My Mayor is not @Corey Booker (or Oh, My Aching Back)

Corey Booker is the Mayor of Newark New Jersey.

There are two reasons this guy is even on my radar.

1) I like the show Brick City on the Sundance channel. It's an excellent documentary series about how the people of Newark New Jersey are turning their city around and becoming a better place for everyone. It's gritty, honest,candid and engrossing.

and

2) Corey Booker is on Twitter, where he communicates with his constituents about problems they face with both in their personal lives and with the city.

My mayor, R.T. Rybak is also on Twitter and I follow him because I live here.

Yesterday, I saw that he had tweeted the following:



I didn't think that much of it at the time because we were still receiving a 13" gift of snow from Mother Nature.

I had spent a good part of the day shoveling and last night I was out until almost midnight helping shovel out a neighbor who unlike me, likes to do it all near the end of the storm instead of periodically throughout the day.

Both our properties are on either side of the beginning of the alley. While we were shoveling last night, we were talking about having to do some of it again in the morning after the plows came through.

When I got up this morning and looked out the window, I saw that the plows had come thru alright:



Daggnabbit I groaned.(Okay, I didn't use that particular word) and knew that I had a heck of a lot of work to do.

I thought of Mayor Rybak's tweet about Corey Booker and sent Mayor Rybak the following tweet before heading out to shovel all that the plows had left behind (BTW, I'm going to reveal my Twitter name here, so feel free to follow me, but if you don't like what I Tweet, unfollow me. Don't try to engage me in Twitter word wars, I'm not interested. I've learned that lesson. Discussion, yes, word wars no.)

Anyways, I sent the following Tweet to the Mayor:



and headed out to clear the snow that the plow had deposited from the street into the plowed alley.

When I came back in, I found that Mayor Rybak had actually responded:



Okay big points for responding but seriously, I thought the Mayor must have someone he hired to plow himself out and maybe my picture wasn't making my question clear to him so I tweeted him again after spending 5 flipping hours clearing the alley:



and here are his next two posts which I have no idea whether or not they were addressed to me:



I didn't bother to respond.

If he ever decides to address my concern with anything other than platitudes or facts that are interesting but not what I was asking, I'll let you know.

But until then, I stand by the title of this post.

My Mayor is not Corey Booker.

Sigh.

Anticipating the loss of a very good friend...

This is my cat.

Speckles.

My neighbor had brought a skinny cat home that he had rescued from a building he was rehabbing and after a few meals, that cat started getting really fat. Oops. She was really pregnant.

Speckles was the runt of the litter and I adored her from the moment she was born.

She is now 17 years old.

She's a sweet, shy little creature, whose idea of having company is anyone who comes into my home via the radio or the television.

The closest she likes to get to the outside world is sniffing the dog when the dog comes back from wherever we take her.

By the various looks on her face, I have both amused and bored her as we've lived together through the Clinton, Bush and the first couple of the Obama years, since I'm a politics junkie and have never been completely happy with any of these administrations.

She has sat on my thigh, softly purring, during the typing of almost every word on this blog.

She is the only living thing in this house who has seen the space between the main floor and the basement when as a kitten she got tangled in a paper bag and in an effort to escape ran up a ladder and into small hole in the ceiling that had been put there in my uneducated attempt at trying to keep some pipes from freezing.

She loves watching snow fall, making winter all the more bearable for me!

She for 17 years been the one who runs to greet me when I get home, often before the dog who is much more devoted to my husband.

We've both been lucky in our mutual admiration society.

I like to read, she likes to sit on books.

I like to do crossword puzzles, she likes to push my pen.

I like to cook, she like to taste test and pick up spills.

I get cold feet, she likes to pretend to be a foot warmer.

The list could go on and on.

This past weekend Speckles stopped eating much of anything and her weight is dropping rapidly.

Today the vet came over and saw her and the prognosis isn't good. At all.

She is dying.

It could be days, a week, it could be a month, but it's coming.

As soon as I see she is uncomfortable in her quality of life, and I have to make the decision all pet owner's dread, I will. In the meantime, most everything else is going to take a back seat. I will spend most every moment thanking her for all the love, goodness and joy that she has graced my life with. And, she finally gets to have some Fancy Feast cat food after all these years of IAMS, even if she only wants to eat 1/2 teaspoon at a time. It makes her purr and right now that makes us both happy.

I love her and I will miss her.

Why I love my neighborhood

We had a huge snowstorm here this past weekend. It was so bad that even the plows couldn't and (as of this writing) still can't get through to clear the roads and alleys.

On my block, our alley luckily exits onto a snow emergency route that has no parking allowed, ever, so that street was on of the few that actually got plowed.

Early Sunday morning, the Metrodome roof caved in from the weight of the snow.

Since the game was cancelled and nobody could drive anywhere, most people on my block were out clearing snow from their sidewalks. One of my neighbors, decided he use his snow blower to clear a path down the alley for walking. I had talked to him when I was out clearing my driveway. When I was done, I went inside to warm up.

I glanced out the window and saw that his effort snowballed (sorry I couldn't resist) and all the menfolk (I hate to be gender specific but it was true) were now clearing the alley! A couple of snow blowers and a bunch of shovels now replaced the Vikings game!

Speaking as one of the oldest people on the block, I'd like to say a public thank you!

These guys are angels and I am blessed to live on their block!!

Before:

After:

Some people get the image of Jesus, I get Ed Asner...

I have a classic love/hate relationship with city snowplow drivers. I truly love how they make my life a whole lot better but frankly, I have been known to moan about their timing.

Anyone who lives in a high snow area knows exactly what I'm talking about. A lot of snow falls, you go out and shovel it because you want to do it before it gets any heavier and then the snow plow comes and plows all the snow from the street back into your driveway. When timed correctly, a person can go out and clear the driveway before it freezes.

Over the past couple of days, we had what was forecasted to be one of the storms of the century but it went from a snowstorm to a slush fest and back to snow again creating what is known here as "heart attack snow" which is best shoveled in increments during the entire storm so you don't kill yourself at the end by trying to clear it all at once.

Sage advice that to my recent memory a person would be well served by taking and that's what I did.

This morning, after doing what I hoped was my final shoveling for a few days, I came in and had just pulled off my boots when I heard the snowplow come up the alley. Now the alley had been plowed yesterday so I was a little surprised but after a deep sigh and a cup of cocoa, I pulled my boots back on, gathered my shovel and chopper and went back out to finish one more time.

Imagine my surprise to find that the snowplow driver had deposited Ed Asner in my driveway!!

Just for comparison purposes:

Thanks snowplow guy! You made my day!!

What the heck... I'll blame the Yankees for this too...