On Sabbath afternoon we went hiking at Forest Falls – normally you can make it across the rocks all the way up to the actual falls, but the water was too deep to get everybody across without wading, and our attempts to build a bridge were unsuccessful. Rachel, looking for a place to rest her head, found a hollow tree – Giselle would be so proud. Heather brought some chocolate eggs and we got a few pictures of them nested around the woods. The trip culminated in a visit to the brand-new Five Guys that opened up nearby.

That’s right, a Five Guys is finally within easy reach, with another one scheduled to open up even closer. It’s about time – In-n-Out is certainly better than most, but it just can’t beat Five Guys (sorry West Coasters). We had been craving Five Guys cheeseburgers and fries with malt vinegar for so long, especially since we didn’t get to eat there the last time we were in Maryland.

On Sunday we had a big Easter dinner with a bunch of our friends who also weren’t otherwise occupied for the holiday, complete with an Easter egg hunt and Starburst jelly beans. We certainly miss all of you back in Maryland – hope you had a good Easter too!

See the full gallery on Posterous

I had some other childhood allergies to things like milk that I soon grew out of, but peanuts (and the others to a lesser degree) have remained unrelenting in their ability to bring me to my (itching) knees. Growing up before peanut and other food allergies were common enough for manufacturers to start highlighting potentially offending ingredients, reading the word “peanut” is somewhat discomfiting after so many years spent meticulously searching every ingredient on a package for the lexemes synonymous with affliction. Thanks to the allergy I missed out on some of the staples of childhood – no PB and J or peanut butter and celery unless we got almond or cashew butter to stand in. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? Getting peanut butter in my chocolate was a capital offense, a policy that worked well until I met Rachel and grudgingly admitted that her favorite candy might be tasty to everyone else.

People regularly get confused when I explain my “naughty list” to them, immediately trying to divine a relationship between them. A lot of them inevitably hear “peanuts” and settle on “nuts,” fretting over the contents of food containing walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, and the like, all of which are perfectly acceptable. Unlike pea”nuts,” those are all real nuts, not imposter pods pretending to be nuts. Legumes is another popular inference, and while the category does seem to contain all of the things I am allergic to, I grew up eating and drinking all and sundry soy products and eating carob in place of chocolate. Interestingly, I’m also not allergic to peanut oil, at least the kind used to make French Fries at places like Five Guys, nor does the smell of peanuts affect me (aside from setting off raucous mental alarms). Deftly avoiding these pitfalls, my roommate Alex once concluded that I must be allergic to things containing “pea,” helpfully alerting me to the potential reaction danger contained within peasants and speakers.

Despite having lived with this all my life, I’m always convincing myself that I’ll be okay, that if I do happen to ingest food derived from or contaminated by the vile pellets, I can just take some Benadryl and the problem will immediately vanish. I conveniently forget the stomachache and general malaise that I’ll get, at best, provided I only got a little bit and take a strong hit of antihistamine within minutes. This may be one reason I seem to have had more allergy episodes than usual since moving here.

Another possibility is that I now have a Thai friend and classmate, J, who has introduced me to the piquant wonders of Thai food. However, some dishes are made with peanuts or peanut derivatives, meaning I have to ask for things without. Part of me always feels awful about having to ask people to cook things differently on my account – it brings back childhood memories of inquiring as to the peanut content of every cookie or piece of candy I was offered. On several occasions after eating homemade Thai food supposedly sans allergie I’ve been ambushed by some mystery contaminent or allergen, my rapidly swelling tongue a harbinger of the lousy night to come. It’s perfectly humiliating to have to say “Yeah, the food your mother made specifically without things I’m allergic to is trying to kill me anyway, can you leave the house while I attempt to control my hysterical immune system?”

This past week they were handing out homemade cookies after chapel , and whether it was because I was hungry for lunch or led astray by the chocolate chips, I didn’t thoroughly inspect the would-be treat. My friend Heather bravely attempted to save me, looking over and asking, “Are you sure there aren’t peanuts in that?” “Yeah, definitely,” I replied as I took a bite, apparently oblivious to the massive whole peanut embedded in the opposite side – a gloating matriarch of a cookie-spanning brood of others.

