Top: Thursday, Bottom2: Friday, September 28th, 2012

Central Park East - 7:15am and 7:35am

Good morning!  Sorry about missing you yesterday! I got distracted yesterday morning and just forgot to post.  They were setting up the stage at the Great Lawn yesterday for some big event.  It's apparently called the Global Citizen event?  I think this is the closest I'll get to being a front row ticket-holder :)  In the bottom photo to the left you can see a white tent.  Well that looked like the best part of all.  There are all of these lights hanging and a team of people setting up for some luxurious looking breakfast.  All I have to say is, I'd rather be a part of the breakfast than the concert.  Special breakfasts are the best.  

I just looked it up:  The Foo Fighters, Neil Young, & the Black Keys are all playing to try and end "extreme poverty."  (as opposed to non-extreme poverty - that's not so bad ;-p )

Have a great day! 

Top: yesterday morning
Bottom: Wednesday, September 26th, 2012, Central Park East - 6:45am

Good morning!  Sofie and Bear are so good at helping me pick out what to wear to work!  This is the default position after I take my shower and get ready.  These little dogs are just so companionable! 

This morning was the first really dark morning of fall.  I think a contributing factor was that it was quite cloudy this morning.  It really did feel like one of those winter mornings I grew to love - dark until the second half of my walk. 

I swear - it never ceases to amaze me how fast these weeks go by.  I feel like I woke up on Monday and went to bed and it was Wednesday.  It's because my days are filled with actual bench work - which makes the day go by ridiculously fast. 

In other news, I made a delicious vegetarian soup last night with vegetables from our CSA.  It had kale, vegetable broth, green lentils, canellini beans, crushed tomatoes, heirloom carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and a habañero, and Brian didn't even try it!!!  You know what he had instead?  A burger and sweet potato fries  >:-/  That is what I think of that. 

Oh and I also put curry on my oatmeal this morning instead of nutmeg. 

Woops. 

Have a great day!

Tuesday, September 25th, 2012
Central Park East - 7:00am

Creepy squirrel.  I'm a BIG fan of this weather we've been having lately. 

I'm a bit busy today so that's all for me. 

Have a great day!!

Monday, September 24th, 2012
Central Park East - 6:45am

Good morning!  I feel that some of my friends think that I like getting up early in the morning.  There is a lot about this that is true.  I like to see beautiful sunrises, like the one pictured above.  I like doing something that makes me feel special - to be up and around at a time of day that I consider to be a bit more poetic or sacred.  I like being one of the only ones out (believe me, in NYC, you value solitude a LOT).  I like knowing that I did something good for my dogs and for me.

But, this statement "like" needs a little clarification!

....

That minute that my alarm goes off is no easier for me than for anyone else.  It's like that every morning, too.  When that alarm goes off - my first thought is:  "For the love of God let my alarm be malfunctioning.  It can not POSSIBLY be time to get up.  It must be 3am.  My bed is so cozy and warm.  Oh shit it actually is correct.  What type of wizardry can I orchestrate such that I don't start off my day late and have to rush around, while still getting another 2 hours of sleep?  When is the next foreseeable moment of this day that I can go back to sleep?  I'll give myself 15 more minutes."

That's about how it goes.

But nobody....NOBODY in the HISTORY OF MANKIND has felt better or more rested after 15 minutes of sleep-in time.  

Here's an explanation of how I feel when I wake up in the morning, done eloquently by the comedian, Louis CK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEBy3sKTG-c
*Warning - this is most definitely offensive if you have sensitive sensibilities.  I, on the other hand, find it fu*king hilarious

So then I get up.  I go in to the bathroom with only about as much coordination as is necessary to brush my teeth.  I blink painfully into the light, and rub my eyes, and wander around trying to find something to put on - because I will never get it together to put my clothes together the night before.  I get the dogs leashes and harnesses on, which is annoying in the dark.  Then I carry Bear's increasingly heavy body out because I don't trust him not to pee in the hallway of the apartment building yet.  It's at this point that their energy has begun to wear off on me.  I whisper to them "Are you ready to go to the PARK?"  And they wiggle and wag and snort.

