Thanksgiving Day

Yesterday I walked up Columbus Ave., past the Natural History Museum beside which the Macy's parade balloons were being readied for today's trundle from there down to Macy's. I am a bah-humbug type about this parade but it was fun to see a lot of kids, with adults in tow, excited about the inflation process and posing by the fence to which were tied hundreds of regular type balloons. The weather was surprisingly warm. Today was again warm and sunny in the morning so I thought I'd go down and take a few pictures of the balloons because, despite all the years I've been here, I don't have any. But, by the time I'd stopped off for a bagel and coffee I reached the area as people were streaming toward me -- well, really toward the various parking garages and/or public transportation and stores.

Again it was magnificently warm so I went over to Riverside Park and finally saw some real autumn color -- almost all gold and very beautiful in the rather soft sun against the still very green grass and the rather milky sky. It was even so warm that I stopped on a bench and looked over the SAQA newsletter which I like SOOO much better in hard copy than on screen. But that's true of everything Very often part of the mail is actually put into our boxes by the night staff instead of the day people so as I went out I got a handful of junk catalogs and such, the SAQA piece and the season's first Christmas card! The words on the weather forecast are that it will turn very clod tonight and remain so the rest of the weekend ... which makes me particularly thankful for two days of perhaps the very last of Indian summer.