As I swallowed my first mouthful of cookie, I began noticing the telltale signs of impending disaster. Thankfully, Rachel was home that morning. The phone call went something like, “Hi, can you come pick me up and bring Benadryl?” For some foolish reason I didn’t have any in my backpack. Although I do carry an EpiPen in there in case something especially serious happens, deploying it feels like overkill when over the counter Benadryl will suffice – and as a result, I have yet to use one. Rachel swooped in with the car bearing saving pink pills, I still clutching the cookie-containing baggie. She, of course, noticed the peanuts right away. “You are an idiot,” she said lovingly, pointing an accusing finger at the goober-infested little biscuits. I kept silent, knowing she was correct.

Chicken pot pie has a lot going for it. When you’ve got creamy chicken and vegetables inside a warm flaky crust, what’s not to like? Peas, as it turns out. They’re all but universally included in pot pie. Couple that with peas’ number two spot on my allergy ranking and pot pie winds up on the unsafe list. Over the weekend, Rachel got our date night off to a tasty start by making pot pie sans peas. She even cut the steam vents with the letters M and R.

We’ve both been wanting to see Black Swan since we heard Natalie Portman was starring in a “psychological thriller,” even before there was any of the buzz about Mila Kunis. We made our way to the Krikorian, one of the only movie theaters in the area (and one of the silly ones that insists on using MovieTickets.com instead of Fandango for online sales), spent six bucks on popcorn, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

My experience with Tchaikovsky and Swan Lake goes all the way back to my family’s extensive collection of cassette tapes, listened and relistened to on the long car rides we had to pretty much everywhere. Between the dramatization of the ballet and the historical fiction adventure of a couple of kids meeting Tchaikovsky while he was writing The Nutcracker, I learned to appreciate the Russian composer (Note: This is what Mark and I did instead of playing GameBoy). Tchaikovsky had a big impact on our culture, not just music. In addition to helping expose the Western world to Russian music, the guy helped write The Nutcracker into the Christmas season.

Without spoiling too much of the movie, which I recommend seeing, I enjoyed the way the musical themes from the ballet score were woven into the soundtrack. There was also some great layered storytelling going on as Nina’s life refelected the nested story she was learning to tell, played out the story she was learning how to play. Natalie Portman acted wonderfully – I hope she gets the academy award for it.

As it turns out, as of this weekend Rachel and I have been married for two years and seven months. How about that, eh?

After the big meal we ended up just sitting around together with blankets and books. I managed to finish a book for the first time since school started. One cannot live on scientific papers alone, right? While I missed being around everybody, nothing beats relaxing with my sweetheart.

Unfortunately I can only hold school at bay for so long: I found out that the presentation I had finished decently well ahead of time needs to be significantly reworked before I give it on Monday. From the email the professor sent out, it sounds like a bunch of my fellow students are going to have to redo theirs as well, so at least I’m not the only one with homework over the holiday weekend.

The good news is that I’m on the home stretch of my first quarter at LLU. Celebration is a bit premature at this point, but a checkpoint is in sight. And then there’s Christmas break.

It’s been a lot of running around, but we’ve managed to visit a lot of our friends and family, including a few we didn’t get to see at all before we moved. Once again, though, I must apologize to all the folks for whom meetups just didn’t work out. Next time, maybe?

Unlike the road trip, I didn’t bring my camera this time, so no pictures. It’s certainly an argument for the point-and-shoot camera – having a DSLR is nice, but it’s hard to justify packing it when you can only fit so many things onto a plane (if you’re cheap like us and want to avoid additional fees). A wallet-sized camera, while it may not have the same level of quality, makes up for it with its ability to be pocketed and taken nearly anywhere.

We get back to CA on Sunday night and Monday morning I start classes. I’ve been getting all kinds of emails from various LLU lists this week – the list of things needing t be done “when we get back” continues to grow. I’m both excited and nervous about starting school again. Having stuff to do every day forces me to use my free time more efficiently, but I’m not expecting to have free time in much abundance.

We’ll see how it goes (and congratulations to Kim and Jeff today!). Oh, and somebody’s shoes got featured as photo of the week.

