So...I"m on crutches....

So, I've been hobbling around on crutches since Saturday. I have a follow up appointment with an orthopedic doc on Friday. But I've already begun testing out my left foot and ankle. It's already getting old, and little Chalupa has little patience with me hopping on my crutches behind her while I take her out for very short little walks in the mornings and afternoons. I'm a little skeptical of the doctor's appt on Friday too. I've had more than a few sprained ankles in my day....I ran (more like jogged) track in high school and we used to run the trails and they would always be semi covered with leaves which always covered up small holes and inevitably I'd get my foot stuck in one and bam! a sprained ankle. They were fairly common in highschool and my coach would wrap it up, and I'd hobble around on it. No crutches though, I just made do. Then in college I had a horrible fall and almost fractured my ankle and it was the worst I had ever seen it, then they gave me crutches and I was on them for most of the summer. But even back then I don't remember a second doctor visit. So, any "follow-up" treatment is foreign to me, but whatever I'll go and pay my co-pay and see if it's worth it. The swelling has gone down quite a bit, and seems to be approaching normal ankle size. So, let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for good news on Friday. I'm already stir crazy and I've been out for dinner these last two nights...and I made a trip to the bank and to vote yesterday! The worst part is carrying food from the kitchen to the living room to eat, I usually just tuck my right crutch under my arm and swing it forward, while I carefully carry a plate in my right hand, but it makes my armpits pretty sore. I'm pretty hungry right now...so I guess I'll have to order something in...ummm.. decisions decisions.

Facebook Song, it's awesome!

Find chalupa in this pic

UN week

Our neighbood always gets crazy once a year at UN week. Traffic is either detoured or gridlocked, people are every where and police are on every corner. Here's my only pic of the events. I was walking past the grocery store and this protest sign was just too good to pass.

Killing time

Right now I'm sitting in the emergency room waiting for them to call me in. I'm almost positive it's just a sprained ankle. But it's starting to throb. Late last night I was at my computer playing around on FB and Chalupa was happily sleeping on my lap. When I decided to stand up to walk into the living room I had discovered my foot had fallen asleep. This happens a lot when chalupa sleeps on me because she likes it when I prop one leg on the other knee so she has a nice place to curl up and sleep. Instead of waiting for my foot to fully wake I decided I could walk on it even if it hurt. Well because I was holding Chalupa I couldn't see my foot and instead of placing my foot down I ended up putting all my weight on myouter left ankle. It's swollen on that side and I can't help but think about being stuck on crutches for a good long time. Boo. :(

View of the Chrysler Building

John's still at work so I'm walking chalups for her nighttime walk. This is the view from 2nd Ave and 50th street.

Donors Choose

For those of you who know my brother-in-law Geoff, you may have heard the occasional crazy story from his experience teaching at an inner city Baltimore School. Well, he's fighting the good fight, and he needs a little help. If you can donate even just a few bucks to help get books for his classroom it would be HUGELY appreciated, the project only needs $45 more. Click here to donate.

If you like check out his blog which is far superior than mine, right here. He details his day to day classroom experience, as well as reviews of books and movies.

Muchas Gracias!

Pandora Radio

If you haven't yet tried Pandora radio, you should. Here's a link to the customized radio station I'm listening to right now. I've named it The White Stripes Radio.

Here's a quick run down: type in a song or an artist that you like, and Pandora radio will play something from that artist (they can't play specific songs on demand) but they usually give you something from that artist if they are part of their catalog. THEN the Pandora magic is that it picks other songs it thinks you might like, from there you can thumbs up or down and it will be even more specific to you tastes. It's fun, and if you're like me it's a nice alternative then just the music you own on iTunes. Plus you can try to screw with the computer brain and put in two completely different ends of the spectrum and see what you get. (Like for instance Beyonce and They Might Be Giants) Highly recommended.

Update on Chalupa

Little Chalupa is sitting on my lap, mildy irritated that I took my hand away from her licking so I could type this. She had a slight rash yesterday and so I took her to the Vet again. The Vet we saw yesterday is their expert on skin, and she suspected that it might be a food allergy. Which made me realize that the Turducken dry food that I switched her onto several months ago may be the culprit. I've switched her back to the Cowboy Cook out dryfood, mixed with a forkful of her favorite wet food, Wing-a-lings. So, we are just going to wait and see. The Dr. said it was fine to give her a small dose of Benadryl if she needed it. But over all she's doing fine. Her ugly naked toe is finally growing back in, so she is once again the beautiful, glamorous icon we know and love. :) And I didn't even have to use Rogaine.

mental_floss Blog � Why Does Bottled Water Have an Expiration Date?

mental_floss Blog � Why Does Bottled Water Have an Expiration Date?

VanLeeuwen Artisan Ice Cream Truck

The other day John and I were walking to dinner and we spotted a pretty yellow ice cream truck and the flavors sounded so yummy, I'm ashamed to admit we had dessert before dinner. They call themselves the VanLeeuwen Artisan Ice Cream. The guy was very nice when we asked what flavors he recommended, and he actually recommended the vanilla among other flavors. Everything is organic and they use the finest ingredients, but after I sampled the vanilla (and it was very delicious) I opted to go for the hazelnut, ginger chocolate because it just sounded so good. As far as ice cream from a truck this is far and away the best I've ever had. If you see the truck, we found it at St. Marks and 2nd Ave, but I hear they are also in SoHo you MUST stop and have an ice cream. It's an order. You can thank me later.

