I really miss her (and CA).

---



Note on the etymology of "sistah":



My grandmother never uses proper nouns unless absolutely necessary ... so when inquiring about Meredith she always asks, "how's sistah?" in her thick Brooklyn accent. (Also, she refers to me as "the kid" - even if I'm standing right in front of her.) Meredith and I find my grandmother's colloquial quirks endearing, and have adopted them accordingly.



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