Halloween and a Hurricane

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Casey and I went to a friend's Halloween party last weekend dressed as Clark Kent and Dorothy - couldn't come up with a good couple's costume with the time we had to put it together. People really liked Casey's costume, and seemed impressed with themselves when they figured it out. He got lots of "Hey! It's Superman!" comments from strangers. The cashier at Walgreens called him Superman no fewer than 15 times. Here are pictures from that night: 

I was looking for shoes like this, but could only find them online and didn't have time to order them...

Clark Kent saving the day with Keystone

Hosts of the party: Captain America (pre and post injection)

Our friends who hosted the party also had pretty unique party favors: they gave away goldfish to all of their guests. They had been at a restaurant earlier that day that was having a carnival-like day and was giving fish away as prizes. The restaurant ended up with too many fish, so our friends took home about 40 extras, which became the party favors. We named our fish Chester.

Chester, our new pet goldfish

Switching gears now... the reason I'm writing a post today (on a Monday) is because class was cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy, aka Frankenstorm. Which is really fortunate because we were supposed to have a histology practical today (that I wasn't at all ready for) that will be postponed until later this week. Casey gets to stay home from work too, but still has to actually do work. We stocked up on a few supplies early Saturday morning, and a few other people had the same idea, but the store wasn't all that crowded. Yesterday evening, however, we went to the grocery store to get some fish flakes for Chester and found about 20 people in line per register! It was crazy. The shelves were essentially empty and everyone was a little on edge. One elderly woman was yelling at an employee and flinging her cart around wildly. We decided that Chester could eat bread crumbs for the time being until the storm passes. 

It's interesting to see the range of responses people have when bad weather is about to strike. The city shut down its transportation systems last night to prepare for potential flooding and other damage caused by high winds. The hospital and medical college were quick to send out their disaster-preparedness plans, and to tell everyone to stay home and safe unless they worked in an emergent setting. They cancelled all elective procedures as well. Old women at the supermarket were yelling and throwing around large metal objects, possibly trying to get a head start on causing damage before the hurricane hits. And then there's the financial industry. Casey's company was expecting people to come to work as of midnight last night. Never mind the fact that the city put out warnings telling people who lived above the 11th floor to consider staying somewhere lower due to high winds (he works on the 44th floor). They decided that people could work from home only after hearing that the stock market would be closed today (the first weather-related closure in 27 years). They were kind enough to check in on him though - to make sure that his home laptop was functioning and that he could still make the necessary calls to get his work done. Ah, priorities. 

The weather isn't too bad right now - there's just a little wind and it looks kind of gloomy outside. The streets are eerily quiet, which is a rarity for NYC: 

Ghost town

I'll post more pictures as the storm moves through if anything cool happens. They have evacuated certain parts of NYC that are in low-lying areas, like Coney Island and parts of Brooklyn. Our area wouldn't be evacuated unless the hurricane was category 3 or 4, and large parts of Manhattan wouldn't ever be evacuated at all. I guess they're pretty confident in the strength of their skyscrapers. Probably the saddest part of Sandy is going to be that I never got the chance to take pictures of the fall leaves in Central Park, which will likely all be stripped after the 40-50 mph winds tear through. Oh well, there's always next year! Stay tuned for anything exciting.