West Side Stories

 Do you feel safer today? I thought so. Me too. Yes, folks, the crack TSA team at New York’s LaGuardia airport has spared all of you from a potential disaster – me transporting toothpaste into Milwaukee. Let me explain.

My family and I just returned from a short trip to New York City. Great town. Huge crowds, Broadway, miles of walking. Everyone should visit at least once in their life. You should see the sandwich that $20 can buy! You think the prices at John’s Sandwich Shop have gone up? Try Times Square. Gulp.

Anyway, like all good travelers, we all tried our best to abide by the new regulations as determined by the Transportation Security Administration. We carefully packed and filled our quart-size Ziploc bags with any carry-on liquids that were three ounces or less…or so I thought.

(Side note: At LaGuardia, you actually check your bags at the ticket counter and they take them from you. Right there. You don’t roll them to the giant x-ray machine nearby. It’s blissfully old-school.)

As we got in line for the security check, the line slowed down as they were x-raying my carry-on items. Sort of like that Visa commercial where that one guy tries to use cash – the nerve!

“Ma’am, is this your toothpaste?” the screener asked.

“Why, yes it is,” I replied, easily recognizing the Colgate Sensitive Teeth with Whitening action that I’ve come to know and love.

“It’s too big,” he explained. “If you want to take it with you, you’ll have to check it.”

You know how sometimes people offer you a choice that seems simple and yet absurd all at the same time? Yes, this was my moment, or my “now” as Jordin Sparks would describe it. (American Idol reference for those of you that don’t watch crappy TV.)

“Toss it,” I boldly proclaimed. And he did, along with the seemingly very expensive cologne belonging to the guy in front of me.

So there. You have been spared the potential hazards of me and my renegade Colgate entering the Milwaukee area. But be forewarned: Tomorrow, I’m going to buy more.

Happy New Year, everyone!

It's Christmas Day and I found everyone. I mean everyone. This afternoon and tonight, they are at the Majestic Cinema in Brookfield. While the rest of the world is hanging out in living rooms and dining rooms celebrating this very special holiday, several hundred of us packed one of the 16 movie theatres just west of Wauwatosa.

This time, our family did it in style. Last week, we purchased VIP seating (you have to go to the box office) for the afternoon showing of National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets shown on the Ultra Screen. It was pretty cool. Along with the price of admission ($11.50 before 5:30 pm, $14.50 after 5:30 pm), each of us got a sizeable bucket of popcorn and reserved seats in the front row of the VIP section. We were able to choose our seats and they were waiting for us when we arrived. It was really cool, especially since the show was sold out.

The movie was fun - great for families, but sharp enough to entertain even the most cynical teens.

It's been a great Christmas Day. Enjoy your celebrations, everyone!

Friday, a friend and I spent the day shopping…at Brookfield Square. Yes, we cheated on Mayfair.

Anyway, I noticed a couple of things while conducting retail therapy. First of all, despite all of the renovations and new stores and restaurants, Brookfield Square still doesn’t compare to Mayfair. This is just my opinion, but I was less than impressed by the offerings at Brookfield Square. Lots of repeats and somewhat mediocre quality that add up to just a “wanna-be” mall. Any stores that Mayfair and Brookfield Square share are infinitely better at Mayfair. It seems like they’re targeting the bargain hunter, but for my money, Southridge would be a better value.

However, Brookfield Square beats Mayfair AND Southridge in one area – they plow better. If you’ve been to Mayfair recently, you’ll see that their method of snow removal is to compact the snow between the rows of parking spaces, creating narrow passageways that are nearly impossible to navigate. Frankly, it’s several accidents waiting to happen.

Brookfield Square completely removes the snow in the parking areas. I have no idea if they deposited it in a corner of a lot, but it was gone and much easier to park.

Now, I’m guessing that Mayfair Management will tell me that Mayfair is so popular that they need to make every single parking space available and can’t afford to dump the snow in a corner of the parking lot. Probably true.

