West Side Stories

Last Thursday night, while you were sitting snugly in your homes, perhaps waiting for Grey’s Anatomy to start, your friendly neighborhood bloggers were gathering. No, it wasn’t really an apocalyptic event, but for us it meant free cookies, bottled water and the chance to match faces with names. We joined with more than 30 other bloggers from across the metropolitan Milwaukee area to talk about our CommunityNOW blogs, learn about new blogging tools (something you most definitely will not find out back in the shed) and see where the future of community journalism is headed.

These blogs that you regularly visit (you never call or write, but the statistics don’t lie) are apparently a source of a bit of excitement down at the Journal Sentinel offices. Because of our passion for writing and your passion for internet surfing, we’ve become quite the successful team – you and us.

There are nearly 80 bloggers spread between 25 communities. Some of us blog because of our passion for writing, some to speak out on issues and others still just to share a quip, a story or even a photo. We’re mad, we’re sad, we’re glad, we’re concerned. We’re young, we’re old and somewhere in between. We’re all of those things and we want to talk about it, which is why we blog. Thanks for visiting and be sure to drop us a line or an e-mail sometime!

Now that I have your ear, I also want to point out to you a new feature on the WauwatosaNOW site. It’s called The Tosa Town Square. It's over there, just to the right on the page you're looking at right now. Have you been there? Well, why not?! The Tosa Town Square is what is known, in web-speak, as a “social networking” tool. (Yes, I know - more tools. No, this is not Home Depot.) You go in, you look at the various categories, you click on them and read what your neighbors and fellow Tosans are talking about. And if you find it interesting, you can register and join in on the discussion. I know, “register” is kind of a scary word, but you actually give very little information and create a screen name. Why? Because the point of this “social networking tool” is that you’re anonymous. That gives you the freedom to speak out on issues (be nice please) and perhaps ask questions that may be sensitive, but are important to you. Or maybe you need to know where to find a business or a service. Let the Tosa Town Square help you! Just click on the “Enter Here” link and take a look around. Go ahead and give it a try! Tell them that one of your favorite bloggers sent you.

Welcome to Ice Dam season in Wisconsin, or as I like to call it Damn Ice Season. (Pardon the salty language.) I don’t know about you, but our gutters are heavy with frozen stalactites alternating between states of dripping and foreboding, ready to attack unwary visitors. As I drove around today, I couldn’t help but take an icicle inventory of Tosa homes. It seems like we’re not alone in our demonstration of the harmful effects of poor insulation. Of course, this is nothing like the winter we had several years ago when roofing companies made a nice chunk of change from homeowners like us that would pay to get rid of this winter menace. We also had substantial damage to walls and ceilings once the dams started to melt. This, of course, resulted in us needing to repaint practically our entire first floor. I do know that roof scrapers and heating coils can be effective in preventing ice dams, but if you're like us and your roofline is well out of reach for an average ladder, well, you're kind of out of luck. Ah, winter fun. It never really ends, does it?

Yesterday I was sitting in Luna Day Spa on Harwood Avenue. (For those of you not familiar with the area, it’s just two doors away from Drew’s Variety Store.) I was chatting with someone about the new businesses that are under construction across the street in the former Streff Advertising building. She didn’t really know much about when the new places would be open, but she said she had heard that one of them was some type of eating establishment and another was a clothing boutique. That sounded great to me. I love that we have several casual restaurants in the village and it’s fun to have different clothing stores than what we find over at Mayfair. And if I'm looking for spa services, there's no better place, in my opinion, than Luna Day Spa.

But then our conversation turned to parking. As much as I love the development in this area of Wauwatosa, I can’t help but be concerned about the success of these establishments as it relates to the very limited parking. I know very well that there is public parking just around the corner behind Swan Interiors, as well as semi-underground parking under the building that houses Noodles & Company. But for some reason, in Tosa, we have this mindset that if we can’t see the parking, it must be far away. Add to that the steep incline on Harwood Avenue, and I can’t help but be worried that people might drive by and decide to skip a shopping or dining excursion if they don’t see one of the angled spots available.

I think the Harwood Avenue business owners are going to have to work very hard to change our idea of convenience and accessibility. After all, in New York City, these storefronts would seem to be right on top of each other. Here in the suburbs, where we’re tethered to our autos and our acres of parking lots, we’re going to have to learn to think outside the box and make the Village a destination instead of just a stop.

Well, we just had our second significant snowfall of the winter. From the looks of the sidewalks of Tosa, most of us are prepared to carry out our snow clearing duties. Some, however, are falling short. It’s not really a surprise that it’s going to snow and we’re all going to have to dig out, shovel or clear lots of the white stuff. We live in Wisconsin. What is a surprise are the homeowners that seem to think that if they turn a blind eye, the snow will simply melt. And it will…in three or four months. Unfortunately for those of us using the sidewalks, that’s just simply not soon enough.

