Don Samuels' Fall Fundraiser Is The Social Event Of The Season (November 17, Local D'Lish)

Don Samuels enjoys pumpkin soup at Local D'Lish

Next Wednesday, November 17, NoMi folks will have a good excuse to gather and celebrate.

The Don Samuels for City Council Campaign Committee is inviting everyone to a fall fundraiser at Local D'Lish.  If you are looking for a good opportunity to meet some Northside neighbors, some city movers and shakers or the famous Don and Sondra Samuels...this is your perfect opportunity.

Don Samuels fights tirelessly for public safety, quality housing and economic development. His eloquence and vision have changed the way the whole city of Minneapolis looks at itself, increasing understanding and compassion between people and communities.

At this event, revitalizers from around the Northside will gather, mingle, eat, drink and be merry.  Laughs will be shared over fresh local food.  Revitalizing battle stories will be shared of lap dogs being saved from snarling pit bulls, court battles waged and won, and amazing 311 success stories. There might be some friendly one-upmanship in the relating of such tales.  Of course, dry-yet-important topics such as economic development and city projects around NoMi will be touched upon for the benefit of policy geeks.     

You may be asking yourself, "There is no city council election right now, why is the campaign committee having a fundraiser?"  Well, you will just have to come and ask Don yourself!

Laugh for the Day - The Busy Hectic Life of NoMi Revitalizer

they aren't even close...wtf?

A fun hearted laugh at my expense...

Keeping up with neighborhood volunteering and the activism life as a NoMi revitalizer can be hectic and hurried.  This morning I got a glaring reminder to slow down and have a good natured laugh at life, ya know, keep my celebrity status from blowing up my head too much (sarcasm font). (after all, people are very concerned with my footwear, as already documented elsewhere...kisses to my fan club!)

This morning, sitting next to my front door, where I removed my rain soaked shoes at 9pm last evening upon returning from the Northside Transportation Network light rail meeting held at UROC, I noticed two different shoes sitting by the front door. Not two different pairs of shoes. Two different shoes.  I wore two different shoes last evening as I hurried out the door to get to UROC by the six o'clock start time.

It reminded me of Mayor Rybak and his mismatched socks.  Needless to say it gave me and my morning coffee NoMi Homie a good chuckle.

Word of advice: if you are hurrying out the door to get to a NoMi revitalization meeting, double check your shoes and socks. (Don Samuels, I'm talking to you!)

Happy Friday NoMi Homies! xoxo

A Good Day in My NoMi Life

Today I'm feeling rather reflective, rather content. Validated. Reassured that my efforts and energies are accurately aligned. Just getting a bit of pleasure from all the simple things in life, that make one's life, well, alive.

For example I just can't stop gazing in adoration at my newly hung painting in my bedroom. A simple, ordinary yet extraordinary bouquet of flowers that I met at an antique store in Osakis, Minnesota. As soon as I met this fella I fell instantly in love and had to take him home with me. And I'll have him with me for the rest of my life. (The special bedspread and a little bat-itude keep me smiling, too.)

Here's something that will make a day brighter. Spring's gift to me, my tulips in my front flower bed. They don't stay around long so I had to snap a picture for memory. They will be even prettier next year.

Another gift from Mother Nature, these cute little darlings live in my back yard for a too-short time every spring. I can never have enough of them.

And since today was such a simple, yet reassuring and content day, I decided to celebrate it with a glass of sweet blush wine, given to me by a sweet guy, brought all the way from Louisiana. I enjoyed it with some olives from a bent-n-dent store in the outskirts of Minnesota and a handful of Texas nuts.

Yes. My life is simple and ordinary. But it's filled to the brim with small treasures, amazing people, a nonstop social scene, stories and adventures so exciting they can't even be created in the most colorful imagination. And everyday I am given the signs and reassurances that I'm on the right track.

Thank the Lord He led me to NoMi.

Bringing the LRT to NoMi

Photo of Hiawatha LRT from tboard's flickr photostream

As a NoMi passenger, I see the development of Light Rail Transit (LRT) as an important, no, VITAL, step in the resuscitation of this urban core neighborhood.

Most readers probably know that there is a new LRT route in the works to connect the northwestern suburbs with downtown Minneapolis. One of the proposed routes for that line would come through NoMi via West Broadway (the North Memorial Hospital)to Penn Ave towards Highway 55, a.k.a Olson Memorial Hwy. Part of this blog's mission will be to organize, advocate for and promote that proposed route through NoMi. It simply must happen.

Thinking about the reality of having that LRT line be developed, built and run through a slice of our community makes my mind boggle with hope. Excitement. Complete fascination with witnessing first hand the changes in thousands of people's lives that would ensue. And for the record, yes, it does conjure up the desire to go into a certain amount of defense and preservation mode.

What I mean by that is, despite what some neighborhood activists will cry, there are many, repeat MANY other revitalizer activists that DO want to preserve the diverse ethnic culture and character of our northside community. I consider myself one of those revitalizer activists who believes there is a happy-medium to be found with the right balance of high standards of livability, high reaching goals and expectations for community, family and education, and high expectations for public conduct and civilization combined with the acceptance and embracment of diversity and culture. An integration of class, race, religion, age and lifestyle that is an integral part of the fabric that makes up NoMi. As another blogger would put it: Urban Utopia. I believe it is possible. I know it is, and I've committed myself to helping to find and achieve it.

The most recent piece of news that got me thinking about the LRT development was this article, click here. For a quick summary, the article mentions a recent bill passed by congress that grants federal dollars to various projects in Congressional District 5, including $250K for the Bottineau Corridor LRT {Bottineau Blvd is the new name of County Road 81 that travels NW/SE from Minneapolis into the suburbs of Robbinsdale, Crystal, Brooklyn Park, Maple Grove and Osseo}.

So as I sip my Sunday morning coffee, listen to my favorite radio program, Acoustic Sunrise, and enjoy my candle-lit house become bathed in the light of day, I read this article with a more hopeful vision of being the first passenger at the NoMi LRT platform located at Penn/WBro in a few years down the road.

Cheers to that.