The elephants walk at midnight!

Erika and I went to Manhattan last night to watch the circus come into town. They block off 34th street and march the elephants from the Midtown Tunnel to Madison Square Gardens at midnight. We got there about 10 til, but were pretty far down the route so we had to stand out in the cold for about 45 minutes before they showed up. When they did, it was quick! Six elephants in a row, each holding a tail in their trunk. The crowd was small, but they had the streets blocked off with police barriers like for a regular parade. A small crowd ran along the sidewalks with the elephants, yelling and waving their hands. It was bizarre. But worth the wait. Next year I'd just go a little later. I tried to take pictures, but since I was doing a little running and the light was bad, they didn't turn out so great. I guess it's the kind of thing that's better just to remember, anyway, elephants walking through Herald Square...

Of course, the circus is bad and mistreats the animals (the animal rights activists were there also), don't go see it. But who can resist the elephants?

Ready, Set, Books! and other stories.

Last weekend I went with a few other volunteers from Mercy Center to take part in this book drive called Project Cicero, for teachers and other organizations that work with kids. You can have a team of five, and each person given a large box and one hour to wander through this huge ballroom filled with new and slightly used books. The box has to be left in the hallway, though, so you frantically fill your arms with as many as you can hold, run out to the hallway, dump your books into the box in a fairly organized fashion (the box has to close at the end, so you have to be an efficient packer). So basically it was like a giant kids' book easter egg hunt, or more like the daydream that I had as a kid that time would freeze (and so would everyone else but me) while I was in the grocery store so I could run around and eat whatever I wanted (I know, I was a strange one...). I love kids books, and it was so much fun just to be able to pick up all my old favorites, and whatever else struck my fancy. Between the five of us, we ended up with over five suitcases and two backpacks full of books that Mercy Center will use for the reading and after school program. The new books are especially great, because they give them out as gifts when the kids graduate.

In other news, a woman at work gave me some salsa dancing lessons at the Y. She was unable to complete the class because of back injury, and she knew I would like them, so she passed them on to me! I started this week, and I'm very excited about them. I don't dance nearly enough these days.

Annnnnnd, in a completely unrelated note, my friend Grant had his piece air on NPR this weekend, which is very exciting. You can listen to it here. Yay Grant!

Hmm, I think that's about it. Until next time,

HOPE Count Down

So the big news around DHS these days is that the results are in, and HOPE 2008 shows the homeless street population has decreased 12% since last year. If you want the long of it, check out the mayor's press release, and if you want the short of it, here's a short entry from the NYTimes City Room blog. The latter piece comes complete with a few public comments. People are already disputing the methodology of the count, and there was a slight public controversy because the guy from Columbia who ran the last two counts didn't do it this year. I leave it to them to debate.

Battling it out

Westerville is famous! Note the reference to Westerville being the "dry capital" before Prohibition. It's interesting to see Texas and Ohio linked all the time in the headlines these days, since for me, the two have always been linked. Tomorrow should be interesting!