Saturday Squirrel Blogging

In atonement for missing catblogging yesterday...



I've been crazy busy the past couple of days, but I did manage to get some pretty good pictures...if I were ever asked to give a commencement address, I would advise the graduating class to never get so wrapped up in anything that you forget to take time to watch the squirrels.

Last night, waiting for the Max in Brookside after a trip to Price Chopper before coming home for the night, I realized another benefit from my switch to public transit. Riding the bus forces me to stop, and sit down and wait patiently sometimes. When I was driving everywhere I needed to go, I would go months on end without sitting on a bench in a greenspace and just stopping for a minute and watching the squirrels, and now I look back and consider that wasted time. I highly recommend twenty minutes on a park bench at least once a week. It does wonders for ones mental health. Especially in this, the age of constant outrage.






Saturday mornings were made for the City Market! If you live in the burbs or an outlying area and don't go down there because it sucks to drive down there - park and ride. The Max and the 57 both drop you right there -

If you need a hand getting your bounty to your car, help is available!

I am a loyal customer of this family farm operation from Bonner Springs.

I love to see all these people eating locally grown foods!

That's me.

Magic for the kiddies.

Pony rides - that is Domo the mule.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has an interesting and practical community outreach project going on - they are setting up a tent at a different farmers market every Saturday and giving away these awesome reusable grocery bags to everyone who signs up to get their email newsletter. Look for them at the farmers market you frequent. The bags are great. They are sturdy and they have a hard bottom. Trust me - you want one.

Two final things before I get back to work in the physical realm...

I will be back with some quick hits this afternoon, and I'll check email and comments at that time, looking for an answer to this question - now that the farmers markets are open and we have all this delicious, wholesome local food, should I resurrect the Saturday kitchenblogging feature that I did last summer? Or is it pretentious and insufferable and best left lie?

And finally...Happy Anniversary - two days late - to Mr. & Mrs. Gone Mild. May you enjoy at least 26 more happy and interesting years together. Being married to someone you fall in love with over and over is a blessing to be treasured, and I know you do.

Sunday Civic Blogging

[Updated below]

Okay Kansas City readers - I am going to start doing something just for you. Call it this atheists Sunday offering, if you want to piss off the bible bleaters with a minor blasphemy while reminding 'em that even non-believers can be altruistic, and genuinely so, because it ain't getting us past St. Pete.

Anyway, I live in this city, and when I say "live" I mean that as an active verb, emphasis on active. Especially now that spring has sprung (they mowed the grass at the Kenneth A. Spencer Center yesterday), look for a lot of mobile blogging with this spiffy new laptop for which I want to say thanks once more - I am still radiating from the goodwill that poured in when we had our fundraiser in January.

But getting back on topic - this post is the first in what I am mulling making a regular Sunday feature - right now it's a notion, and we'll see where it goes...

VOTE YES APRIL 8th

Go to the polls next Tuesday and vote "yes" to extend the 3/8 cent sales tax to maintain our METRO until 2024. I use the bus service, and I can say with absolute surety that the ridership is increasing. More and more people are parking their cars and riding the bus as gas prices have stabilized at three bucks a gallon.

Can we get metro schedules on Broadway, please?

Speaking of the METRO - we need to pass the extension, and then the powers that be need to spend a few bucks to update the stops along the 51/Broadway route. Just try finding a stop with a schedule posted! At the very least we need one at the Broadway/Linwood stops. More and more Penn Valley students are riding the bus. Can we take some of the guesswork out of it? On the printed schedule, the times listed jump all the way from Pershing & Grand to 39th and Broadway. And none of the stops in between have schedules and only one has a shelter. That's a huge gap. No, it isn't necessary along the Broadway Extension, but once the bus gets up the hill, and there are stops on every block, there needs to be a schedule posted on every other.
You know it's spring...

I haven't seen a robin yet, but I know it's spring anyway. Folks in Midtown/Westport know that the first sure signs of spring are found on Pennsylvania in the heart of Westport. The Westport Beach Club spring volleyball league started this week. Time to get out the Hawaiian shirts! The Sons of Venezuela kick off the summer Salsa dancing season at 8:00 p.m. on May 3. With the exception of the May 3 show, the bands will start at 10:00. Every Saturday, you can get a free Salsa lesson before the show. Lessons start at at 8:30.

