Monkey Business

Two weeks have somehow just blown by with little time to sit down and write. So I have a few things to catch you up on…

Since 75% of my life is spent at work these days, I guess I'll share a nice story about one of my recently released patients who was being treated for bumps and bruises secondary to a fall down a flight of stairs. She was a very independent and spunky old lady and was hilarious with a lot of good stories. One of the most memorable was that she was once a telephone operator at the hospital where Marilyn Monroe had a miscarriage. Whether or not it was his baby, Joe Dimaggio was always at her side.  My patient was given strict instruction not to allow any calls through, which only became a challenge when she had to turn down people like Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra (and a variety of Marilyn's other celebrity male "friends").  Anyway, she was really grateful when she left but I didn't think much of it.  That was until the Director of Rehab (my boss) got a call one day from my patient's daughter (who turned out to be a bigwig at the hospital) telling him what great service I provided and how her mother couldn't stop talking about me.  She came over one day to thank me in person and bought lunch for the whole department.  My boss mentioned how good it made the whole department look and the daughter said it was nice to hear something positive for a change.   She said, "Not only were you a good PT but you provided great customer service." So that made me feel good...and the food wasn't bad either.

Last weekend there were almost ten stoop sales (a garage sale minus the garage, further explained in the video below) advertised by residents on the blog Park Slope Stoop. As promised, I planned on taking some fall pics of the ‘hood last weekend and a stoop sale walking tour sounded like a good excuse to get out and do that. But once out it was clear that the leaves still hadn’t changed colors. Apparently it’s going to be another week… or two because this weekend the trees still have a lot of green on them. I think next weekend will be the peak and the perfect time for picture taking.

I still got to use my camera (and tripod!) this weekend to take pics of Jen’s and my Halloween costumes. If the pic doesn’t give it away, I’m a ship captain and she’s my first mate. And our little deck-swabber Pup is taking a break in the chair next to us. We got all dressed up last night for a costume/ birthday party of a friend of ours is Sunnyside, Queens. I do miss certain things, places, and people is Queens and we would visit more often if the commute wasn’t so tiresome or if we had a car. We planned on having dinner in one of our old neighborhood favorites or in a new restaurant we never got around to trying. Instead, because the trains were running so screwy, we were quite late and resorted to dinner at a quaint little joint called Wendy’s. You may have heard of it. But hey, it was relatively quick and I finally got to try one of those pretzel buns that seem to be everywhere right now. It wasn’t bad.

Anyway, we had a good time at the Halloween/b-day bash. It was nice to see friends from our old ‘hood and church again. My favorite costume was thought up by our very funny friend Jacob. He had on a full-body monkey costume underneath a suit. He passed out business cards like he was at a networking event that read “Monkey,” followed by his phone number. He was “Monkey Business.” Get it? LOL. The idea, and his impressively realistic monkey calls randomly throughout the night, were hilarious.

That's all for now...Happy Halloween!

Gowanus Canal Park-ing lot

When Jen says she’s going grocery shopping I always feel too guilty to let her go alone, without help. The store is just a few blocks away but she usually shops for almost two weeks worth of food which is a lot, even with a cart to carry everything home. I just picture the worst; Jen struggling to get the 2-ton cart over sidewalk curbs, blowing out a flip-flop, or that wobbly wheel finally falling off. I did find this cart on the side of the road so it didn't exactly come with a warrantee.

Today I thought of a wonderful compromise to my predicament: take Pup to the small Gowanus Canal park next to the grocery store while Jen does her shopping then meet up with her when she’s done to help her carry everything home.  After walking Jen to the store, Pup and I headed to the park benches by the water where I could read for a bit while she did some sniffing, hole-digging, and pigeon chasing. I doubt Jen was having as much fun. Being well-known for its pollution, I first made sure there were no holes in the fence that Pup could fit through and accidentally fall in the water. She did in fact get too excited at a park once and chased a duck right into a lake.

This small waterfront park is a hidden gem, only visible from the bridge that crosses the canal and accessible only from the Lowe’s parking lot. It sounds really random I know, but was a nice place to let Pup roam and enjoy the cool, clear fall weather. Other visitors to the little park included an artist sketching the bridge, a photographer taking pictures of the canal, and a mother with her two daughters that seemed to need a breath of fresh air after a big shopping trip.