Things are starting up pick up with graduate school, which means my days of idyllic lassitude are rapidly coming to a close. Punctuating this reality is the fact that we return from MD the day before classes begin. In other news, I’m practically famous: My awesomely-laced shoes got featured on the go-to site for lacing techniques. Yesssss! And thanks, Ian.

Okay, enough aggrandizement. In between the fantastic road trip and our nascent home was some serious stress, the foremost of these being that the apartment we drove thousands of miles to arrive at turned out to be sorely lacking. Contrary to what was advertised by United Property Management, the place had no dishwasher or balcony, was dirty, and had a broken garbage disposal and stove burner among other things.

It might not seem like much, but after traveling a long way with a mental image of your destination, finding out it was all a lie is crushing. As it turns out, the fourplexes on either side of ours were in better shape and included dishwashers to boot; our first 36 hours in Loma Linda were spent cancelling the lease we’d signed and getting our money returned, and finalizing everything we’d previously spent weeks doing for the new place. Note: this means we have a new new address, so if you need it and don’t already have it let us know.

Rachel’s dad and a coworker helped us carry the remaining furniture inside, and Friday he and I put most of it together. Today we’ve just been unpacking box after box, filling the car with cardboard carcasses bound for the recycling center. If only there was a cash refund for recycling boxes.

The biggest news of all came on Wednesday: I was accepted to Loma Linda University’s MD/PhD program!

! ! !

Because LLU starts the program with graduate school instead of med school, instead of starting Monday, my classes don’t actually begin until September.

! ! !

A side benefit of this is that I could help unload stuff on Thursday and Friday instead of spending it at med school orientation, so in the end it didn’t matter that our stuff arrived on Thursday instead of Monday like it was supposed to. I’m actually looking forward to having the time to help Rachel set up and organize the house.

We finally got internet here this morning, a mini-drama in itself. Time Warner Cable began our relationship by scheduling an appointment for Friday from 4-6 PM, then sending an automated call “confirming” my appointment for 9-12 AM today instead. Of course the only other available appointment was Wednesday, so unless we wanted to keep waiting that was it.

Thus. It might not mean much to you, but I managed to squeak in a post this week. That makes me better than the modern US Post Office, which, despite its lofty slogan, drops everything at the first sign of trouble.

That being said, Rachel and her dad managed to save us a bunch of money by fitting all of our belongings into ten feet of truck space instead of the sixteen we rented. This feat was doubly impressive because of how incredibly hot it was outside, and how much the unventilated trailer amplified that. Example: Rachel burned herself more than once simply touching the metal sides. On days like this, 7-11s with inactive or unready slurpee machines should be summarily stripped of their franchise.

It’s nice to finally be done sorting through my belongings and separating the dermal layer from my fingertips with pieces of packing tape. That stuff is dangerous: at one point, Rachel tried to hold a piece in her teeth and wound up taking off the inside of her lip.

Finally, while we were looking for tissues to wad in Rachel’s lip to staunch the bleeding, Comcast characteristically added its own kicks. While they have no problem charging you immediately when you open an account and taking their sweet time to actually set you up, apparently when you cancel your service “Saturday” means “Friday afternoon.” We had to wardrive our last few days in the apartment and I didn’t get the chance to add my planned suite of additional podcasts to my iPod.

I’m going to be using Posterous to hold my bigger-than-a-tweet, not-quite-a-blog picture posts from the trip. My plan was to have a section of mistypedURL to integrate that stuff but like many things, it just didn’t quite get finished before we left the house.

I’m earnestly attempting to reduce the amount of stuff I’m keeping around, a goal made more difficult by my desire to keep things “just in case.” We’ve been taking things to Goodwill and the dumpster literally by the carload, and it still looks and appears as if nothing has been accomplished. At some point all of my electronic equipment will come down and I’ll fall off the grid, only to reemerge in southern California.

We’ve tried to see as many people as we could but of course there are a lot of folks for which it just didn’t work out. Leaving so many awesome friends behind makes the internet even more valuable to me than it already is. Communication for the win, right?

I’m going to miss Maryland.