31 Oct 06

Time:

?

Money:

$4, pet food, gym store.
$12, back to the regular lunch (just for today), the regular place.
$4, maple macchiato, campus Starbucks.
$3, grilled peanut butter and honey, PressToast.

More interesting things:

Passed on my way to the train a small kid who asked his mom, "Okay, but what about 86th and Broadway, then?" This, I guess, is what happens to you when you did your peek-a-boos under Washington's boot (see Saturday post of a few weeks ago): you are able by the age of seven to hold intelligent conversations about particular city intersections.

Figured out, at last, why it makes me laugh when a conductor tries to urge people either into or out of (whichever one will work, as far as he's concerned) a car at rush hour - "There is another express train DIRECTLY behind this train!" only makes sense; isn't it the nature of a train, which, you will concede, must run on a track, to follow the one in front of it? (Okay, okay... I understand he just means that it's coming up quick. But maybe "immediately" would work better than "directly"?)

Left Professor Bravo's office as Professor Number Four (Bravo's mentor) arrived. I quickly made arrangements with Professor Bravo to return on Thursday, but Number Four added, "Oh, and we have that thing tomorrow, don't we?" I'm grateful to the event arranger if only for an opportunity to share a "we" with these cool people.

Laughed at a girl waltzing into Pless with... a table costume perched on her shoulders. It wasn't a Halloween table, as ours were, but a red-and-white checkered picnic-style table probably runs a close second.

Laughed again as the Starbucks Line Commander made a bunch of loud, goofy comments about a devil who made it halfway through the doors into the store - and then turned and went back out. When I mentioned that she had scared the devil away, I thought the commander was going to fall over cackling.

Got a Halloween under red and gold leaves for the first time in 19 years, and benefited this time around from a pipes-and-drums corps heralding the arrival of the kids' parade around Washington Square.

Spotted a German Shepherd whose bumblebee costume matched those on his people... including a long stinger pointing up from his back.

Commented admiringly on an old-school Michael Jackson costume as I waited with Anne at PressToast, and got a cheerful "hi" and a sequined wave in return.

Wrestled my way, with Anne and Girts, towards Sixth Avenue in hopes of catching some of the parade. We did, and what we saw was very, very cool - glowing pumpkins and dancing skeletons, all up high on poles so you could see, and skillfully maneuvered by their carriers to swoop down over the crowd (like, right over the crowd.) I'll leave class early next year, if I have to; I definitely need to get a real look at this thing.

Spied, on a church that only had to sit there and be its normal architectural self to achieve an appropriate level of spookiness, a giant white spider, bobbing around on the side of the turret thing. Since he was a balloon, I guess, his legs and sometimes his body waved slowly, making it look like he was scuttling ominously down towards us. It was, to put it shortly, awesome.