Although it is mid-October already, the weather has been relatively warm. Keeping in mind it has snowed the last two years in October, it was nice to be able to ride our bikes around Prospect Park this evening without being bundled up (Jen in jeans and a t-shirt).  We didn't let the swarms of gnats ruin our good time, even after they went in our mouths and our clothes were splattered with their tiny carcasses. The warmer weather also means that the park still looks very green, not yet full of trees shedding their fall-colored leaves.  I hear Prospect Park and Park Slope are particularly beautiful in the fall and plan on taking some pictures. Stay posted! 

Love Never Fails... and neither do Jen's baked goods

Friday night we went to dinner with a friend of Jen’s and her husband. This friend, although originally from Clearwater where Jen knows her from, has lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn for about ten years. Years ago, when I first moved here, she invited me out to dinner to make sure I was adjusting to NYC alright. So we’ve been trying to arrange an outing so we could all catch up but it’s obviously taken us a few months to make it happen.

At dinner at Mariella, an Italian restaurant on 6^th Ave at 13^th St. that I’ve been wanting to try, we sat outside where we could enjoy one of the last few mild nights of the year. While talking, we realized that Jen’s friend teaches at the middle school where our church meets each Sunday. Small world! It seems like a good school, and she agreed that it was. The auditorium where we actually worship is decked in Broadway-themed art made by the students and serves as a testament to the school’s great theater and dance programs.

 We really like our new church. It’s nice to have a good one in our neighborhood, as everyone should. (Too bad Jen’s friend is actively Jewish and her husband possibly agnostic or we could bring them along.) A few weeks ago, a letter artist who goes to the church bought the rights to an advertising billboard at the bus stop outside our church. He drew this beautiful sign (pic) that says “Love Never Fails” and that someone will be at the bus stop every day at 8am to pray with whoever needs it. It’s a pretty creative way to reach out to the neighborhood.

Sunday right after and right outside of church at the market we picked up some dahlias, Jen’s newest favorite flower. Then Jen baked some mean cupcakes for her friend’s birthday that were coffee flavored with a butter-whipped, Baileys ganache. Lucky for me she made too much frosting.  I brought some to work today (all the ugly ones) and they were a big hit.

Squirrel Feeder

My mother loves all things flora and fauna. She’s also a very thoughtful lady. When she visited a few weeks ago she saw firsthand our lack of her favorite things. If you mention liking anything plant or bird- related (even if you also explain that you have no place for it in your NYC-sized apartment sans outdoor space), you can expect a box of whatever you admired to show up at your door. A big box.

After all the trouble she goes through, enthusiastically packing up little plants, soil, moss, or perhaps even a bird feeder with a bag of seed, we hate to let her effort be for nothing. So last week we cluelessly “planted” and arranged plants on the radiator under our kitchen window where they can get lots of light (then dry up and die when the heat gets turned on) and installed the bird feeder on the fire escape outside the window where we could admire the birds (or not, as it turned out).

Sunday afternoon, while running some errands after church, I received a voicemail from our landlord. She said that some of the bird seed had fallen onto their deck below and that we’d have to take it down. Although we’re technically not supposed to have anything on the fire escape, she seemed pretty calm so I didn’t think it was a big deal.

When we finally got home and I looked outside at the bird feeder, I thought that our landlord must have already come upstairs and emptied it because there was barely any seed left. Nope. It turns out, what we’re assuming was a squirrel, jumped onto our feeder, sending about four cups of bird seed onto their deck. This may not seem like big deal either, but any seed left on the ground will attract mice and we don’t want those.

On the phone she definitely under-stressed just how much of a mess was made. By the time we got home they had swept and washed away most of it. I know it was a pain in the a$$. We still offered to come down and clean up their deck then made sure to get every last little seed off the fire escape. They said not to worry and that, “our hearts were in the right place.” I would say I would give feeding the birds another go with something squirrel proof but let’s be real, squirrel proofing is a misnomer. When on a mission, there is no stopping a squirrel. That squirrel was a brazen and cunning thief, singularly focused on gorging itself on our bird seed.

Monday morning while walking Pup I noticed a squirrel in the tree outside our apartment. It looked pretty guilty so I gave it the stink eye and pointed it out to Pup so she could bark and chase it away. Sure, squirrels can be a lot of fun to watch but I’m starting to see them through Pup’s eyes, as evil tree rats. 

Maybe I'll get my revenge with one of these... so funny!