Saving Park Slope
So I was going to come home tonight and blog about how we saved all of Park Slope from blowing up tonight, but then I found a random e-mail from the creators of lostandfrowned.com --- also Park Slope residents, who apparently found me by way of a link on Gawker, rather than the fact that I probably saved them from a troubling explosion tonight. So I get home from dinner and click on lostandfrowned, trying to figure out what they have going on, and as it turns out, they own two of the fattest cats I've ever seen (and I used to own a real fat cat too, Norman. Now deceased.) So not only do they have a 24-hour "live" cat cam, but a good little FAQ on the fat cats, including these facts:

*SME likes to be taken on "sniffing tours," where he is lifted up and carried around and allowed to sniff things that are too high up for him to reach on his own.

*SME was adopted from the ASPCA in Houston, Texas, just a few hours before his scheduled termination. And yet, he still has the nerve to caterwaul when his dinner is not served on time.

They also have an interview with Sara Woster, an artist I've never heard of, probably because I stopped being cool around 1989. A key exchange:

L&F: To be a serious painter, do you have to have a messy space with all the brushes and squeezed-out pigments laying all over surrounded by empty coffee cups and full ashtrays and shit? Or can you be very tidy and organized and never get and paint on yourself?
SW: I don’t like that question.

OK, just so you don't think there was any terrorist threat in Park Slope tonight, here's what happened. My husband and I were walking to dinner, and just below 6th Avenue and Carroll, we get a real strong whiff of gas.I started to call 311 (the city's new non-emergency 911 number) but about that time, we found a guy at the mailboxes just inside the front of the building. So he comes out with us and agrees to call 311 so we can go to dinner. We had a bottle of wine and service was really slow, so it's about 10 p.m. by the time we're walking home. What do you know, three crews of really pissed off Keyspan gas guys are ripping up the street with jackhammers and neighbors are coming outside to investigate. A Keyspan guy told us that a main gas line was leaking and they were going to rip up the whole street. We said we originally smelled it and got a guy to call it in. We thought were some kind of do-gooders, though the Keyspan guy (who was probably getting triple overtime anyhow) was kind of ticked off at us: "You started all this? Where are you from?" -- as if only out-of-townwers would call in a gas leak on Easter Sunday? Anyhow, the neighborhood didn't blow up, and we're far away from the jackhammers, angry neighbors and Keyspan guys working on a holiday.
- posted by Amy @ 4/20/2003 11:15:00 PM