Un-Pop Music

This post is taking a particularly long time to write because the American Music Awards are on and so distracting. The performances are so bad that, much like a train wreck, I cannot stop watching. I can’t decide who looks, dances, and/or sounds the worst. Maybe I’m just outgrowing popular music. It’s possible.

As of Friday I’m officially done with all clinical affiliations. ‘Bout time. This past assignment at Lutheran Medical Center was such a great experience. As promised there was medicine, neuro rehab, and just a lot of aspects of therapy that I hadn’t seen before. Leaving the hospital and my wonderful patients was bitter-sweet. I could see myself working there and made sure to leave a good impression. The PT staff continued to remind me to leave my resume with the director when I left, which I did, and I took that as a good sign. If it’s meant to be it will work out.
At this point I’m just a board exam prep test and a temporary license away from finding a job in the new year. I can take my permanent license exam in April (it’s only offered a few times a year, unfortunately).

Those who know me know that I love to have my holidays off. And by that I don’t just mean Thanksgiving Day or just Christmas Eve and Day… I mean the weeks surrounding them. I don’t know what I’ll do when I have a real job (that I like enough not to quit) that only allows Locationa few weeks of vacation time in a whole year. Eek. Luckily it worked out for us again this year. Jens amazing employer has never given her trouble about time off and I’m quitting good ‘ole Bourbon St. before we leave for Christmas. The restaurant has been good to me in many ways and I’ve technically been there longer than any other job… almost three years! But it’s time to say goodbye.


I’m sure you’re still getting earfuls about the ongoing hurricane recovery in NYC area. Other than Staten Island and the low lying beach areas, things are almost back to normal. We donated some clothes that we don’t wear any more to Staten Island families that lost everything which felt good… we really needed the closet space (kidding). Businesses in our neighborhood that were severely damaged, like LIC Bar and City Vet/LIC Doghouse on our corner have just reopened in the past few days. Although we don't visit the bar that often, it really brings life to our block. While it was closed we realized how eerie and quiet it would be at night without them.

Our apartment still doesn’t have heat which hasn’t really been a big deal. Electricity and hot running water are the big ones. Our landlord is supposedly having trouble finding a boiler that will work in our building. Anyway, we should have heat by the time we return from Thanksgiving in FL

Bird Baths

Things are somewhat back to normal following the damage brought on by the hurricane. Somewhat. Tunnels and bridges, like LIC's Midtown Tunnel, are opening and trains, like our local G are beginning to run again. I guess the newest development is the gas shortage in the area. Thank God, this is one thing Jen and I don't have to worry about. People with cars are freaking out: going hunting for gas on their lunch breaks, storing extra tanks full of gas in their cars (can you say car-bomb!?), and siphoning of course. 

Good news, we are living in our own apartment again. We have electricity but no heat or hot water because of all that was water damaged in the basement. We have two small electric heaters (don't worry, we are careful and never leave them on when we're away) to keep us fairly warm. In order to bathe without freezing to death we heat water on the stove in a big pot. We try to think of it as really luxurious camping, instead of a really sad normal shower. My coworker told me that in Gayana, this style of bathing is called a "bird bath." It's been interesting but it could always be worse.

Jen went back to work Thursday for the first time in almost two weeks. She then worked today and now has a three day weekend... funny. She's happy to be back to work and they're happy to have her back too.

Next week is my last week of my final clinical assignment. I'll then get my temp license (that I'll use until I take my board exam in April) and look for the right job after the holidays. Every student at Lutheran Medical must do a PT related presentation, termed an in-service. I picked a few topics that I was interested in and my clinical instructor, PT director, and I narrowed it down to one: Diabetic Neuropathy. I present on Thursday so wish me luck. 

Luckily, I was able to reschedule the surgery observation I was supposed to attend the morning that Sandy attacked. The downside is that I'm working at the restaurant Sunday night until God knows when because I really didn't have enough time to request it off. It's all good. After these last few weeks, what can't we handle?

The View

This is the view from our temporary home in LIC. Not too shabby. Warm, fed, and showered this morning. Feeling better. Jen and I may try the ferry to Wall St to see how easy it will be to take it to work. Wish us luck!

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I'm a Survivor

It's hard to describe what we've been through the last four days. We're trying to focus on the positive. We, luckily, have a second floor apartment that’s higher than the surge level so it's clean and dry. We have no power and a basement that was flooded so the heating, hot water, and electricital components are destroyed. It's gonna be a while.

 We are so blessed to have such wonderful neighbors and friends. The two couples upstairs and us have been sticking together and doing as much as we can for each other. We were invited over for a hot meal at a friend of a friend’s house last night which was great. We also have friends who are traveling until November 12th and donated their high-rise apartment to our neighbors and us while they're gone. So, we now have a place to shower, cook, and thaw out from time to time.

Jen and I are trying to figure out when it's appropriate to even try to get to work. Jen's downtown work neighborhood is a big, wet, mess and the part of Brooklyn I work in would take me almost three hours to get to by bus (because there are no trains running there) and that's not including insane traffic and delays. I plan on going to work at the restaurant on Saturday night. I think the N train is running there... worst case scenario I ride my bike over the 59th street bridge. That would actually be the quickest method of getting places no matter where you're going at this point.

 Below are some videos I found on Youtube of our neighborhood under water. In the first video the white building down the street on the left (before the large green building) is ours. In the second video is footage of the flooding around the high-rises closer to the water. The water got much higher than what’s shown. The building you can see across the street is actually the one we’re living out of right now.