Loreley Restaurant and Biergarden

Just catching up on my blogging, much like I did all my homework through highschool...(procrastinate...procrastinate...procrastinate, then cram, cram, cram). Anyway Loreley's located at 7 Rivington Street is our new favorite Bier Garden ever since Zum Schnieder stopped allowing dogs, we've been looking for a new bier garden. No, we can't bring Chalupa to Loreley's but we never could...it's precedence. Yummy pretzels, great food, great beer, and great service, and a nice backyard garden, which is way nicer than sitting on the street at Zum's. Enjoy!

Lokie

This is my sister's dog Lokie, he is a sweet and lovable and he is deaf. He has a few peculiarities because of his deafness, he is mesmerized by shadows and highlights on the ground. He loves to chase little bugs or tiny wisps of things that he catches sight of. He LOVES to play tug of war but his mouth is so huge he engulfs his toys leaving barely an end to grab on to and play, couple that with his powerful jaws and it's not that much to fun to play tug of war with the big lug. But he is nothing but love, he just likes to be with people. He does seem to terrorize the cats that share his residence, but they just mainly stay up stairs. While I was visited Viv and Jack, Viv and I took him on a nice long walk on the trails behind their house, we even dropped the leash so he could meander around himself, and he was very good, he always kept an eye on us to make sure he could catch up. The most endearing thing about Lokie is the way he very daintily tucks his hind legs under but flips his feet down so you can see his paw pads when he lays down, I've seen a lot of small dogs to this, but very rarely see large breeds lay like this. His pink paw pads are just irresistible. He also has very interesting coloring, since he was adopted they aren't sure what breed he is, but he has clear light brown eyes, and a pink nose, that with the summer blonde hair, and he also has webbed feet, he looks like he would enjoy the beach. When I got back home, Chalupa seemed even smaller than I remembered.

Walking the Brooklyn Bridge

Yesterday we did something I've been wanting to do for quite a while, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. I was very excited and happy to do this, but not nearly as much as Chalupa. She had no idea where we were going but she was jubilant about being able to go with us. She scampered to the elevator doing her cha-loop-de-loops which basically means she walks and then spins really quickly as if to say c'mon let's go! She happily trotted outside the door and even pounced on benches as we walked by...just because. She was a little confused when we hailed a taxi but she patiently sat on my lap...I think she knew good things were to come.

The Brooklyn Bridge is beautiful, it's grand and it's historic and everyone should walk across it if they get the chance. What no one tells you is that it's packed (we got there around 10:30 am), it's hot, and shade is few and far between. Nonetheless I really enjoyed it, it was pretty spectacular being able to stop on the bridge and look back at the city, and taking pictures of the architecture of the bridge itself. It is a good idea to bring a water bottle, as you are at full exposure to the sun for most of the walk. Little Chalupa started the trip happy enough, but somewhere just over half way there she got spooked. I think she realized that there were cars whizzing by underneath us, couple that with bikers rambling past us, and the blazing sun, so we stopped at the second tower to relax in the shade. We let her cool off and started walking again, but I ended up having to carry her the last little bit til we got to concrete again.

After that we found some shade under a tree in the grass and relaxed a bit while we tried to figure out the right direction to go to Grimaldi's pizza, which is raved about in anything you google about walking the Brooklyn Bridge. We finally meandered our way over and found a huge line, the place didn't even open til 12, and it was only 11:45 or so. We nixed that idea and went looking for a nice little place, that was quiet and had outdoor seating. We found exactly the place at Water Street Restaurant and Lounge, located at 66 Water Street. It had a handful of outdoor tables, which was perfect for us. We enjoyed a nice lunch, I ordered the jerk chicken tacos and fried polenta (both items from their appetizer menu) and John ordered the Fried Chicken Breast sandwich. The Chicken breast was yum served with homemade fries not very crispy but deliciously seasoned. AND they had very light and crispy homemade potato chips instead of bread. Double thumbs up. Afterward we had delectable chocolates and ice cream at Jacques Torres Chocolate. We both had the rum vanilla caramel ice cream in a waffle cone. Absolutely delicious. It was much more civilized then the mob scene over at Grimaldi's and the Ice Cream Factory. As for chocolates I asked for the liquid caramel, and it lived up to it's name and John got the peanut butter and declared that next time he will only buy the peanut butter chocolates, since they were so good.

We had to sneak Chalupa on board the Water Taxi ($7 bucks a pop non-refundable) , which we did (the guy who sold us the ticket suggested we do it). In a bag, she cooperated mostly but as soon as we got on the boat she started squirming about, but thankfully it's only a 2 min ride across to the South Street Seaport. All in all a fun day. And little Chalupa and I took a nice long nap as soon as we got home. I'd say a very good day. :)

Relaxing after walking across the Brooklyn Bridge