Chubby's Closed Temporarily Everyones favorite after-hours breakfast joint is temporarily closed. A week ago Friday the LaBruzzo family, who owns the building and operated the diner as a family business for decades, evicted the company that took over operations about a year ago. The business was founded by father and son Vito and Nick LaBruzzo, and now Nick's sons, Vito and Nick, are taking back over. They are closed for a couple of weeks for remodeling and will reopen as The Original Chubby’s on Broadway.

Light Rail citizen input meetings next week

The next midtown gathering will be April 10 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Main. The meeting will run from 5:30 to 7:30. What we do is break into groups with a map of the area and citizens offer their input on routes, stops and stations. It's our city and it's our train. I'm damned sure making my voice heard.

Appreciating what we have



The Sculpture Garden at the Nelson is the perfect place to fritter away an afternoon.

And since Katie lied to me and it isn't raining, I think that is precisely what I am going to do.

I'll be back this evening.

Consider this an open thread, Kansas City. Put your own input in comments, and if you know something I need to make sure to include next week, send me an email.

Update 8:45 p.m.

Even Christians are DFH's in my neighborhood

I spotted this walking from McCoy's where we took our granddaughter for lunch (some day they will make mac and cheese as good as I do) and I said "Hold up. I have to get a picture for my friend [Blue Gal ]" (no relation). Resolution could be better, I took this with my phone. I am posting it to atone for missing something so huge and important as the annual Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm last weekend.

(click to enlarge)

BG (too) told me posting this would be atonement aplenty. As she is a driving force behind Blog Against Theocracy, I will consider my slate clean until next year.

It was too pretty outside to politic (that is indeed a verb) today

The Westport Statue on Broadway at Westport Road -
that's Alexander Majors, John Calvin McCoy and Jim Bridger -
the men who really opened up the western frontier - in heroic scale.

Some days you just have to go outside and play.

I never had a home town before, so now that I have adopted my husbands, I am really getting in to calling Kansas City home. A Brat could do a hell of a lot worse than to meet in college and marry a bootstrapping Airman from Westport (not Connecticut) and continue bouncing around for a couple of decades.

I had a tough time at first. Kansas City was like no place I have ever been. Pretty soon, it finally sunk in. That's what makes it so fucking cool.

This place has something for everyone. If you are a no-nonsense, common sense, loafers-and-sweater-vests, Volvo driving liberal, you live in the northland. If you are a Hispanic community activist, you can be found on the west side or at 18th and Central in KCK. If you are a neo-yuppie banker-type, you live on the Plaza or in the River Market area. If you are a hipster DINK couple, you live in an Urban Couer development loft in the Martini Corner area. If you are an effete Hummer-driving snob, well, we have Johnson County for people like you - although I have good friends over there fighting the good Democratic fight. If you are a lesbian or gay performance artist, you are gonna find a home in the Crossroads. Every kind of freak you can imagine - even Chiefs fans* - is welcomed with open arms in Westport, so long as they are not a danger to anyone else.

I moved to KCMO in 2001. I have never lived seven consecutive years in any one place any other time in my life. I have never spent seven consecutive years in one time zone before. Let alone two adjoining zip codes. So when I finally adjusted, and appreciated what I had, I took to it.

Kansas City.

Who knew???

Part of me wants to be the biggest cheerleader for this place that the world has ever seen.

But then I remember this: I've been to Tokyo.

While I wish you all could share my good fortune, I gotta say, from a perfectly selfish position, and even though city officials probably disagree with me: Feel free to visit, but I think we are just about the perfect size.

Now, I'll go go catch up on what happened in the world in this 24/7 news cycle we live in while I was outside getting fresh air (Times Square!) (sorry - inside joke) and sunshine - and get back to work.

Hope your Saturday rocked, where ever you are.


(*I'm truly sorry, but I will forever be an outsider here. I. Just. Don't. Get. the adoration for a losing football team, and I never will, apparently. My husband has been trying to make me understand for almost 27 years, and I still fail to grasp it. I must be really awesome, because he still loves me in spite of this tragic personal failing. At least I have the decency to put this blasphemy in Red, so maybe I won't get pelted with overripe produce next time I stick my nose out the door.)