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!