Whatever dudes

So the Mets choked. Again. Some more. I am disappointed, but definitely not surprised. It came to me this morning that my team has become the baseball equivalent of the early-mid 1990s Knicks, which is pretty sad. They look promising, beat the teams that need to be beaten, and then make stupid mistakes that eventually prove to be their undoing. To say that the Mets have become the premiere choke artists of the MLB would be an understatement; I think they had that one sewn up in 2007. This has gone on for three years now, and it’s sad that expensive mediocrity has become the norm for the Mets. Well, now I can root for either the Red Sox or the Rays; the Sox have always been my preferred AL team, but the Rays have such a good story this year (despite the stupid name change).

But on to other things. While the Mets were in Flushing crushing the dreams of their fans, I was elsewhere in the borough, attending the Hispanic Heritage Parade in Jackson Heights. Satanski is quite obsessed with parades, so even though our connection to Hispanic Heritage is tenuous at best (his maternal great-grandmother was from Puerto Rico, and I’m the usual black American mutt), we went. It was pouring when we exited the subway and I was sure that the parade would be canceled, but we’d come all the way from New Jersey, so I thought we should check. How smart I am! A local traffic cop told me that the parade was still on and a few beat officers directed us to 37th Avenue. My nephew, who at 3 has a completely unfounded phobia about police officers, was quite impressed with their helpfulness and shouted, “Thank you, police!” as we walked to our destination. It was supposed to start at noon, but it was closer to 12:45 before it actually got under way. As you might imagine, the sounds and colors were amazing, and the parade really got going when the rain stopped falling. I went largely to see my belly dance teacher and fellow students perform (to salsa music, which was actually a neat combination), but the kid was getting cranky and all paraded-out, so we left after they passed us by. I brought my smaller camera and did not properly charge the batteries, so I actually don’t know what kind of shots I got. I turned off review to preserve battery function and didn’t look at them when I got home, so I will go over and post those pictures when I get home after work (which might be delayed, as I just found out that Helen Wang is having a store closing sale and things are going for 80% off).