Despite my best efforts, I'm starting to like it here.

This morning I stopped on the street to chat with a guy writing chalk advertisements on the sidewalk, because that's the sort of thing I'm happy to do and it's the sort of thing I'm allowed to do in New York City. There's plenty I won't miss about living here if I moved to, say, Vermont, and there's a lot that I would. Like surprise parades and Miyazaki movies and pianists in the park.

My brother's in town at the same time the IFC Center's doing a Studio Ghibli Festival, so we made plans tonight to see My Neighbor Totoro at one of the evening subbed screenings instead of an afternoon dubbed one. He stopped by the gallery to say hello to everyone, and we went up through SoHo to the East Village and ended up walking into Cafetasia for dinner more or less at random. We both ordered food with "basil" in its name, and I also got a lemonade with lychee fruit and pumpkin stir-fried with scallions and egg on the grounds that I didn't have any idea what it'd be like. Delicious, as it turns out - nice, soft squash, just sweet enough, diced up in small chunks with the scallions sliced into one-inch pieces with just enough bite left over, and soft egg holding it all together. The lemonade was the perfect contrast and antidote to the spicy food. Dinner went fast, so we walked through Washington Square to get to the theater and pick up our tickets early in case they sold out. After we got them, we had nearly an hour, and didn't know what to do.

So we turned around and watched a parade.

Keep in mind we had no idea there was one coming - we just turned around and there it was coming down the street, the annual Chabad Menorah parade. After the shock of a surprise parade wore off, we got into it and started waving back to everyone. There were dozens of cars, plenty of vans, a few Mitzvah Tanks and even one guy on a bike, all of them with their own menorah to celebrate the Festival of Lights. Everyone was clearly having a blast, and some kids were leaning out of windows to cheer and shout in jubilee. I couldn't blame them in the least. What we noticed, after a few blocks' worth of cars, was that only three lights were lit on the menorahs. and since this was the third night, they were pretty clearly going to do this again every night of the holiday. Except shabbos, of course.

By the time the parade was over, we still had about an hour to go before the showing, so we went back to Washington Square park to listen to a pianist. I'd seen him a couple of times on other days, but this was the first time I'd ever stopped to pay attention. Apparently, he's a professional, with his own website and everything. Next time I pass by and he's there, I'm going to stop and take a few minutes. He's worth it. A professional who knows what he's doing on a well-tuned baby grand piano is always great, and to come across one randomly and free of charge on a night with plenty of special things happening in it already - well, you don't mind standing for a while to soak in the music.

We finally left with about fifteen minutes to go before the showing, got our seats, and settled in and even though we'd seen it already, had a splendid time. When it was over, almost immediately, we started making plans to go back and see the Ghibli movies we hadn't gotten around to yet - although in the case of at least two of them, that's because they've never been shown in the US before.

While we were watching the pianist, my brother told me that our mother asked him what he wanted to do while he was in the city, and that this was it. Surprise parades and pianists in the park - welcome to New York City.