Then I walk out the door and I'm cured.  I'm no longer aching for my warm sheets.  I'm thankful that I won the battle another day so that I could be a part of the early morning crew.  So that I can pass the guys brewing coffee in the lunch trucks, see the sunrise, nod hello's at the runners, and feel cool dew soak through the mesh of my shoes on to my socks.

Have a wonderful day! 

Friday, September 21st, 2012
Central Park East - 6:45am

Good morning! 

One of the things about walking your dog in the city is that they often find things in Park bushes that you'd rather not think about.  While there have certainly been worse things - this morning my dogs were rustling about and emerged with about a 6 inch long, half-munched hoagie roll.  I immediately pictured some toothless crackhead mowing down on this thing in the bushes before he went to sleep and so I told Sofie to drop it. 

She put her head down and turned away from me - not quite bold enough to run away, but definitely defiant.

"No, this thing is good, I'll turn away and maybe you'll forget I have it." 

While she was distracted by me, Bear swooped in for the kill and stole the bread away from her.  They don't call him Bold Bear for nothing.  He was not sheepish.  He looked me in the eye and ran away with his water-logged prize.  I tried to chase him down, but he just ran away.  I even tried to fool him into thinking that I had a treat for him - which he bought for a second - then bolted. 

He seemed bound and determined to carry it along so I eventually tired of chasing him. 

"It's just a hoagie roll - it's actually food - as opposed to some of the other things they've found." 

Eventually we were about to pass a woman with 2 big, chunky yellow labs. 

"This might sort itself out," I thought to myself.

Bingo.  Fat yellow lab #1 charged over and yanked the hoagie roll out of my little prince's defiant mouth.  Lady exclaimed, "No!" Then sort of gave me a little glare as fat yellow lab #1 gave two big chomps and swallowed the roll.  Bear sniffed round his mouth anxiously.... "Could there be just a crumb left I could eat?"  Nope.  I apologized to the lady for indirectly feeding her dog a water-logged homeless man's dinner and then went on my merry way. 

Bear forgot about it in about 2 seconds and went on with his task of scavenging under the Park benches for niblets.  And the fat lab? ....well I feel fairly certain that a hunk of bread is not the worst thing he's found laying about in the Park. 

Ah, the life of a city dog. 

Have a great day & HAPPY FRIDAY!

Thursday, September 20th, 2012
Central Park East - 6:55am

Good morning!  Are you ready for Halloween?  This ^ demon doggie is.

In other news I'm excited to report that today (actually yesterday) is the 1 year anniversary of Little Dog, Big Park! I've posted 229 times since September 19th, 2011 and walked nearly 700 miles with my little chum(s), and that's just counting the morning walk!  Since then, Little Dog(s) has also had just under 4000 page views.  Last year at this time there was only 1 little dog - and she was only about 7 months old.  I had just moved to NYC and was embarking on my grad school career. 

I was in the elevator the other day with a friend who works on the same floor as me.  She's a new friend and was commenting on how cute my dogs are - she had seen them on facebook.  She asked me what it was like to have dogs while in grad school.  I told her what a typical day is for us and she replied that it was "a LOT of work!"  I mean, I've heard that before, but I thought for a moment... 

"Yes, it is a lot of work," I replied. 

It's not a situation where you buy a houseplant or a fish and it sits on a table - a decoration in your otherwise uninvolved life.  Combined with Brian, Sofie and Bear are my family.  They have needs for affection, food, exercise, discipline, and leadership.  They need at least 2 big walks a day - I don't care what ANYONE says - 2 hours minimum!  They need your attention.  They have occasional bathroom issues.  They sometimes tear up shit in your house.  You have to not mind dog smell, bathing, cutting out mats, and stinking eye goobers.  You have to tolerate dog hair on your furniture.  You have to amend your vacations to take them along (or leave them somewhere you trust).

