Oh the places you'll go

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I should do something productive with my free time other than look for jobs and watch daytime TV, so I decided to join New York Cares. For those of you who don't know what that is, New York Cares is a volunteer organization in New York City that connects New Yorkers with charities/organizations that need volunteers. Before you are allowed to volunteer on a project you must attend an orientation meeting, and mine was last night at no less a place than City Hall.

As a seasoned New Yorker things in the city (like celebrity sightings or film crews on your street) aren't supposed to phase or impress me, but I'm not going to lie, walking into City Hall was pretty damn cool. Not only is the building itself impressive, but the history inside is simply palpable.

So, now I am fully orientated and allowed to start volunteering stay tuned to hear about my first project....And, if you are interested in joining check out http://www.nycares.org/

Things that go bump in the night

Last night I was on my way to my friend Emily's apartment when I stumbled across something unusual--even by New York standards. It was just past dusk, dark enough that it wasn't light, but not quite middle-of-the-night dark. I was walking along Central Park North (aka 110th Street) on the North side of the street--as I didn't want to walk too close to the park at this twilight hour--when something caught my eye in the middle of the sidewalk. At first glance I assumed it was a dog, but then I realized there was no owner with it. As I walked closer I then thought maybe it was a cat that had escaped, but I then realized it was a little too big to be a cat. I had a moment of panic when I thought maybe it was one of those mutant rats that you hear about in the subway that grows to gargantuan proportions, but then realized that even a mutant rat couldn't grow that big.



I was about 15 feet from it a woman walked out of her apartment building and looked to the right, and then looked at me and said, "Oh that damn raccoon is out here every night." I looked at her in disbelief and said, "that's a raccoon?" Upon closer inspection I realized that it was indeed a raccoon in the middle of a Manhattan sidewalk eating, what else, pizza! I thanked the woman for enlightening me and hightailed it across four lanes of traffic, as I would rather tussle with a NYC cabbie than a giant raccoon.