If you look at the City of Wauwatosa web site, you’ll see that there is a City Ordinance stating that snow must be cleared by noon the day after a snow or ice accumulation. That’s 24 hours, regardless of whether you hate the cold, never use the sidewalks or are out of town. In fact, if you know you’re going to be out of town, you need to arrange for someone to clear it for you. Don’t assume that your friendly neighbor will take care of it every time. Oh, and “clearing snow” doesn’t mean you wait for people to trample it down and then decide it’s already taken care of. Grrr! Contact your neighborhood association for the names of neighborhood kids willing to shovel for a nominal fee. Or open up your phone book and call a company to do it regularly. Either way, it’s YOUR responsibility. Take it seriously.

My other dig is against those that live on corner lots. If this is you (and it’s me too, by the way), then your responsibility is not just to clear the sidewalk in front of your house, but get out there and dig out the curb leading to the street. I just returned from walking my dog and some of the frozen cliffs that I had to scale just to cross the street are not only irritating, they’re dangerous.

I understand that dealing with snowfall is frustrating, especially when it happens repeatedly. As my husband once explained to me, it’s like mowing the lawn one day and finding it grew back the next. But people, we live in W-I-S-C-O-N-S-I-N. This is what we signed up for when we bought a piece of Flatlanders’ Paradise. Let’s all dig in to dig out.

The other day, one of my monthly book clubs met to discuss our most recent selection: “Population 485. Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time” by Michael Perry. The book is a non-fiction account of a real-life prodigal son, the author, who returns to his hometown -- New Auburn, Wisconsin, population: 485 -- and joins the volunteer fire and rescue department. Our discussion initially covered the great writing, stories and characters found in Perry’s book. We eventually moved on to our thoughts about Wauwatosa and how it compared to New Auburn.

The most intriguing question asked was whether each of us considered Wauwatosa a suburb of a big city or a small town. As someone who grew up on the north side of Chicago, Wauwatosa feels wonderfully small-townish to me. I love the fact that I meet my neighbors in grocery store aisles and at church festivals. I love that we have a weekly local paper (The former News Times, soon to be the WauwatosaNOW.) I love that the police officers are familiar to me and not because I’ve had run-ins with the law, but because they’re constant guardians in our community. I love that we have a charming 4th of July Parade every year where we holler greetings to people marching by as they pelt us with candy. I love that I can walk to the Village and visit Drew’s Variety Store where they truly have a little something of almost everything.

Sure, Tosa is very “big town” in many ways with our cool new restaurants and shops, our cosmopolitan shopping mall and our proximity to a major metropolitan city. Our firefighters are not volunteers but you can watch our local government on local access TV.

To me, Wauwatosa is the right combination of mostly “little” with just the right amount of “big” mixed in. How about you? Do you consider Tosa a small town or a big suburb? E-mail your thoughts to westsidestoriestosa@yahoo.com .

On one of the first seasonally chilly evenings of the year, my husband and I made our first visit this past Sunday night to the new Il Mito Trattoria e Enoteca at 6913 W. North Avenue. We were eventually headed to the Marquette vs. Syracuse game at the Bradley Center, but were looking for something different than the usual pre-game burger and a beer.

We had made a couple of previous attempts to get into this new Tosa eatery, but it was apparently very busy and popular during the holidays. Seems like Sunday night at 5:15 pm was good timing on our part.

Il Mito is small, dark and rather cozy. Candles are lit on every table and, at first, we were concerned that our game attire might be too casual. Of course, anything goes in Milwaukee and Tosa and we soon felt right at home. Our server was friendly and knowledgeable and helped me select a nice glass of wine to accompany my meal.

My husband and I were both surprised to find that the menu featured a fairly extensive selection of full meals. From what we had read, we were both expecting mostly appetizers and small plates, which would have been fine. And although you can opt to order a lighter meal, we found a full menu that offered salads, pizzas, pastas and complete dinners. I ordered Veal Osso Buco di Vitello and my husband ordered the Gnocchi Piedmontese. We both had salads as well. Although my dish was very tender, I didn’t find it quite as flavorful as my husband’s gnocchi which was excellent. (Although, in the interest of full disclosure, no one has come close to my mother’s Osso Buco, to which I’m quite partial.) Still, we both agreed that we’d love to try some of the other dishes.

As we were finishing our meal, we looked around and remarked that this quaint new restaurant had a nice neighborhood feel - somewhat like a hidden gem you’d find in New York City. Michael Feker has created a nice alternative to the more upscale Bartolotta’s in an area of Tosa that is truly blooming. My only negative comment is that whoever drives the very nice Mercedes with "Il Mito" license plates, (presumably someone in management) may want to consider parking around the corner so that the paying customers have first dibs on the limited parking in front. Nevertheless, I recommend you give Il Mito Trattoria e Enoteca a try. But call first because it fills up fast.

I never thought I’d say this, but thank goodness it’s garbage day! Based on chats with neighbors and friends, I’m not alone in this trashy attitude. Thanks to a not-so-timely aligning of holidays and weekends, we have been up to our eyeballs in trash bags. And to add to our filthy fun, we have some rather bold squirrels and raccoons near our house. So, in order to avoid our garbage being shredded about on our street, the piles of trash have been kept inside the garage. In any case, I’ve never missed those beautiful white garbage trucks more than I have these past two weeks. Now, if I would only do something with my piles of blue bags….