But amidst all of this....I have to tell you truthfully....I don't often think of it as work.  Sure, there are days.  For instance, the days last week when Sofie vomited around 11 times in 20 minutes due to ingestion of *unmentionables* and I thought it would nearly kill her.  It screwed up my day.  The nights when Bear woke us up to go out in the middle of the night or didn't make it outside before peeing on the floor of the apartment hallway.  They've certainly ruined things of Brian and mine. 

There were also hours and days spent at home studying for exams with Sofie on my lap or at my feet - quietly keeping me company during what were difficult hours.  She helped me stave off thoughts about whether I would have what it takes.  Nights when Brian went to bed but Sofie stayed by my feet while I worked on the brutal Biochem take home exams until 3 in the morning.  There were days when I stayed home sick and they snuggled up with me while I watched tv and drank tea - demanding nothing but to be with me.  Every day when I come home they are overjoyed to see me - if people loved as well as dogs do - the world would be a better place.  Every morning they stretch out of their crates, wagging tails so hard their entire back ends wiggle.  If everyone savored the simplicity of a new day as much as dogs do, the world would be a better place.  Every cool, crisp morning in the Park - even in the dark, frigid mornings of winter - Sofie would bound off her leash - rolling in the grass, chasing squirrels and birds, and sniffing for things.  Sometimes she would tear around the grass this way and that - just delighting in feeling good.  It inspires me every day.  In some ways, we do speak the same language.  There were winter runs with Sofie where we sat on the hardened grass after our run, both watching our steaming breath - sharing the feeling of pure invigoration.

So, yes they are a lot of work.  But when you love something, you give it the best you've got and it's not work - it's pleasure.   

Happy 1 Year Anniversary to my Little Dogs in the Big Park!!  My life would be a bland, gray place without you!

 I'm not kidding ^this is the view from my room's balcony. 

Wednesday, September 19th (my god...already?), 2012
NY, NY (Sept. 15) & New Paltz, NY (Sept. 17-18)

 Good morning!  So sorry to neglect you these past few days.  The above pictures shows a summary of what I've been doing during the past weekend/this weekend.  I've been a busy beaver.  Saturday night I saw a band at Webster Hall (Lower East Side) called Tortoise - the picture shows the opening band (Future Islands).  Both were fantastic.  The evening was ended at a place called K&M in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with a little bit of get down.  Sunday I slept in until nearly 11 (holy cow) so there was no "little dog, big park" action.  I had to run and shower to meet my fellow 2nd year friends (and some) for a birthday lunch.  I showered really quick, gulped down coffee and met them down at Hell's Kitchen for some Queen of Sheba (Ethiopian) followed by Coldstone ice cream.  One thing that struck me as pretty insanely disgusting was the fact that at Queen of Sheba you eat with your hands family style.  You don't technically eat with your hands, but you use the bread to scoop up the food like a spoon - Indian style.  Now, this practice in and of itself is not so bad to me.  I've eaten this way many times before - Moroccan you do the same thing.  HOWEVER - when I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, I noticed that there was no soap.  There was only a faucet.  The sign on the bathroom mirror stated plainly: "Employees must wash hands before returning to work."  Oh boy.  "Well here's to inoculation," I thought.

The next few pictures show my time at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, NY.  I left at 6:45 am Monday morning with the rest of the Computational Biology community for the cBio retreat.  It was GREAT!  I had a blast.  New Paltz is upstate - only about a 2 hour drive - from NYC.  It is absolutely gorgeous.  I was there last year for the Immunology Retreat so I knew what to expect and was not disappointed.  We were greeted with a beautiful breakfast spread followed by several hours of talks and lunch (which was incredible and included far too many dessert options).  After this, we went for a short hike, then got our rooms around 4pm.  We ran upstairs, quickly changed, then headed back to the soccer field to play.  Now you may be thinking, soccer?   Computational Biologists?  That had to have been ugly.

