An Island

This weekend was filled with lots of great activities. Thursday night, Debra, Adriana and I went to the Celebrate Brooklyn Bhangra dance party at Brooklyn Bridge Park on the water, it was magical. All the twinkling lights of our great city across the river while we danced barefoot on the grass to the happy sounds of Red Baraat, a wonderful punjabji marching band and DJ Rekha spinning awesome Bhangra.
Friday night was movie night with some friends. Saturday I met A & D at Governor's Island which officially opened for the summer this weekend to ride our bike car-free. It's so close to where I live too, I just ride my bike to Pier 6 and take the 2 minute ferry over. The line for the ferry was a bit long especially waiting in the sun, but that wasn't the hassle really once the ferry came they let folks with bikes in first and there's a really easy procedure to the whole thing. Someone thought letting a seven year old on first would be a smart idea. All you have to do is walk your bike into the ferry, walk all the way to the back and circle back around on the opposite aisle making room for bikers and none bikers alike, but the first few folks had no idea and just piled their bikes in the back not letting the rest of us through. Anywho, I got to the island and considering it's a holiday weekend it was blissfully quiet. We packed a lunch since there's only one food vendor on the whole island and found a big tree to sit under and enjoy the breeze and lunch. There are so many wonderful historical landmark buildings on the island too, it's no wonder I went shutter happy (with my iphone, I went camera free on this trip wanted to concentrate on biking).




The weekend ended on a sad note, my baby boy Budda, had to be rushed to the vet's in an emergency yesterday morning. He couldn't walk very well, he kept dropping his back legs and he was in pain. This is not the first time this has happened, in 2006 after coming home from Buenos Aires his back legs went out, he couldn't walk, he had temporary paralysis. He has a condition called Intervertebral Disk Disease , IDD for short. Basically, it's the disks in a dogs spinal column that have a jelly cushion and what happens with IDD the protective jelly cushion calcifies putting pressure on the nerves in the spinal column causing pain or paralysis. If caught early they can treat with steroids, anti-inflammatories, and muscle relaxers, plus complete bed rest for the dog, and some dogs have a full recovery like Budda did the first time, it took a month but it worked. Surgery is the second option, when the dog makes no sign of getting better after two days of steroids, it's super painful for the animal, recovery takes about six months, and cost about $10,ooo, luckily we are not there yet and hope to never be. This time it doesn't seem to be as severe he's already responding to the medicine, I haven't left his side since yesterday morning, except to buy his food while Debra was home watching him. The pics below are things I saw on the way to the pet store.