Claire still loves her work pediatric anesthesiologist at Children's Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, CA. She works really hard when she is on duty and enjoys her vacations the rest of the time. Most of the time when we talk to her, she reports that she has just gotten off duty at 7:00 a.m. or something like that.
She has a new boyfriend, Ron Ricci, whom she met playing softball. Yes, you heard that right. She is on a softball team in a league with the novel requirement that each team field two (or more) women for each game. Claire says that she usually plays catcher, “where I can do the least damage.” They went on a trip to Hawaii before Christmas, where the photo at left was taken. Linda complained that Claire spent more time with Ron than with us. Surprise! Surprise!
Claire and some friends rented a condo in Tahoe for the season. She seems to be there whenever she's not working, snowboarding in deep powder.
Claire determined that her new acquired condo in San Francisco needed a couple of improvements. In particular, it needed a small balcony where Princess Moonbeam could sun herself on good days while Claire sipped champagne with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, instead of sharing a chair inside. We could have warned her that such projects always take longer and cost more. (According to google, this is known as Pournelle's Law of Costs and Schedules.) In this case, the major complication involved the door to the balcony. Turns out the door was too big to be brought up the stairs to the balcony. No problem: just take it up the outside. Oops! Seems to be a problem getting it to the back of the building. Legend has it that the contractor took it over the top and lowered it down the back side, but we have been unable to verify this independently.
In addition, she had a washer-dryer installed in her kitchen, obviating the need to a perilous trip down four flights of stairs to the basement.