So when you
fall on your keester like I saw some poor middle aged 9 to 5'er do last
week, you're wet, embarrassed, hopefully not hurt, dirty and cold .
Let's give these poor worker bees a break. There are a few of those
huge multi-family apartment "houses" on College Ave that are never
shoveled. I have a friend who uses a cane and he was out after one of
the recent snow storms and it was more difficult than usual for him to
walk.

Let me tell you, if I ever fell in front of your apartment
"house," I would own your house. What's the problem here? The city
gives fines for un-shoveled walkways, right? Do you just pay the fine
and continue to put Somerville's citizens at risk? Do you "absentee
landlords" live so far off in a snobby suburb that you can't make it
back to the place that is financing your uppity lifestyle – to ensure
public safety?

Hey Mr. Landlord, here is an idea for you – pick
a couple of your tenants, and take some money off their rent and make
them the "official" shovel brigade. I always pass two of my friends
houses on College Ave that ARE cleared, then it's back to Antarctica.
If they can shovel, why can't we all? I have two senior citizen friends
who still walk to St. Clements every week for Mass. Even when it is a
clear warm day it is difficult for them to make the trek. When you
slackers don't shovel the snow, you are adding an extra element of
extreme danger to my friends.

If they were my aunts or uncles or
parents and they slipped in front of your house, I'd call Jim Sokolove,
Dane Shulman and Barry Feinstein – and I'd get what's rightfully mine –
and THAT's THAT! While I am ranting, when I walk my dog, I have to get
out of the way of the "spandex sprinters" who use our sidewalks for
their own private race track. Maybe if you slender jaunters shoveled
some snow, you wouldn't have to parade your designer jogging outfits
(that often times look silly) like the sidewalk was your own private
fashion runway.

I pay decent money for my gym membership because
I no longer choose to compete in the fashion show that is jogging in
public. Plus, I don't want to have a heart attack on College Ave. Look
at me! I'm exercising! OOHH! When I did jog outside, I used Fresh Pond
or Dilboy Field. Anyway, some of you are getting too skinny. Stay in
once in a while and have a sandwich. How skinny do you want to get? I
do, however, like the little flashing lights that some of you wear.

Onward
and upward with another rant – I thought some guy was going to beat my
head in the other day…I'm walking the dog and I see this guy and he
says something like "…blah, blah, what the hell do you
want…(curse)!" Followed by more swear-words, more arms waving, louder
yelling with some psychotic gibberish thrown in – and then a very loud
expletive!

He was looking right at me and getting closer and
closer. I figured I had a confrontation on my hands – it was go time! I
thought it was some dude I ticked off, or some old girlfriend's brother
or something…Nope. Just some nut walking down the street apparently
screaming at someone on his hands-free bluetooth cell phone thing. In
the old days they had a place that they would send you for walking down
the street yelling to yourself!

And all this is going on over a
filthy, slippery, slushy, un-shoveled sidewalk that some inconsiderate
absentee landlord is responsible for. I'll tell you, if you leave your
car without money in the meter, or in the wrong zone, you promptly get
a ticket…So I hope these non-shovelers also get fined quickly and
heftily. It's not rocket science. The City does a very good job at
clearing the streets, so let's take care of our end.

By Saturday
the sidewalk is down to bare cement thanks to the weather and the
trudging of the commuters, not the shoveling of the landlords. That's
what happens when hundreds of people walk a beaten path all day, every
day. It goes from snow, to slush, to ice, to gone. But the transition
is a cold, wet, slippery and treacherous one. I know because I walk the
dog there. I realize some people are not physically up to shoveling
their walk , so what do you do? Call 311 or e-mail me. We will get the
sidewalk clear so we don't have any hips, heads, legs, ankles or wrists
knocked out of commission. I'm serious. We also don't want anyone
slipping and having to go through their work day with a dirty spot on
their butt, or a dried white salty stain on their outfit.

By the
by, it's good to see people holding their parking spaces with creative
blockages. Hi Holdies are back! Folks are using barrels, lawn
furniture, RCN and Edison work cones, recycling bins, kids toys,
bundled up grandparents in lounge chairs, shopping carts, armoires, old
stoves and other creative items to secure the spot they shoveled out. I
picked up a very nice end table for my living room last week (sorry).
And you kids thought "MySpace" was something new!