Hard to believe that, as I write this blog on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, after running a few errands and catching up on work, New England is still digging out from a snowpocalype.
Harriet and I actually ventured north to Baltimore and Philly yesterday, as we drove up to have dinner with our son Ken and his wife Sarah to celebrate his birthday. While Sarah is preoccupied with her studies as she heads into the homestretch of her first year of medical school (while being seven months pregnant!) Ken is working hard in two veterinary practices, while furiously renovating his new house so there is a kitchen and upstairs bathroom completed before the baby arrives. While we were out to dinner with the whole family including my dad at a lovely Italian restaurant called La Collina, I was recalling that the first time I went to that same restaurant I was a Grand Rounds speaker at Lankenau Cancer Institute and guest of the Institute’s director, George Pendergast (who is now editor of Cancer Research.) As I was telling the story I glanced to my left and to my utter amazement, there was George, having dinner with his wife. It was very nice to see him and chat. Small world!
The preceding week was very interesting. On Monday, I hosted a donor who had bid successfully for a lunch and tour of my lab at the Lombardi Gala in November. We had lunch in the French Embassy’s dining room, and the food beat my usual turkey and provolone sandwich from Subway by more than a few logs. Later that afternoon I participated in the thesis committee meeting for one of my students, Rishi Surana; he’ll be giving Data Meeting this Thursday, and I predict it will be very interesting. That evening Spiros Dimiltsas and I hosted some folks from Stevens Institute of Technology at dinner at Café Milano.
I was supposed to go on a Cancer Center site visit on Tuesday, but was informed that since I was recently appointed to the NCI Board of Scientific Counselors I needed to get a special waiver in order to do the grant review, and of course that process would take a month – so there was no time for me to be approved prior to the site visit. Accordingly, I had a few days to catch up on work (mostly related to the CCSG, of course) and develop and recover from a miserable cold. At the same time Harriet and I were watching Isaac for a few days, and we drove up to Baltimore on Wednesday to drop him off at home when his mom and dad returned from a brief trip. We did use his visit as an opportunity to take him to the Air and Space Museum – he in an aficionado of the Solar System and flight in general – and so, he was enthralled by most of what he saw (though the Planetarium show freaked him out a bit). But he knows a lot more about planets that I do! Admittedly, that is not a high bar…
I had a make-up clinic on Friday morning, since I expected to be out on Thursday. I hurried from clinic to attend the presentation of a medical oncology candidate, and had a series of meetings to conclude the week. I have a bunch of work to do tonight, and need to get my rest, because the coming week promises to be one the busiest I’ve had for quite some time. I hope your week is productive, but less hectic!