It actually was the most intense game of soccer I've played since about 5th grade.  Most of the people there are Europeans, South Americans, and Indians - meaning they KNOW soccer.  They're raised on soccer.  Or should I say...football.  Grégoire (my boss) and his son even joined the game.  We ended up playing against the Mohonk staff - and we beat them 6-2.  I was drenched in sweat at the end.  Around 6pm we ran back to the hotel to shower and then had dinner in the dining room.  It was fabulous - there were lump crabcake appetizers (I declined...I have bad experiences with crab).  There was a beautiful arugula salad with shaved root vegetables (beets, turnips, and other crunchy things).  There was warm bread with sundried tomato and garlic butter spread.  There was vermicelli with summer vegetables, NY strip steaks with garlic mashed potatoes and bernáise sauce, and roasted chicken with polenta.  For dessert there was NY cheesecake with raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries.  After dinner we went to a poster session, which was mostly a wine drinking session.  It ended at 11pm, which sent us back to the bar for some ridiculous drinking game pictionary/telephone sort of hybrid.  We were in bed sometime around 1am.  The end to an incredible day.

7:30am and I was up for breakfast. By breakfast I mean that I ate everything within sight.  Waffles, eggs with tomato and parmesan, breakfast potatoes etc...  It was raining and blowing hard outside so that was a bit of a bummer.  It was completely socked in by fog - you couldn't see a thing.  We went for a few more hours of talks followed by lunch and then free time for the rest of the day. 

I should mention something about the talks.  They were very cool, but a lot was pretty over my head.  I'm new to comp bio, so this was pretty intense for me but that is a bit liberating.  In immunology/molecular biology/cell biology there's more of an expectation to "Know it all" because that's technically my field of "expertise."  In computational biology, however, I'm not really expected to know anything, so I can ask any question without feeling foolish.  Everyone was very nice about explaining to those of us who don't have a heavy math or physics or computer science background.  The talks spanned an immense breadth of topics.  From machine learning, to optimization of drug design using computational models, cancer therapeutics, T cell activation and cell-cell communication (my lab!), models of genetic regulation, modelling of 3D protein structure, and even a guy from Google who came and talked about a project he's working on getting going with Harvard historians.  They're writing programs to chart the use of language in newspapers and other sources back in the 19th century.  He was a cool guy, but the talk was a bit less interesting to me because it was mostly about how he's setting up the program (i.e. hardcore computer science).  One of his examples was showing the use of the word "pneumonia" since 1900.  I mean, it's not surprising you get a spike around 1915 (the time of the Spanish Flu epidemic).  It was still neat to be exposed to new things, even though the computer science stuff is pretty over my head. 

After that I sat down to read on the porch.  It was raining and I didn't have anything to do outside.  Then a labmate named Guillaume found me and was looking for some adventures hiking.  I would totally go.  Yes, absolutely.  Just let me change.  We found some buddies to accompany us in the rain and fog and wind and went out for a hike.  We got soaking wet but it was very invigorating and exciting.  After that we went in the pool and ran around the hotel in bare feet at which point the staff told us we needed to settle down.  We wanted to get in the Jacuzzi (or "cha-cuzzi" if you're Italian, like Vanni) because we were cold but it was $25 to go to the spa.    We got changed and went to the porch just in time for tea & cookies (Mohonk is so old-fashioned).  We grabbed some then got on the bus home.  I slept the whole way.  Then I got home and ordered Indian food and set my alarm for 6:00pm instead of am.  Woops.  This morning was a little interesting because of it. 

Either way, I'm back to the grind today and grateful for a job that facilitates such funs. 

Have a great one!  More little dogs in the big park tomorrow :)