Look, I have no idea what they should do with all of that snow. All I know is that parking was treacherous the other morning at Mayfair at 9:00 am, 10 days before Christmas. I can’t imagine how bad it will be these next two weekends.

Parkers, beware.

Talk to anybody around Tosa and they’ve got one thing on their mind: Jeez, those new recycling carts are ugly!

Yeah, it’s funny. Everyone seems pretty focused on the aesthetics of the carts rather than the new system itself.

People are resistant to change, but also complain a fair amount when an existing system is expensive, out-of-date or no longer works. Or, apparently, when it doesn’t look attractive next to their house.

Since I’ve lived in Tosa, I’ve become well-acquainted with the blue bag recycling system. It was a simple system. Fill the bags with recyclables and put them out with the garbage. But problems arose when you ran out of the blue bags. Plus, they were unbelievably expensive. (Which made it particularly irritating when the handle ties would break - grrr.)

Thanks to a fire at the recycling center last fall, our recycling program had to be restarted and revamped. Thus, the birth of the black and yellow beauties.

Right off the bat, it seems like people are not understanding the new program. (Perhaps because many of us didn’t get schedules or instructions with the cart.) Driving around my neighborhood, I saw lots of recycling carts sitting out next to garbage carts. Two problems: First, the first pickup is every other week, with the weeks alternating depending on where you live. Secondly, the recycling carts need to be THREE FEET away from the garbage carts so the automated truck can properly retrieve it and empty the contents.

The other challenge is re-thinking the recycling collection in our houses. For the past 10 years, we’ve had a couple of blue-bag-lined garbage cans to collect glass and aluminum. Although I can use a regular garbage bag to collect them, I can’t put the bag in the new cart. My solution is to put paper grocery bags in those garbage cans. When we fill them up, we can put the paper bags and the contents right in the new recycling cart.

So here we sit, with these bee-themed behemoths gracing our property. Many people have told me that they’re looking for ways to hide them when they’re not sitting curbside, awaiting pickup.

This makes me think of just one thing: Since when did we care how pretty our garbage carts were? I mean, really. They’re for garbage, not decoration. I don’t think the current carts are anything to display prominently either, but what do I know?

I think we need to give these black and yellow babies a chance. Look up your scheduled pickup here and make sure the cart is three feet away from the other carts when it’s your pickup day. I think we can do this, no matter how ugly it is.

Imagine this: You’re knee-deep in shopping lists and you’re wracking your brain trying to figure out what to get your picky teenage daughter when suddenly, inspiration hits. You know exactly what to get her. Let’s say it’s a pair of stretch jeans The problem is where to find them.

So, you plan a trip to Mayfair and mentally make a list of all the stores that might carry stretch jeans. But you have a budget and it’s important that you get them in the perfect size. Next thing you do is get in your car, drive to the mall and prepare to spend hours wandering and shopping, right?

What if you didn’t have to do that? What if you could search for those jeans online and find out which stores in Mayfair actually carry them? What if you could find out who has them on sale and whether they have the size and color you need? You’re thinking I’ve had too much eggnog, right? Wrong!

Shoppers rejoice! Now, thanks to NearbyNow, you can do all of this and more. www.nearbynow.com is being touted as the Google of shopping for Mayfair Mall. (It also works for Brookfield Square and a few other malls around the state…and the country.)

Simply go to the website, choose the state and mall you want and then type in the item that you’re looking for. It’s that easy. It will even give you a picture of the item, tell you how to get to the mall AND show you where in the mall the store is located. (Especially helpful for those of us with middle-age brain who can’t even find our car keys.)

What if your inspiration hits while you’re already at Mayfair? No problem! Just pull out your cell phone, send a code (Mayfair's code is MF) via text message to NearbyNow, and NearbyNow will send you a mobile menu with results.

I don’t know about you, but in the midst of the holiday season, I’m usually short on time. I end up grouping my shopping trips to save time and get more done. Seems to me that NearbyNow has made it even easier so that I can get in and out of the mall in no time at all.

Now, if I could only get it to do all my other holiday chores….