Impossible things #3: waiting the 6 minutes for the coffee to steep in the French Press first thing in the morning.

I don’t have a problem with a California stop. I’m also not averse to slipping slowly through a red light at midnight on a deserted street. Here in the D, though. stop and yield signs, stop lights at side streets and residential speed limits may as well not exist. If you’re doing the speed limit on a residential street, you’ll get passed. And heaven forbid you actually stop – full stop – at a stop sign! Caution is in order if you are on a side street about to pass through or turn left at a street light on a main thoroughfare. I’ve come too close to being clipped too often by assholes blowing through the red like it wasn’t there.

If you ever want to know how/why Detroit/Wayne County got into such bad shape, just head on down to the Coleman Young building and try to get something done. Or try to get an answer for something. Good luck with that. To say such a trip is an exercise in futility is an understatement.

11:49 pm tomorrow marks the Winter Solstice. I feel better already.

Why I hate winter #14: the great, outdoor catbox is pretty much closed due to inclement weather which means I have to shovel out the indoor ones.

Finally got my Winter Solstice lights up on the little pine growing in my front yard. I’ve been a bit lazy this year. Well, maybe more than a bit.

#AmWriting line of the week:

When I was a kid, Fredrika Blackstone was a touch of Disney color in an Orwellian gray neighborhood. The outrageous clothes she wore, her overgrown yard, even the wood trim on her house was a profusion of colors. Her five lots were rarely cut, growing dense with clover, violets, chicory, milkweed and dandelion. Name the weed and it was nurtured somewhere on her property. There was no small amount of neighborhood angst over this, especially for her nearest neighbor, Mr. Bramel, a man who attacked weeds with the single minded purpose of a ninja warrior.