One Day Left Before Voting Time!

Well it looks like we're getting one last stretch of nice weather here in the city before it becomes miserably cold outside. Yesterday the thermometer mercury reached somewhere around 70 degrees, which isn't too bad for the end of October! It made it much more appealing to wander downtown to see the Halloween parade with the millions of other people crowded into the corner of 14th St. and 6th Avenue, where I was standing. Of course, with that many people, it would have probably been a comfortable temperature regardless of the thermometer reading...

This was my first time actually seeing (partially) the infamous New York City Halloween parade. Last year, we wandered down to catch a glimpse, but with so many people on the streets, it was impossible to get close enough to see anything. This year wasn't much different, but the visiting Germans and I left early to get good "seats" and we got reasonably close enough to see some interesting costumes. And getting there early also meant that we were subjected to a wide variety of people complaining about minor things like "I can't breathe", "Stop pushing", "Excuse me, can you please keep walking", "You're stepping on my dog", etc. I wish I could have kept track of some of the things people say when they are faced with stressful situations like not being able to move. Of course, being a family-oriented blog, I wouldn't be able to publish most of them without requiring the visual equivalent of "EarMuff It"...

This week I start working way way way down in South Brooklyn, near Coney Island (you know, where they have the annual hot-dog eating contest, which is almost always won by a short, skinny Japanese guy). This is the first hospital that I've been to that actually has English signs, Spanish signs, and Russian signs. Yes, this is where the Russian mafia resides. Of course, when you cross "Moscow" with "Hospital", you get "Russian Nurses", and that is not a bad thing, as those of you who have had the pleasure of visiting Eastern Europe can attest ;o)....