The High Line

This week I started my 6 week summer classes and my clinical affiliation. Having only one day under my belt, I can't tell how I feel about the place I was assigned to yet... I'll keep you posted.

One of the coolest things we've done in a while was check out The High Line. Originally constructed in the 1930s to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan's streets, it's now a park located on Manhattan's West Side and runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to West 34th Street, between 10th & 11th Avenues. We packed a picnic dinner for the park, walked it's entire length, and wandered through a fun inflatable and food truck filled one month installment called the lot (lots of pics!). The only negative about the park is that there are no dogs allowed, possibly because if the dog pees it may trickle onto heads below. Unlike the dog ban of our mean waterfront park in LIC, this park may at least has a reason.

Speaking of dogs, our friends, the Goods, are in Florida for a week and we're taking care of their dog Duncan while they're away. (pic) He's a real friendly little dog that Pup actually tolerates so we've been walking them together at night

Vaca Wrap-Up

Orlando wrap-up: We visited Outdoor World at the Festival Bay Mall to get Papa some sandals for father’s day. The mall, other than housing Ron Jon’s and Vans Skate Park, is eerily empty. While there we did get to see these Steve Madden shoes (pic) with their Long Island City (shout out!) flagship address printed in them and these unnecessary quotation marks used around the word “Gelati” (pic). lol. We took a few walks through the neighborhood with Pup and saw shooting on the lake for what I think was a Florida Hospital commercial. We just can’t get away from film production! The crew parked across from Nana and Papa’s in the front yard of what Michael agrees is the most exciting addition to the neighborhood in a while, a Russian model. I think she’s Russian, close enough. I can’t remember her name either, ha. Svetlana we’ll call her gave me a high class hooker vibe… just saying. Saturday Jen, Jackie, John, Alisa, Michael and I went to Universal’s Islands of Adventure. We had a good time, running from ride to ride, and as much as I hate to admit it, the new Harry Potter land was pretty cool. Sunday we said our goodbyes and headed back to NYC. Pup behaved on the plane, but somehow came home with a few fleas. I don’t think Rinny has them… weird.


One good thing about me being in school is that I have built in breaks between semesters that force me to take some time off and give my poor brain a rest. Jen went back to work Monday but I’m just chill’n because for some reason I thought I started back to school today or tomorrow. It turns out we don’t start class until Thursday and clinic work until Friday. I’m not scheduled for any shifts at work until Saturday night so I’m doing all the chores, running errands, and might pick up a shift until the grind begins again next week.

Today I made the test-run trip out to the Brooklyn PT clinic I’ll be working in a few times a week starting Friday. It took a little over an hour, door to door, because of ongoing G and F train construction which I’m not happy about. What can I do though? It’s too hot to bike all the way in professional clothes, busing would take longer, and a cab would cost too much. Luckily this outpatient assignment is only for 6 to 8 weeks.

Mile High Pup

I finished my practicals last week and then survived three straight hours of written finals Monday. Afterward, we wanted to unwind and celebrate all of our hard work plus Dickson, who's birthday is the 15th of June, and I were celebrating our birthdays. We decided on Blockheads, a Mexican restaurant and bar in my midtown work neighborhood that has cheap drink specials. The guys insisted I have a Bulldog with them; it's a Margarita with a shot of patron on top and then a Corona with lime tipped into the drink at the table. The corona drains into the glass as you drink it... it was pretty serious stuff. Our tech-geek classmate was on his smart phone when he realized the final grades were already being posted. At that moment everyone whipped out their phones and got online to view our grades. Everyone that was celebrating did pretty well, which makes sense I guess. I got two A's and a B. We sat outside in the perfect NYC Spring weather for a few hours and had many good laughs about the semester.

The following day, my birthday, I was awoken by Jen bringing me breakfast in bed from Communitea and then my birthday presents. I know, tough life. She gave me a new yoga mat, hemp strap, and an unlimited month certificate to The Yoga Room, a studio that's just a few blocks away. I spent the day preparing for our FL trip and then headed to the airport with Jen when she got home from work.

Pup did so well on the plane, so proud. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though, she had great trainers. She did yip a few times. Once, when a guy was walking very loudly down the aisle and again when people clapped after our smooth, safe landing. We were sharing the plane with Lake Nona High School theater students coming back from a NYC trip so it was a pretty noisy flight.

I'm writing from Orlando this evening. We celebrated Jen and my birthday last night with his and hers cakes (pic). The whole family including Jen's folks, in from Clearwater, were there.

Today we did some shopping and then spent the afternoon playing in our neighbor's salt water pool. So far we are really enjoying our vacation!

Finals Week

Saturday morning I shot up out of bed, full of worry about sitting in the NYU free clinic for hours and being late to work since my appointment was not until one in the afternoon. After doing some of my famed nagging during what was probably their first incoming call of the day they finally just told me to come in as early as I wanted and they would work me in. When I arrived the receptionist said, “Oh, Mr. Rexrode, we were told to look out for you,” ha. Within a few minutes I was given all my results (I’m immune to everything I needed to be, yay) and out of the door. The bad news is that one of the Dr.’s in the program noticed that they left some of my results out and I have to call them tomorrow and do some more nagging.
Afterward, I took a few minutes to enjoy the weather and walked through the awesome Union Sq. Saturday market (pic). They have all locally grown, mostly organic produce, meats, eggs, dairy, you name it.

Two practicals down so just one more to go followed my three finals in three hours on Monday, whoop! Today I took my second clinic practical which was for therapeutic procedures. My testing partner/pretend patient that I was paired with at random is the one person that no one wants to work with. He’s always coming in late, leaving early, full of lame excuses, and has already taken a leave of absence from the program once before joining our group. Since there was nothing I could do I decided to try making the best of it. Plus, I got great partners for my other two practicals so I couldn’t really complain. It was just my turn to do the time, ha. I requested that I go first during the testing, which he was ok with, so that if he pulled something crazy during his turn (which he did) it wouldn’t throw me off. I performed my modality of choice, lumbar traction, for my patient’s L4- L5 disc herniation pretty well in my opinion. During my partner’s turn, on the other hand, he chose Ultrasound to treat my metacarpal pain but had no idea how to operate the machine. After I painfully watched him fumble through trying to figure it out, probably for the first time because he never practiced, then fail at two more machines, he threw in the towel and I assume failed.

I’m so glad I went first! After all this drama I had to relax so this afternoon I took material for my final practical to the park to decompress. (Sun abotu to set behind the city in the pic)

I have already tested the non-involved side...

Today I had my first of 6 finals (three clinic practicals and three written exams) for the spring semester and it went well. I missed little points here and there mostly. For example, I completely forgot to say "I have already tested the non-involved side" before each test on my patient Jeff. Whatever. I was quite anxious and probably got an A so I just need to let it go.

This past Memorial Day weekend was a good one. Sunday Jen and I got to hang out in the 'hood, including getting some sun at the park. It was perfect beach weather this weekend, very hot. I guess we didn't realize just how intense the sun really was and got a little red... well Jen was pink and I was red. We had made plans to go to the beach somewhere Monday so it probably wasn't a great idea to pre-burn, ha.

After spending too much time trying to cater to too many people who, like us, wanted to take public transportation to avoid traffic (and people being flakey) we finally gave in and decided to drive to Long Beach with friends. It turned out to be the right choice as we went with great people and only hit a little traffic on the way back into the city. I piled on tons of sunscreen and kept myself covered most of the time so don't worry, my skin is going to be ok. We had alot of fun relaxing on the sand, having a few drinks, and playing a little beach volleyball. Good times!