A Stroll Down W 81st
“We are all measuring our personal potential against our current situation.” The words of Paul David Tripp echoed in my head as I walked Chevy down W 82nd.

If you know anything about me, you know I’m an early riser. I love to get up at an ungodly hour so that I have time to exercise, read, meditate, or study before I go to work. We no longer have a backyard, so I have to take both dogs for nice morning walks.

Chevy may be the world’s most anxious dog. He is the dog equivalent of the Dave Chappelle character Tyrone. Really twitchy and almost stressed that the world even exists. He’s on Prozac. We had to put a dog on Prozac. Our walks through the Upper West Side have given me the inkling of a theory as to the source of his incessant worry. Every time we pass a small dog, Chevy does his best to devour it. Ferocious growling, barking, and lunging. I’m thinking something happened when he was a puppy. My best guess is that he was terrorized by a gang of Yorkshire terriers when he was just a pup.
It’s not all bad news for Chevy here. In fact, between him and Digby, he gets all the attention from passersby. (Much to Digby’s chagrin) I guess bulldogs are just too common in The Big Apple. Bet they’ve never seen a bulldog in a lion costume with a shark fin. **humph**

Being able to walk, ride the subway, or ride the bus to work is a game-changer for my morning routine. So far, I’ve been riding the bus to work. I take one of two buses depending on how far i want to walk. The ridership on buses at least when I use them are not very high. Certainly not as crowded as the A,B, and C trains I could take.
It seems that people commuting on public transit and on foot in Manhattan do their best to not pay attention to their surroundings. It’d be horrible if they actually made eye-contact with a random stranger and **GASPS** exchanged pleasantries. I think most of the time people are just trying to avoid pan-handlers, shoe-shiners, and Mormons.
So far, my travel nursing assignment has consisted of a few days spent in orientation and doing compliance training in a computer lab. There are a few interesting people in my travel nurse orientation group. One of them, a woman from upstate NY, recounted a story from last week when she encountered a cockroach at 79th street station “that had its own address.” The nearby “workmen” were having such a laugh that it took them “nearly three good stomps” to dispatch of the beast. I later convinced this same woman (and a few others) that scientists had discovered that the rats in New York City had recently evolved to subsist partially on electricity from the subway’s third rail.
Sage came to meet me when I got out of work. She brought me some boots, because its snowing. She’s good like that. She also looks pretty cute trudging through the snow in her cold weather get-up.

2 Comments
Dustin
Love the blog. Thanks for letting us follow along on your new journey!
Misty Long
I love it!!! I look forward to reading more of your intriguing journey to travel nursing!!!