The Undocumented, The Unemployed, The Sick, The Homeless, and The Despised, Upper West Side, Manhattan

A religious parade marched up Amsterdam Avenue this afternoon. The overarching theme (other than Hispanic/religion) wasn't clear from the signs and floats, so I looked online and found this description of the event:

13th Encuentro Hispano – Culture and Faith of the Hispanic Community of America • Amsterdam Avenue, 90th to 110th Street. All are invited, all races, creeds, languages, and colors, and especially the undocumented, the unemployed, the sick, the homeless, and the despised.

Earlier in the day, I took the photo below shortly after waking and finding that, after many days of rain, the sun was lighting the tree outside our window.

Lunch in Tokyo (Except We Were Really in Herald Square)

FoodParc, a sleek modern food mall, opened off Herald Square, and my friend Robyn and I celebrated her birthday there. Customers place their order (with help from green t-shirted staff, as in the photo) with three different food stands via a touch screen and check their orders' progress via large flat-screen TVs. We ordered from all three places, as you can see in the photo below (our order is third from the bottom). I felt like we were in Tokyo.

Riverside Park, Manhattan

I was with my son in Riverside Park today and started snapping photos of people passing. It's interesting to see some people are alone, some are obviously traveling together and still others end up in the frame together--the photo forever links them--but they are strangers and perhaps didn't even notice each other's presence. I also used a function on the camera to swap out the color of the sky for the color of the grass and the color of my pink Mexican shopping bag.