Phillies Parade

Ok, so normally, I really don't care about baseball. Couldn't ever tell you who won the World Series. But, this year, I've been forced to care because, well, it was the Phillies, and we're back in Philly...yep, forced to care!

Which actually hasn't been a bad thing- it's so easy for me to fall into the "i-have-a-baby-and-am-pregnant-again" thing, wanting to avoid all places where people are drinking and having fun. And, I kinda thought that living back in Philly, and not in New Orleans anymore would actually only accentuate that. I guess it did for a time,...until the city turned into a makeshift Mardi Gras after the World Series! It makes sense, I guess, considering that the last time this has happened- them winning the Series, I mean- was...25 (?) years ago. It's been a while!

That's the only thing I could compare it to, but on a larger scale- it's a bigger city here. The turnout for the parade yesterday far exceeded all estimates- tons of people poured in from the suburbs (including my brother and other family off from work). Some of Ezra's family planned on coming to meet us, but never made it- couldn't even get on the train, there were so many people, so they just turned around and went home. Eve and I, however, braved the insanity, stroller and all ("Phillies-red", too, mind you!) and headed up to Ezra's office. We had planned on doing that anyway, for Halloween.

About halfway there, I took out my camera to capture some of the unbelievable crowd-shots and realized something- that I'd left the camera battery at home. Seriously, why do I even have a camera?? It's never operational when I need it to be! I had already walked too far to turn back, especially in a huge sea of people, so we kept on going to meet Ezra. (The picture above was taken, obviously, from a Google search!)

When we got there, however, we couldn't call Ezra- there was absolutely no cellphone reception at all! Luckily, we'd kinda planned on a meeting place, and he eventually came out to find us. Then, we went with him and some co-workers up to the firm library to watch the parade. It was fantastic! We could actually see the parade, which is more than those on the ground could do, and we were warm!

One very noticeable difference from Mardi Gras, however- well, apart from the lack of colorful floats and beads and all- was that the cleanup began immediately following the (short) parade. Immediately! The street-cleaning trucks and men with leaf blowers were almost part of the parade, following right behind the last float. Amazing. Made me feel like I was back in a "functioning" city, despite the current craziness! The puddles we were walking through didn't scare me like they would have in New Orleans- these were from the cleaning trucks, and didn't contain questionable substances...I miss New Orleans!

----------

Yesterday was Halloween, too- We didn't dress Eve up, but she did have a Halloween shirt and pumpkin socks...pics to follow- once I dress her up again (today, probably), and put the camera battery in, and pretend that I was on-top of things to begin with! ;)